Alex Anthopoulos has deliberately carved out extra room in the budget for the Braves 2024 roster. Now the guessing game begins as for whom the Braves president of baseball operations and general manager might go after. If this offseason cycle transpires as previous ones, the actual target will be a mystery until the announcement.
In an interview with esteemed colleague Justin Toscano at the MLB general managers meetings this week in San Antonio, Anthopoulos didn’t give away much, as is his custom. Anthopoulos did suggest, at least, that there is not a single target in particular for the roughly $20 million freed up for the 2025 payroll by trading outfielder Jorge Soler, not picking up the option on Travis d’Arnaud and reworking the contracts of pitchers Aaron Bummer and Reynaldo López.
“It’s a long offseason, it’s a long winter,” Anthopoulos told Toscano. “But there is a reason we chose to go down this path, because we feel like there will be some opportunities there. Ultimately, what happens, how that goes, we’ll see. But it was well-thought out.”
The first thing is, even as Anthopoulos made moves with the obvious intent of having more cash to spend this offseason, it would remain a surprise if that chunk of payroll was ultimately allocated to all-star pitcher Max Fried. As much as it would tickle the hearts of fans for the Braves to re-sign him, it doesn’t follow Anthopoulos’ pattern. If the club had decided that Fried was worth the price that he was asking for, it would have made that move by now.
But, if you’d like to believe it’s still in the cards, consider this theory – a contract that wasn’t feasible previously because of budget limitations may be now because Anthopoulos went ahead and made the room.
But if not Fried, then what might Anthopoulos do?
What seems most likely is that he has multiple holes that he wants to fill in the pitching rotation, outfield and possibly shortstop. In past offseasons, his approach has generally been to acquire players by trade rather than go big in the free-agency market.
As such, chances are that the Braves won’t go after a big-ticket free agent, namely Yankees outfielder Juan Soto or Brewers shortstop Willy Adames. That’s not an aisle where they generally shop.
That said, they did make a run at Aaron Nola, one of the top pitchers in last year’s free-agency market, before he re-signed with the Phillies. And, again, the strategy to intentionally open up money in the budget is not his norm, either.
And so if that’s the plan, a lower-tier free agent like Guardians pitcher Shane Bieber might be on the list. Bieber has no shortage of injury red flags – he is coming back from Tommy John surgery and wouldn’t be available for much of the 2025 season. Further, he had an elbow injury in 2023, also.
But the 2020 Cy Young Award winner has reached 200 innings twice in his seven-year career – a plateau that Fried has yet to attain. While an arbitrary standard, it does show productivity and durability. Nola also has multiple 200-inning seasons to his credit. And a history of injuries didn’t scare Anthopoulos away from trading for Chris Sale (another multiple 200-inning season pitcher and the soon-to-be Cy Young Award winner) last offseason.
It smacks of the sort of transaction – seeing value where others don’t – that Anthopoulos might make.
Texas’ Nathan Eovaldi could be another possibility. A former Red Sox teammate of Sale’s, Eovaldi just completed his age-34 season with a 3.80 ERA and 170-2/3 innings pitched. He almost certainly would take a shorter contract than Fried and a lower annual average, but still probably in the $20 million range. Would the Braves be prepared to potentially make him their highest-paid player in terms of per-season salary?
At shortstop, Adames is a prized rarity, boasting power (87 home runs in the past three seasons) and an excellent glove. He would be a major upgrade over the incumbent Orlando Arcia. However, the 29-year-old appears to be in the market for a long-term contract with an average annual value of $25 million or more.
That would likely be the highest on the roster by at least $3 million. It would be a highly atypical move for Anthopoulos.
After that, the next free-agency shortstop option is probably the Padres’ Ha-Seong Kim, whose slightly better offensive production over Arcia would not seem to justify the likely significant increase in price tag. Kim just opted out of a contract that paid him $28 million over the past four years. To contrast, Arcia is going into the final year of a three-year deal worth $7.3 million. He’ll get $2 million this year and the club has an option for 2026 for another $2 million.
Kim would be an upgrade at the plate, though perhaps not dramatically so. His career OPS is .706 to Arcia’s .669. But he could command a salary five times Arcia’s.
For a team that’s having to move around money in anticipation of offseason moves, having a shortstop who is a splendid defensive player, contributes to the team’s healthy clubhouse culture and is fairly inexpensive might be worth absorbing the shortcomings at the plate.
Could it be in left field, a spot where Jarred Kelenic (acquired in a trade last offseason) was ultimately replaced by midseason signee Ramón Laureano? Braves left fielders had an OPS of .642, 26th in MLB. It would seem that might be the better place to spend.
Boston’s Tyler O’Neill is a two-time Gold Glove winner who hit 31 home runs last season, although he struck out one out of every three plate appearances. He has also had a difficult time staying healthy.
San Diego’s Jurickson Profar is coming off a career year (24 home runs, .380 on-base percentage) in his age-31 season. However, he’s been inconsistent across his career.
It may well be none of the aforementioned. The Braves may also need to get bullpen help with the possibility that Joe Jiménez could miss all of 2025 after undergoing knee surgery. The guess here is that it’s multiple, smaller-deal acquisitions to fill the variety of holes on the roster.
Whatever the plan, Anthopoulos has signaled this much. After a season in which the Braves made their seventh consecutive postseason despite sustaining a litany of costly injuries, it would have been understandable if Anthopoulos felt that the Braves could go into 2025 with essentially the same roster.
But less than a week after the final out of the World Series, he has made clear that is not how he feels at all.
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