Atlanta Braves: Josh Donaldson wrangling and the case against Nolan Arenado

As this ‘thing’ continues to drag on, the doubts creep in, and then the mind wanders – making me wonder if the Atlanta Braves should consider something dramatic.

Right now, my personal best case scenario for the rest of this offseason continues to be that the Atlanta Braves get Josh Donaldson signed and then turn around and trade for Mike Clevinger as suggested yesterday.

That would give the Braves a killer rotation with an excellent offense – and a team loaded for bear over at least the next 3 seasons.

But it’s the first part of this equation that still hasn’t happened yet.  And that’s happening despite reports that the Twins have figured their pursuit of Donaldson is pointless (note:  new info suggests that’s not true at all… but we’ll get back to that point later) and that the Nationals have been snapping up all of the best remaining relievers and infielders they can find.

What’s almost has to be happening here is that Atlanta is holding firm on their offer and Donaldson’s camp is trying to hold them hostage to get to $110 million.

Revelations like those Mark Bowman suggested a couple of days ago tells me that the kinds of numbers we’ve been hearing leaked out from various sources almost certainly have a single source:  Donaldson’s agent… and that nobody is really approaching those numbers.

Apologies, but what follows from here is a stream-of-consciousness train of thoughts about where the Braves might have to go with their thinking… hang with me.

Alternate Universes

When you get to that kind of level ($27.5 million per year), there’s a tipping point at which you – as a team – are almost forced to bring other options to the table and consider whether your organization would be better off going in a different direction. Donaldson’s agent isn’t stupid in making this kind of ‘ask’ for his client, but it’s probably getting very close to the edge.

The reason for bringing this up is because of something caught at the beginning of the MLB Network’s evening show on Monday at 6pm.

It was probably nothing, but it did sound like ‘something’. While I wish I had either an audio clip or at least a transcript of it, the event happened during the opening of the show and was uttered by John Smoltz during his initial remarks.

It was a clumsy statement, but came off sounding like he was perhaps inadvertently spilling the beans about a ‘thing between the Braves and Arenado’ (heavily paraphrased).

Exactly what he meant to say isn’t known, but it felt like something he wanted to blurt out and then stopped himself.

It was probably nothing. Regardless, it got me thinking… after all:

• The Braves don’t really want to sign Donaldson for 4 years. They wanted to get him for only 3.
• They don’t want to meet his $110 million number.  In fact 4×23 is probably closer to reality… which would explain this lengthy delay.
• With Donaldson’s supposed ‘preference’ well known, is there reason for the Braves to bid against themselves?

Thus we have an impasse at this point.  Which makes me want to explore that comment from Smoltz for a moment or two.

Here’s the question:  if the salary numbers were close, who would you really prefer:  Donaldson or Arenado?  Let’s play that game for just a bit… because there’s a bit of fear that the topic could come up next week.