Atlanta Braves Hot Stove Report – January 14, 2018

Welcome back to the Hot Stove Report, your semi-regular capsule of all of the off-season news, rumors, transactions, and winter league action for the Atlanta Braves. Check in with us every Monday through the start of spring training as we sift though everything Braves.

In Interview, Anthopoulos Talks Off-Season, Payroll, and Markakis

Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos sat down with Braves flagship 680 The Fan this week, telling hosts Chris Dimino and Nick Cellini that while the off-season has seemed slow to fans, there’s a lot of talks between teams and agents below the surface. Some highlights:

• The team still has “quite a lot of money to spend” for free agents or trades, but that they haven’t been able to line up for anything based on their needs.

• Anthopoulos thinks it would be “nice” if the off-season had a deadline to encourage all parties to get their business concluded before spring training.

• He believes that a factor in the slowness of the market has been teams waiting on Bryce Harper and Manny Machado to decide where to sign. Teams who are in that market need to determine how much money they would have to outlay if they land one of the two elite free agents.

• The Braves have continued “good dialogue” with the agent of Nick Markakis, and that there’s interest on both sides but they haven’t yet seen “eye to eye” on contract terms. Anthopoulos believes that the pending decision for Harper has particularly slowed the corner outfielder market, mentioning that Andrew McCutchen and Michael Brantley are the only two corner outfielders that have signed deals so far.

• Reiterating previous comments, Anthopoulos said that team payroll is set by the Braves, specifically team chairman Terry McQuirk and his executive team. Liberty Media does not dictate payroll, and it’s McQuirk that signs off on substantial deals or trades.

• While each negotiation is different, Anthopoulos is not a fan of giving player options/”opt-outs” and no-trade clauses, and believes the Braves historically have done a good job holding the line against having those be part of contracts “because it opens you up for doing it for the next player, then the next player after that, and it’s a slippery slope once you pushed that button.” However, Anthopoulos said that while he’s never completed a deal that includes an opt-out or a no-trade clause that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do one if the situation called for it.

• It was important for the Braves to sign Josh Donaldson early when the situation presented itself to have “clarity” in regards to how much money the team would have to spend for the rest of the offseason.

• The Braves player payroll this season will be “up. It will be up there quite a bit. We aren’t there yet. We aren’t going to spend for the sake of spending. We have money we could spend right now — quite a bit of money we could spend right now — but we aren’t finding the deal that we like.” For reference, the Braves end-of-year player payroll was estimated at ~$130,649,395 per Spotrac, and current commitments for 2019 come to ~$105,356,043 before pre-arbitration contracts are locked in.

• For the starting rotation, the team is “locked in” with four players: Julio Teheran, Sean Newcomb, Mike Foltynewicz, and Kevin Gausman. The fifth spot will be a “kid”, determined by spring competition. However, Anthopoulos didn’t rule out getting a “front-line guy” to push everyone down, though “we’re not close to anything [or] deeply engaged with anyone”.

Braves Win Stewart Grievance, Dismiss Bridges and Clark

In a very odd stretch of 24 hours last week, the Braves dismissed scouting director Brian Bridges and scouting senior adviser Roy Clark, then was formally awarded the #9 overall pick in the 2019 draft when it was announced that the Braves won the grievance filed by the Major League Players Association on behalf of8 first round pick Carter Stewart.

The grievance claimed that Atlanta had not offered the minimum required amount of the 1st-round slot value, and that Stewart should have been allowed to declare free agency per the Collective Bargaining Agreement. As mentioned in last week’s Hot Stove Report, Stewart enrolled at Eastern Florida State College in order to be eligible for the 2019 draft, perhaps an early sign that the grievance decision would not go in his favor.

The day before word came down however, many fans were shocked by the Braves announcement that Bridges and Clark had been fired. Both were signed to one-year contract extensions in October. Bridges had been with the Braves since 2008 as a chief scout, where he was instrumental in signing players such as Freddie Freeman, Jason Heyward, Mike Minor, Alex Wood, and Craig Kimbrel. He was promoted to Scouting Director in October 2014, heading three extremely impressive drafts during the team’s rebuild, drafting and signing talents like Kolby Allard, Mike Soroka, Austin Riley, Ian Anderson, Bryse Wilson, and Kyle Wright.

Clark was a chief scout for the Braves in the 90s, and was himself the Scouting Director from 2000-09. Clark left Atlanta to join the Nationals, then Dodgers, following former Braves chairman Stan Kasten. Clark returned to the Braves as a senior advisor in 2014.

Per MLB.com’s Mark Bowman. Anthopoulos said, “The plan was for them to be here. The more I thought about it over the holidays, I decided I wanted to make this change. It’s not fair to have them work and prepare for this year’s [MLB Draft] and then cut them loose after the Draft.”. In a tweet, Bowman intimated that Anthopoulos wanted someone in the position that could better handle the position’s administrative duties.

Dana Brown Added to Front Office as VP of Scouting

Two days after dismissing Bridges, Anthopoulos added Toronto assistant GM Dana Brown to the front office as Vice-President of Scouting.

Anthopoulos has a long history with Brown, dating back to their time working in the scouting department of the Montreal Expos. Brown remained with the franchise after it moved on to Washington, and was the scouting director during their drafting of core players like Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmerman. Anthopoulos hired Brown away from the Nationals in 2009 to join the Blue Jays front office, where he has been for the last 9 years.

The amateur scouting calendar is heading towards a crucial time as high school and college seasons are about to begin, and teams begin to formulate their strategies for the 2019 June amateur draft. It’s perhaps even more critical for the Atlanta Braves, who are under sanctions from signing international amateur players starting this coming season for any bonus greater than $10,000.

Braves Come To Agreement With All Arbitration-Eligible Players

The Braves successfully avoided going to arbitration hearings with any of their eight arbitration-eligible players by coming to agreement with them prior to Friday’s 1:00 PM deadline. Left-hander Jonny Venters had been locked up earlier in the off-season, and the remaining seven all signed deals on Friday.

• RHP Kevin Gausman – $9.35 million
• RHP Mike Foltynewicz – $5.475 million
• RHP Arodys Vizcaino – $4.8 million
• OF Adam Duvall – $2.875 million
• RHP Dan Winkler – $1.61 million
• UTL Charlie Culberson – $1.395 million
• LHP Sam Freeman – $1.575 million

All of these contracts are non-guaranteed, and will only become guaranteed if the player is on an Opening Day roster.

Rumors, News, and Innuendo

• The Braves apparently “checked in” with Miami last week regarding J.T. Realmuto, according to MLB Network’s Craig Mish. The catching market was shaken up with the signing of top free agent catcher Yasmani Grandal to a one-year deal by the Milwaukee Brewers and the trade of Russell Martin to the Los Angeles Dodgers. This leaves all of the teams with reported interest in Realmuto — Braves, Mets, Phillies, Nationals, Astros, Brewers, Dodgers, Rays, Yankees, Padres, Reds — with reasonable catching situations in place for 2019 without him. This of course doesn’t mean that none of those teams couldn’t trade for Realmuto as he would be an improvement to any team, but at this point it seems that the Marlins may have overplayed their hand.

• ESPN.com’s Buster Olney reported this week that the Braves have continued to have conversations on free agent outfielder A.J. Pollock “among other free agent outfielders”. Like Yasmani Grandal, Pollock’s market value is hampered by having rejected a qualifying offer from their previous team, meaning anyone signing him would have to lose a draft pick; for the Braves, it would be their 2nd-round pick, currently the #60 overall. Grandal signed his one-year, $18.25 million deal with Milwaukee partially to combat the qualifying tag, betting on himself to have a big season and allowing him to hit the market again next year without a qualifying offer attached. Naturally speculation has turned to if Pollock, arguably the best outfield option left on the free agent market other than Harper, would accept a similar deal.

• Baseball Prospectus released their top Braves prospects list on Friday, with right-hander Ian Anderson on the pole. While there has been wide consensus as to the Braves top 10 prospects, who is number one has varied greatly depending on which source you look at. Baseball America tabbed third baseman Austin Riley, Fangraphs went with outfielder Cristian Pache, while Prospects Live tabbed right-hander Touki Toussaint. Over at Tomahawk Take, Ben Chase chose right-hander Mike Soroka (agreeing with us here at OFR), while John Sickels selected Anderson. This is a much different situation than last year when outfielder and eventual NL Rookie of the Year Ronald Acuna was near-universally acclaimed as the top prospect, or even the prior two seasons when shortstop Dansby Swanson was atop most Braves prospect lists. Some may look at this and see it was a weakness in the system… that if there’s no true #1 then there isn’t a #1. I disagree. All of these guys are easily top 50 prospects in the game. Last year was a fun season in Atlanta, but in many ways the best is still yet to come.

• MLB Pipleline released their All-Defense Team of prospects Sunday night. Representing the Braves is outfielder Cristian Pache.

Your Moment of Zen

The Braves drafted shortstop Riley Unroe in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft, and he will vie for a spot in Mississippi or Gwinnett. He got off to a slow start in winter ball down in Australia, but he’s been on a tear recently, going 10-for-26 in his last six games with 4 home runs, including this three-run blast from Saturday.

The @BrisbaneBandits have made a FAST start!

Riley Unroe's three-run homer puts them up 5-0!

WATCH LIVE: https://t.co/WGas46T240 #ABL pic.twitter.com/2mET8EzP0F

— Australian Baseball League (@ABL) January 12, 2019