Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: watch out for rumors about Zack Greinke next week

Zack’s Contract

Here is that breakdown, from Zach (with an ‘h’) Buchanan, writing in TheAthletic a couple of week ago (subscription required).

"There’s Greinke’s age (35) and the money the Diamondbacks owe him for the next three seasons ($104.5 million). There’s also his 15-team no-trade clause, which according to a baseball source allows him to block deals to the following teams: Orioles, Red Sox, Reds, Rockies, Tigers, Yankees, Athletics, Padres, Giants, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Angels, Dodgers, Twins and Phillies."

There are 3 factors listed in this paragraph that will make it very difficult for the Diamondbacks to move Greinke… all of them put the leverage on the buyer’s side able and take it away from the Arizona side:  age (he’s just turned 35), money, and destination restrictions.

There’s also a 4th factor:  interest from a possible destination.  Let’s check the teams not on the no-trade list:

• Rays – spending this year, but probably not going to spend that much for a 3-yr commitment
• Indians – looking to shed payroll
• White Sox – doesn’t make any sense (yet) given where they are; but they are looking more at Machado/Harper for their dollars
• Royals – rebuilding
• A’s – never going to spend that much for that long
• Mariners – ‘reconfiguring’ and shedding payroll
• Rangers – rebuilding
• Astros – Could use him… but would not want want him for 3 years given the changes they will have to make soon.
• Arizona – well… duh, the current team isn’t on the no-trade list!  But Arizona is shedding payroll to rebuild.  No point whatsoever in keeping him, and that’s why this is interesting.
• Cubs – are already overspent; picked up Hamel’s option as their pitching upgrade
• Brewers – he’s been there, but not at his current price
• Pirates – not in their economic zone at all
• Nationals – just added Corbin… done with pitching.
• Mets
• Braves

Yes – that leaves only the Mets and Braves.  While the Mets could make a run at Greinke, they have a lot of needs other than pitching.  The Mets should be a bit squeamish at the thought anyway since every large city/large market team is on the no-tradelist… except them.

But in truth, if they are keeping Noach Syndergaard, they don’t need Greinke… they still need a catcher, mostly.

The Braves?  Well they might have a bit more interest in Greinke’s services.

So how are the Diamondbacks going to offload Greinke? There’s still a chance that Greinke could choose to use the no-trade list to extract even more dollars from a named team, but that would only add to the difficulty for Arizona – and probably to the dollars as well.

In practical terms, though, the list of ‘no-trade’ teams and and list of ‘not interested’ teams limits the actual possible bidders to just 1… Atlanta.

In fact the Diamondbacks’ confident statement that they can believe they can trade the ace pitcher without having to ‘absorb’ any of that contract sound rather… bold.  But they indeed need to move the pitcher, and with scarce options, that actually puts Atlanta in an interesting position.