Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: trying to take advantage of bad economics

Too much inventory, too few buyers.  That has characterized this off-season and entirely explains the current state of the Braves’ roster.

Supply and demand. If anyone wants to know the real problem with baseball right now, that’s pretty much it.  The Atlanta Braves have been lurking all Winter in hopes of taking advantage of that situation.

We’ve seen it:  it’s not just a couple of teams that are ‘rebuilding’… it’s several at once now.  The number is now at double digits (plus or minus, depending on your definitions).

But when you have at least a third of your entire economy refusing to participate in the market, even good options – Kimbrel, Keuchel, Moustakas – can be left out.

I’m now seeing notes about how people can’t believe that Bryce Harper and Manny Machado haven’t signed yet and how that’s so horrible.  Well, in those 2 specific cases, their agents are as much (or more) a reason than anything else.

While it has worked for Scott Boras a number of times before – this idea of waiting out the musical chairs to see who gets left standing – things have changed… and the dollars have changed.

Even the teams with the money are running up against severe luxury tax restrictions that make it much more expensive to do business at the levels that Boras’ clients expect.

For a specific example, many industry pundits still seem to think that the Nationals are a prime bidder for Harper.  Yet if they were to sign him for – say $30 million annually – a 50% tax rate would kick in, and 2/3rds of his salary would be subject to that penalty.

That makes him a $40 million cost to that team.  Never mind that every other new dollar they spend apart from Harper would also cost them $1.50.  Goodbye trying to extend Rendon, et al.

So that really takes somebody else out of the bidding.

Were there even 5 or 6 more teams bidding for the services of free agents – at any level of player talent – then the entire off-season would change.  Dollars would be spent; players would be signing.

Absent of that, however, there’s only a few clubs looking – not even ‘bidding’ – for many players, and clubs have wisely chosen the course of refusing to bid against themselves.  It’s an auction room with few participants.