Found this line in Bowman's most recent article interesting...
"Other than saying there will be an increase, Anthopoulos has never provided a projected payroll for the 2019 season. But it appears he has the option to spend at least $15 million this offseason and still have some remaining funds that could be used for in-season moves next summer."
https://www.mlb.com/braves/news/brav...is/c-302986966
Assuming for the sake of argument that that $15 million figure is at least close to right and the option of releasing Duvall and/or Freeman remains if he adds upgrades, that pushes that figure slightly higher. While it's been discussed at length and doesn't need to be rehashed in detail, a deal for Bumgarner and one of Will Smith or Tony Watson fits that price range almost exactly.
Whether anyone wants to consider adding MadBum as an effort to address the top of the rotation, the prospect cost in a deal for two arms from San Francisco would be taking a stab at two areas and the prospect cost wouldn't be nearly as high as for Kluber (if he's still available at all) or Realmuto (if they'd actually trade him to us). They'd also fit the mold of the short-term deals AA has been chasing since you wouldn't be committed to Bumgarner, Smith, or Watson beyond 2019.
A deal involving Ender for Kluber would fit for both teams salary-wise, but the problem is what the other pieces would have to be included. Newk/Touki/Fried/Gohara and ??? They could then add Adam Jones, CarGo, or Matt Joyce (possibly even two of them) as a corner OF and still run away with their division, but that would involve several moves and it seems that they wanted to "fix" everything in one deal if they're going to move Kluber.
I liked the mention of possibly adding another bench piece (likely meaning you'd ditch Duvall or Culberson), and Marwin would further upgrade the bench without costing a pick or prospects - given $15 million left to spend, you could easily replace Duvall with Gonzalez and take a flier on someone inexpensive like Holland in the pen to see if you could catch lightning in a bottle.