AA has made two statements that might be right or wrong, but deserve some discussion.
1) He has expressed the belief prices will drop as we get closer to the deadline. If he is correct, then waiting makes sense. There is a cost to waiting since it makes the team go without reinforcement for longer. We'll find out over the next week what happens to prices.
2) He has expressed a preference for acquiring players under contractual control beyond 2018. In effect he is trying to take care of some of the acquisitions that might have been done this off-season. I will make the observation that given what is on the farm at the upper levels we will still need a situational lefty in 2019 and it would still be helpful to have someone who can hit righty pitching well while spelling Camargo and Swanson on the left side of the infield. It isn't absolutely necessary that we get someone for those two needs who will be there in 2019. But it would be nice to be able to do this and if the price is reasonable we should. With respect to situational lefties this makes Claudio and Avilan somewhat preferable to Duke, Loup and Diekman. And it makes Solarte and Dietrich somewhat preferable to Moose, Cabrera and Escobar. Other factors (such as price) however might override whether we acquire a player who is under control beyond 2018.
I'm not sure this is an especially good read of the market by AA.
If he is interested in protecting the farm's assets, quality relievers with remaining control will almost certainly be more costly than expiring deals.
While the non-contenders with expiring contracts will have increasing pressure to get what they can for these players, there is not necessarily an equivalent pressure on teams who have attractive players with remaining control. While a team certainly would like to get the very most value out of a player (and extorting would be contenders at the deadline is a nice method of doing that), those teams will have other opportunities to cash in those assets.
They have every incentive simply to hold on and wait for something that blows them away. The Padres did not suffer by not trading Hand last season for example.
Moreover, the longer the Braves make no move, the more pressure will be on them to make a deal. Both because they have obvious and long standing weaknesses and because the fans are clearly going to expect them to do something.
As the quality targets on the market go elsewhere, there will be fewer worthy targets of acquisition. Maybe that will be offset by the other buyers having satisfied their needs, maybe there will just be a bidding war on the last guys. Leaving the Braves the option of overpaying or settling on what teams didn't want that they can get cheaply.
Anyone that has participated in markets knows that being the last party standing and dominating the market can be good when there is a lot of valuable commodities left. it's disastrous when there isn't any quality left. How this market shapes up is anyone's guess. There is no way to calculate the supply or demand from a distance with any certainty.
But I know I would not mind having been the team that gave up 40 FV players and international money for Familia right now.
But there is always the chance that the Braves have few available resources to actually make moves. And the chance that teams are being especially unfair in trying to extort the Braves of better players than they are accepting of other teams.
