Atlanta Braves just added flexibility for their future
The takeaways from ‘The Big Deal’ done this weekend are numerous. In fact, I strongly suspect there’s a lot more to come.
It may not all come during this off-season, but Alex Anthopoulos just gave the Atlanta Braves a lot of wiggle room to work with – both now and in the future.
This deal had all the earmarks of what seems to be almost a commonplace deal between the Braves and other teams lately: the big salary swap to reduce a looming issue.
We saw this with the deal that brought Michael Bourn and Nick Swisher in from Cleveland. Also the maneuver than brought in Matt Kemp in the first place.
It is unfortunate that there are deals that devolve into ‘bad contracts’. You want the players to excel – obviously. But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way, and in recent years, we’ve seen the Braves have to say a fairly inglorious goodbye to players who have had fine careers overall – Dan Uggla, Chris Johnson, Melvin Upton, and now Matt Kemp among them.
In this swap, we saw the Braves take on more 2018 money, but with the twist that it’s only 2018 money. Kemp’s 2019 salary is now the responsibility of the Dodgers, who were happy to do that since every dollar they save in player payroll is actually worth $1.50 off their bottom line until they can get under the luxury tax.
2018 Impact
Going strictly from the COTS numbers, the Braves were looking at an estimated $89.5 million payroll to open 2018… before Saturday.
The changes:
- Kemp: -$21.75m
- Adrian Gonzalez: +$22m
- Scott Kazmir: +$16m
- Brandon McCarthy: +$12m
- Charlie Culberson: +$545,000
- Ronald Acuna (likely as a cost-equivalent replacement for someone already accounted for on the 25-man list by COTS): +$0
- stipend from Dodgers: -$4.5m
All of that sums to an additional $24.295m added to the Braves’ payroll. Their 40-man roster goes from 38 players to 40 (adding Kazmir, Culberson, and McCarthy; subtracting Kemp).
So once COTS catches up with all of this, their bottom line number (guessing opening day payroll) should be around $113.77m.
The Braves could simply call it a day now other than adding a couple more bullpen guys and roll into the season with Johan Camargo manning third. I don’t think that’s necessarily going to be the case (i.e., merely sticking with this new lineup), despite comments made suggesting that after the deal:
"The Braves might still look to add a third baseman and strengthen the bullpen, Anthopoulos said, though he didn’t characterize those as priorities."
There are now a few players that Anthopoulos might still be looking to move – those with the remaining guaranteed contracts:
- Freeman ($21.75m – 4 years left)… don’t panic – this won’t happen
- Markakis ($11m – 1 year left)
- Teheran ($8 million – 2 years plus option)
- Inciarte ($4.7m – 4 years + option)
- There’s also both catchers, but this isn’t likely at all.
If you’re still looking to improve the club defensively, then Nick Markakis would tend to be the obvious ‘sell’ target among that group.
This no longer needs to be the case since an outfield spot has been opened up, but this is where an opportunity could be exploited.
If the Braves were to move Nick Markakis elsewhere (for example), then that would have 2 additional effects:
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Free up another $10.5 million
COTS recorded the total opening day payroll for the Braves at $122.6 million. Given even a modest increase, you could reasonably anticipate a 2018 budget level of $125 to $130 million.
That means something around $12-17m remaining to spend; add $10.5m to that if Markakis is moved (for example).
2019 Impact?
This is a bit more remarkable. Only Freeman, Teheran, and Inciarte have guaranteed/committed money for 2019. That adds to just $33.5 million (COTS numbers pro-rate the bonuses already paid for luxury-tax counting purposes).
Sure – throw in another $10-12m for arbitration purposes, and now equip the team with probably at least $90 million of spending power during the next off-season a year from now.
Now you can suddenly play with the big boys that are busily assembling their ‘super teams’ this season.
But that’s next year and there will be plenty of time to speculate about that later. Meanwhile, there’s now a chance at having this year become more meaningful… thanks to some clever accounting that probably left two different teams happy with Saturday’s deal.