Atlanta Braves at the faux Winter Meetings Epilogue
By Fred Owens
The Atlanta Braves work at FanSided’s Winter Meetings simulation proved interesting. I saw all sorts of strategies, some of them even worked.
First, a mandatory reminder that everything discussed here happened in a simulation. All signings, trades, and other moves, have no real-world impact except on my sleep cycle. The real-life Atlanta Braves did not do these things.
The commissioner asked that all teams submit their payroll budget, most did, some never did. I set a $142M mock budget for the Braves and managed to come in under budget when the simulation ended.
Once the Atlanta Braves signed Will Smith in the real-world, I knew I had budget issues trying to squeeze in a starter, catcher, and third baseman while making the roster stronger. Five days before the meeting began, I negotiated the simulated trade for Roberto Perez.
The Indian’s sim-GM wanted Patrick Weigel, but I convinced him I wasn’t going to trade Weigel, and he took Freddie Tarnok instead. That the Astro’s GM contacted me about a bad contract swap of Josh Reddick for Mark Melancon. I accepted almost immediately because I knew that if I had to keep Reddick, he’d be an upgrade in the outfield.
I planned to flip Reddick for payroll space but got wrapped up in negotiating for a third baseman and missed my window to make that move. As it turned out, Reddick’s salary didn’t prove a problem, and now that he’s had his shoulder scoped, Reddick should be back to full health next season.
I continued to talk to teams about other third basemen. As I wrote last week, Cole is worth going to the limit to acquire. I decided that an offer with more years than dollars gave me a real chance in the bidding, and an offer of around $32M was as far as I could go. Then the free-agent bidding began.
The free-agent bidding process
Free-agent offers are the only area of the simulation that slipped away from realism this year. In genuine offseason discussions, teams approach the agent, discuss the player’s desires, then formulate and present their best offer.
Agents review the offers and may contact teams on the player’s list of preferred landing spots if their offer is short of others, but they make their decision in private, and teams stay within their budget.
In the simulation, the process turns into a two-bid per team auction for each player. The first bid sits there until someone else bids more than the mandatory increase (roughly 5%). Sniping isn’t allowed through sneaky snipers can beat the system; as far as I know, no one did. Some teams were determined not to lose, and their bidding skewed the final result for one free agent.