Looking Ahead - The 2020 Offseason Thread

Ken Rosenthal’s latest says the Braves pushed hard for Trevor Rosenthal (on a two-year, backloaded deal), and wanted O’Day, Melancon and Duvall back as well. Says the Braves have about five million left and want to maintain flexibility for the trade deadline.

Rosenthal is great, but with how tight lipped AA keeps his ship... I can't imagine anyone actually knows the real figure so I remain skeptical and I doubt that's the actual figure
 
Gardner hasn't signed yet has he? It seems obvious he wants to stay in NY, but he'd be just a perfect fit for this team

EDIT: Nevermind... I see where he signed a couple days ago... I must have just missed it... I doubt he was ever going to leave NY if they had any interest at all in resigning him

i had completely missed it too. seems like a steal, but yeah i have doubts he was leaving NY if they wanted him back.
 
Rosenthal is great, but with how tight lipped AA keeps his ship... I can't imagine anyone actually knows the real figure so I remain skeptical and I doubt that's the actual figure

Yeah this feels like Rosenthal just patching onto DOB reports. I seriously doubt AA is telling anyone that they only have about 5 million. Not even staffers know how much they have most likely.
 
DOB is useless.

Pretty much.

However, his numbers and "information" line up pretty well with what most of us have assumed for a while. Rosenthal's sources have the available money about the same. If the final number is ~ $140 million, AA will have done as it's reasonable to assume he was asked by cutting back from last season's projected payroll - probably not as much as some parts of the ownership group would have liked, but still a significant amount.

It's easy for everyone to lose sight of the fact that spending is down significantly league-wide because they've been talking about the Dodgers and Padres spending stupid cash this winter, but the list of teams with reduced payrolls for 2021 includes...

Arizona, Atlanta, Chicago (Cubs), Cincinnati, Miami, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis (even with the Arenado addition), Chicago (White Sox), Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, New York (Yankees), Seattle, and Texas ALL have lower payrolls - some of them significantly lower. That's over half the league. Tampa Bay is spending exactly the same amount, Kansas City's payroll went up $1 million, the Angels are spending $2 million more. Baltimore's payroll went up $10 million, but that's because they're paying the Angels that $10 million for Cobb to pitch for them. Take Chris Davis off their roster and their total payroll is less than $40 million. With all their additions, the Mutts' payroll is $3 million more than it was for 2020, and the Phillies' payroll has only gone up $7 million even though they gave Realmuto a record-breaking deal.

The point is, anyone expecting AA to be able to run out and trade for someone making significant money or to sign someone to a substantial deal this late in the game - even if they represent a really good value (without offsetting some of that payroll added by including Ender in the deal or getting someone else to take his money) - is probably going to be disappointed.
 
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In that same piece, Rosenthal also reported that ATL only added Tommy Milone at the deadline last year because they were out of money. ****ty ownership may have cost the Braves a title and a lot more long-term money in their pockets - and that's not a joke.
 
Rosenthal is great, but with how tight lipped AA keeps his ship... I can't imagine anyone actually knows the real figure so I remain skeptical and I doubt that's the actual figure

The "actual figure" probably isn't far from what their sources are saying. I'm willing to bet that no one that isn't in charge of payroll for ANY team knows what their "real figure" is - why would it be different here?

There have been an awful lot of signings for $5 million or less in the last two weeks - either AA doesn't have much more than that to spend or he thinks a lot of people aren't upgrades over Jackson, Dayton, Camargo, Mayfield, or Almonte.
 
Which begs the question, why did he spend $11MM on Smyly when it then left him financially handcuffed to address the rest of the team's needs? Been saying all along we are probably out of money because of that signing, and it appears that is exactly what has happened.
 
Which begs the question, why did he spend $11MM on Smyly when it then left him financially handcuffed to address the rest of the team's needs? Been saying all along we are probably out of money because of that signing, and it appears that is exactly what has happened.

Yeah - the Smyly signing is the reason Ozuna isn't hitting behind Freeman.

Oh, wait...
 
Which begs the question, why did he spend $11MM on Smyly when it then left him financially handcuffed to address the rest of the team's needs? Been saying all along we are probably out of money because of that signing, and it appears that is exactly what has happened.

We're talking about bench players and relief pitchers at this point, so it's not as if we're discussing high priority areas. Starting pitching was a much greater need heading into the off-season and we needed 2 pitchers. AA added them.
 
Not sure how true that Trevor Rosenthal report is. I can see where we have 5 mil left, but there's also alot of guys we can dump to save money to add a slightly more expensive player. Camargo, Luke Jackson, Dayton, among a few others can be dumped.
 
I wouldn't go to war over the precise $5 million figure, but the general idea that money is tight and we're kind of hoarding right now is pretty darn consistent with how Anthopolous has behaved.
 
Even if he is working with a hard budget, I'm pretty sure AA is choosing to keep some of it in reserve for a mid-season move or two. He could have signed any number of bench/bullpen pieces by now.
 
Which begs the question, why did he spend $11MM on Smyly when it then left him financially handcuffed to address the rest of the team's needs? Been saying all along we are probably out of money because of that signing, and it appears that is exactly what has happened.

You'd have a point if we didnt bring back Ozuna. SP was a MUCH greater need than the bench and bullpen. It's also much easier to build up a bullpen and a bench than get a great rotation. Ozuna and Morton/Smyly is a great offseason for AA, with a weaker bench/bullpen, with limited funds.

And Tajuan Walker just got 2/20 from the Mets. Smyly at 11 is looking pretty okay now. Paxton got close to 10. Robbie Ray got 8 million.
 
If we're still looking at RPs, there are still some good ones available. Clippard, Greene, Peacock, Kennedy, Jeffress, Robertson, and Álvarez. My preference among that group is Clippard. He's just been extremely reliable his entire career.
 
Braves were set to sign Puig until he had Covid. So i dont think they cared too much about his past, and his reverse splits are actually fine. But i think only way we'd need Puig is if there's a DH. If there's no DH, probably not. Regarding Greene, even if that's the case, the current RH bullpen options aside from Martin are not the greatest.

Was not sure of when the DV issue was. I recall we had him signed last year.

On the Greene front, I agree 100%. The thing we don't know is how the decision makers feel about Webb or if they plan on Touki going full time to the Pen. Now, I'd have questions about those move as well, but we have a lot of pitchers on the 40 man and they may feel confident using some in Pen roles.
 
You'd have a point if we didnt bring back Ozuna. SP was a MUCH greater need than the bench and bullpen. It's also much easier to build up a bullpen and a bench than get a great rotation. Ozuna and Morton/Smyly is a great offseason for AA, with a weaker bench/bullpen, with limited funds.

And Tajuan Walker just got 2/20 from the Mets. Smyly at 11 is looking pretty okay now. Paxton got close to 10. Robbie Ray got 8 million.

Paxton, Quintana, and Minor are the only other pitchers I would feel as comfortable with or more than Smyly, and each one of those guys has their warts as well.
 
The "actual figure" probably isn't far from what their sources are saying. I'm willing to bet that no one that isn't in charge of payroll for ANY team knows what their "real figure" is - why would it be different here?

There have been an awful lot of signings for $5 million or less in the last two weeks - either AA doesn't have much more than that to spend or he thinks a lot of people aren't upgrades over Jackson, Dayton, Camargo, Mayfield, or Almonte.

If I had to guess the money figures are coming from agents. They are telling KR what was offered and what excuses AA made for offering what he did.

I think it's safe to say:
1. We are spending less than last year. I think AA said as much. COVID.
2. We are saving some money to spend during the year. AA has done it every year. AA has stated that was something he learned from Toronto. We just don't know how much.

Spending less than last year plus agents probably gets you to 5 million plus or minus a couple of million. Makes sense.

I wonder if they would have offered Duvall arb given what they know now? Probably not.

I still think it's reasonable to think that at the trade deadline there will be a bunch of teams out of it and you can get a bench bat for cheap. The thing that worries me is that if you lose X games waiting to improve your team at the deadline, does that cost you the division?
 
Paxton, Quintana, and Minor are the only other pitchers I would feel as comfortable with or more than Smyly, and each one of those guys has their warts as well.

Paxton has major injury concerns, Quintana and Minor are more reliable. But, Smyly had INSANE advanced numbers, albeit in a very small sample size. AA is either going to look like a genius with it, or we're all going be like why did he throw away 11 mil in November.
 
Tatis deal breakdown.

According to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, the salaries breakdown as followed: 2021: $1 million, 2022: $5 million, 2023: $7 million, 2014: $11 million, 2025-26: $20 million, 2027-28: $25 million, 2029-34: $36 million.
 
Paxton has major injury concerns, Quintana and Minor are more reliable. But, Smyly had INSANE advanced numbers, albeit in a very small sample size. AA is either going to look like a genius with it, or we're all going be like why did he throw away 11 mil in November.

Oh I'm fine with Smyly. He and Paxton have pretty much the same upside of a No. 2 starter in 2021 with the same injury concerns. Smyly was actually good in 2020 though, where Paxton was bad and finished with an injury to his forearm. So all things considered, Smyly was the safer choice there.

Not gonna lie though, I really wanted Quintana. His peripherals suggest he was pretty unlucky in Chicago and he's been virtual lock for 170+ innings every year.
 
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