Atlanta Braves power drain
By Fred Owens
What’s stopping him
AA’s told us about his self-imposed restrictions a couple of times.
- He won’t trade prospects until he’s evaluated them himself
- He wants players who defend as well as hit
- He won’t acquire anyone that blocks Ronald Acuna. Nothing and no one can block Acuna when he’s ready making this statement seem strange. The problem likely lies with Nick Markakis, his $11M salary, and AA’s reluctance to have that much money sitting on the bench.
The last item highlights his financial restrictions.
After dumping Matt Kemp’s future salary back on the Dodgers in exchange for current year expenditures, the Braves are at the edge of their available payroll. Roster Resource projects 2018 payroll at $116.6M give or take $100K. That’s about $4M short of last’s year’s end of season number and about 13.5M short of the number most consider their upper limit.
Moving Markakis $11M would give him leeway to make an addition in the outfield but for now that hasn’t happened. It appears that means moving all of Kakes money, even if the return is an A ball player we’ve never heard of.
Those things led our fearless AJC beat writer to conclude, “ It remains a strong possibility the team adds help, more likely at third base than the outfield” while his MLB.Com counterpart Mark Bowman feels “This year seems to be a perfect opportunity to give Camargo a chance. . .” Whatever you believe will happen, a beat writer somewhere agrees.