Atlanta Braves Camp Chop: Interview Fallout, Dead Money and Dirty Craig
While we still await any real news (okay, that just happened for somebody else), here’s a wrap-up of things we’re hearing at camp.
In the wake of That Interview with TheAthletic last week, Atlanta Braves General Manager Alex Anthopoulos sat down with Craig Mish for a podcast visit.
Mish keeps track of the Marlins – that’s where all of our useful Realmuto rumors were coming from – but he also hosts a national fantasy baseball show on Sirius/XM.
This interview with Anthopoulos didn’t break a lot of new ground, but could probably be characterized overall as ‘damage control’.
Here’s a nice short summary of the session courtesy of FPB_III over on the Braves Reddit channel:
"In general, some interesting things were said by AA. He says he understands the interview with the Athletic didn’t go over well, saying “That went over well” (sarcastic tone). In addition, I thought it was interesting how he doesn’t mention any more potential moves (although doesn’t completely shoot down Kimbrel- so he could still be a possibility). Talked for the majority of the time about Realmuto trade, says the volume that the Marlins wanted was too much. This would go directly against reporting from Mark Bowman saying that the Braves had no formal discussions with the Marlins."
At least Anthopoulos figured out that the session with Jeff Schultz and Dave O’Brien didn’t end up conveying the message that he and Terry McGuirk thought they would be delivering.
That’s good to see, especially after the torching comments given from here (me) and other blog sites (TalkingChop.com in particular). Good on Anthopoulos for recognizing this.
It was Schultz’ treatment of that sit-down chat that generated all of the hoopla last week; O’Brien’s version of the same interview is up on TheAthletic this morning (subscription required), and it is spun — yes, I think that’s an accurate term — more positively while still containing the same information.
But there is something to consider in the O’Brien treatment…