Atlanta Braves to go after Harper next Winter? Not so fast…

You gotta love speculation, but some of it just ignores some basic realities about the Braves’ new General Manager

It is kinda fun to talk about… your team getting that next big free agent player that would put them over the top and make them a perennial contender.  Such was the case yesterday morning when the Atlanta Braves and Bryce Harper came up in the same sentence on MLBNetworkRadio/XM:

Well, it does, actually.  Harper is not a player I’ve really liked, but if I’m going to be honest with myself, his brashness (a) has diminished over the past couple of years; and (b) had rubbed me the wrong way because he’s so good at baseball.

This would be akin to seeing Dave Ramsey go mortgage his house to buy an RV.  It just wouldn’t happen.

So would I really like to have him on the Braves.  Heck yeah… imagine rewarding Freddie Freeman for waiting out the painful years.  Imagine adding a 4-to-9 WAR player that’s around for the next decade.  Imagine not just the outfield that Matt Diaz mentioned, but the offense of Harper, Acuna, and Freeman all together.

Others have drooled over these thoughts, too:

About the Money

Could the Braves afford to do this?  Yeah – they actually could.

There has been a lot of speculation about what this contract will eventually look like.  Harper will be all of 26 years old in October.  He’s on a $21.6 million deal with Washington in this, his last arbitration year… and Scott Boras is his agent.

Teams have suddenly developed allergies to long-term deals that extend well into a player’s 30’s, but this one will probably be an exception.  That’s especially true with teams like the Dodgers and Cubs being in on the bidding.

Oddly:  the Yankees and Red Sox could be out of this sweepstakes as both teams would have to move out others to make room for him… and the Yankees would probably prefer Manny Machado.  But that could bring in other suitors like the Phillies and Braves, among a few others.

But for the sake of argument, let’s just suggest something like $33 million for 11 seasons… $343 million.

I am estimating the Atlanta will have something around $80 million to spend next year.  Thus even a huge number like $33 million would be ‘comfortably’ doable… if such monies can ever be ‘comfortably’ spent.

But the other part of the consideration would be whether Atlanta can then afford – with ~$47 million – to fill out the rest of their team, extend Albies, extend Acuna, get a frontline pitcher, etc.  These are the kind of moves that would allow the Braves to sustain a run with a Harper, et al.

Ultimately, it appears that the answer to that question is probably ‘yes’ as well, though that makes it a lot closer.

Now once the Battery is fully up and running (perhaps as early as this year) and the new minor league facility in North Port, FL is paid for, then the payroll should probably rise a bit more, making most of this a moot point.

So bottom line?  Yeah, Harper is probably affordable… and maybe even at slightly higher rates ($36 million at 11 years gets the total to $396m).

But that’s some rarefied air up at that altitude.

A Dash of Cold Water

Alex Anthopoulos has not made a habit of going out to spend the big bucks on free agents during his tenures as a general manager – obviously so with the Braves, but it’s also true dating back through his Blue Jays days.

He was GM of the Jays for 6 years – from October 2009 to October 2015.  During that time, he made several noteworthy trades, but only a couple of notable free agent signings:

• Melky Cabrera – 2 years, $16 million (Nov 2012)
• Russell Martin – 5 years, $82 million (Nov 2014)

Cabrera was unusual because this came on the heels of his PED suspension.  The Jays were said to have done extensive ‘due diligence’ on the subject, but ended up signing Cabrera in a move that was surprising to many – though done at a relatively cheap rate – very likely because of the suspension.

As for Martin, this was by far the biggest free agent deal AA engaged in – calling Martin the ‘key to our off-season’ at the time.  Martin has been decent, but certainly not spectacular for them:  2015 was a good year, but he has dropped off significantly in the years since… and he’s now 35 years old.

The record shows that AA prefers trades to signing free agents.  In fact, with right at 1 major trade (at-or-close-to blockbuster level) per year on average, you could call it more of a ritual than a preference.

So why would he choose to completely abandon that philosophy and go spend an all-time record sum of money to bring in a single free agent?

This would be akin to seeing Dave Ramsey go mortgage his house to buy an RV.  It just wouldn’t happen.

Should it Happen?

So let’s play a little devil’s advocate here:  should it happen?

I went back and got a list of the best hitter seasons since 2000 in terms of fWAR.  The names you would expect are there.

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Barry Bonds, multiple times (and we know why)

But among those not generally thought of as getting a little extra help, we have these names:

• Mike Trout, multiple times (really good at baseball)
• Adrian Beltre (2004, 9.7)
• Albert Pujols (2003, 9.5)
• Bryce Harper (2015, 9.5)
• Jacoby Ellsbury (2011, 9.4)
• Scott Rolen (2004, 9.0)

That’s a few names.  Very few on the ‘unenhanced’ list. 

Yes – you can argue that Harper’s 9.5 year was a fluke – he’s technically never exceeded 5.0 otherwise.  But there have been some reasons for this… injuries mostly, plus a single ‘down’ year in 2016.

For 2018, he’s already at 0.6 fWAR here after 5 games into the season(!).  Frankly, there are only a very small handful of players who are an annual threat to go out and bust a 7+ fWAR season on a consistent basis.

Only 2 players did so in 2017 (Judge and Altuve).  Heck, even Mike Trout had a terrible year in 2017.. he “only” posted a 6.9.  Harper – had he played 162 games – was on pace for 7.0.

Who could you trade for to give you that kind of production?  You can’t:  those players aren’t available.  Only Giancarlo Stanton (6.9) has been dealt recently among all of those top-level talents, and that was due to a special set of circumstances.

So the bottom line is this:  if you want/need that kind of production, you’ve got one shot – free agency and the big bucks.

But you really can’t expect this to happen.  In fact, you truly can’t even hope for it.

In fact, others have already expected that Harper will go elsewhere.  He’s even being trolled about that by the Braves’ organist:

Next: Your Camargo Delivery is Scheduled

So sure – it’s fun to speculate… but let’s keep it all in perspective.

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