Atlanta Braves News… back in real life for a bit

While we’re playing Winter Meetings elsewhere, a couple of real-life news bits hit over the past 24 hours or so that are worthy of discussion.

In another room, we’re playing “here’s what I’d do if I could run the Atlanta Braves“.  Meanwhile, there’s actually news as we’re now 2 weeks prior to the start of the real Winter Meetings:

Penalty Clarifications

Baseball America’s JJ Cooper was on twitter trying to explain how things might go for the Braves – internationally for the next few years.  There was some confusion involved, but here’s the bottom line:

Okay, so here’s the breakdown (from Baseball America and other sources):

• 2017-18 period:  no changes (already were under a $300K maximum signing limit)
• 2018-19 period:  no changes (same $300K limit)
• 2019-20 period:  bonus pool eliminated, effectively limiting the team to kids willing to accept $10,000 or less (the amount that doesn’t count under the pool system)
• 2020-21 period:  bonus pool cut in half, but back to ability to sign international players without a ‘per contract’ restriction… other than the pool limit itself.
• What Badler was pointing out was that since the rules are based on a percentage of the pool value, the Braves can neither acquire via trade nor trade away any pool monies… since in one case there’s a ‘$0’, and in the other case ‘60% of $0’ … both of which are bad answers.

So in 2019… the Braves are essentially out of the International market business.

An Observation

Normally, with such things, I could suggest “well, it could be worse”.  That’s hard to imagine in this case.  MLB could have…

• Imposed the 2019-2021 limitations immediately and then allowed the Braves to get back to normal operation for the 2019+ International market periods.  But no:  they extended the current penalty and made it worse.
• Because of firing (effectively) Coppolella and others, MLB could have chosen to recognize that perhaps only 1 or 2 players from 2015-16 put Atlanta over the limits and simply imposed the regular penalties there.
• They could also have chosen to limit the number of players freed from the 2016-17 group – the one that included Maitan.

But no – they did all of that and more.

I have said this before, and I’ll repeat now:  I fail to see how cooperating with the investigation helped Atlanta at all.  They did enormous damage to this organization and kept piling on despite the alternatives that were available.

For sure, the message was delivered to the rest of the clubs… but you never want to be in the position of being the one made into an warning for others to heed.

Back to Better News

BRAVES REPORTEDLY SHOPPING MATT ADAMS

Steve Adams / MLB TRADE RUMORS

This is probably the least surprising headline you’ll see for the entire off-season.  But the interesting bit – from my own point of view – involves another player.

So Atlanta is shopping Matt Adams before having to make the decision (coming Friday, Dec. 1) on whether to tender him a contract.  He’s got one more arbitration year remaining and is projected to earn a $4.6m contract.

Among those teams that ought to be checking in with Anthopoulos include the right-handed heavy Los Angeles Angels.

But enough about Adams… I want to talk about Adonis Garcia.

He will also be a tender/no-tender decision for Friday… except that I’m puzzled about him still being on the 40-man roster at this point regardless.

Somebody in the newly remodeled Braves Front Office had to think that…

• …Garcia is more valuable than Travis Demerette, Dustin Peterson, or any other Rule 5-eligible minor league player you can think of in the Braves’ system; also…
• …Garcia is going to be tendered a contracton Friday.  If he wasn’t, then it makes more sense to cut him loose before the Rule 5 deadline… and…
• …there’s a plan to use Garcia in some capacity.  Granted, that could be as a AAA third baseman (backing up Riley at some point?), and held as the ‘hot spare’ should somebody else go down.  But still.

I can see the value that Matt Adams brings… I’ve hard-pressed to have similar thoughts on Adonis Garcia.  He’s done better in the majors than he perhaps had any right to, but … well, we’ve seen a lot of players cling on the roster for way past their shelf life, right?

Front Office Rumblings

Alex Anthopoulos is putting his band back together.  And it has been pointed out in multiple places today that it should not be overlooked that these folks are following him.

More from Tomahawk Take

• Atlanta Braves 2012 Prospect Review: Joey Terdoslavich
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• Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
• Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves

It was the workplace atmosphere that apparently led directly to an early downfall of Coppolella.  A hostile environment that led someone to stop checking their integrity at the door.  Instead, ‘States’ Evidence’ was supplied to MLB and the rest is history.

It doesn’t sound like the new Braves’ GM will have that problem with people who used to work for him now agreeing to do it again.

The odd man out here is Adam Fisher – the now former Assistant GM.  He had been on the job for less than a month before everything hit the fan.  But while Perry Minasian had been with AA before, Fisher had not.

I lost the source on this, but there was a report indicating that the Braves will pay out Fisher’s contract… though they would receive an offset from his next baseball employer.

Next: Fake News with a Purpose

Fisher will then at least land on his feet after being a victim in this storm.  But for the front office, this is now a matter of getting comfortable… and Anthopoulos is rearranging his own furniture to do just that.