According to Greg Maffei, the Atlanta Braves haven’t made additional moves because they are simply looking for the right deal. Fans may wonder what kind of deal that could be.
Most Atlanta Braves fans are less than happy with lack of activity to improve the team this offseason. After signing Josh Donaldson and Brian McCann, the team made no significant changed to the roster aside from returning Nick Markakis.
Many fans and most talk show hosts I’ve heard believe Liberty Media told the Braves to restrict signings and save money. In an attempt to quell those rumors last month, Alex Anthopoulos and Terry McGuirk sat down with Jeff Schultz and David O’Brien.
As Matthew wrote at that time, all they did was make things worse. Anthopoulos seemed unsure when asked if the opening day payroll would be above the 2018 level and Terry McGuirk had to jump in and say that it would pass that mark.
Anthopoulos said they had room to “go north” of the $126M figure Schultz quoted as end-of-year payroll. The actual end-of-year amount exceeded $130M when including the entire 40-man roster, so Schultz gave them room to maneuver.
Anthopoulos said later that the Braves finished in the bottom ten for payroll last year, but was trending towards the middle in 2019. Spotrac ranked the Braves at #18 for 2018 and currently shows them at #20 for 2019 with $109.556.043 committed.
After Twitter and the blogs eviscerated the front office for that interview, David O’Brien posted a follow-up you can read here with a subscription. This post contained more quotes from that original session fleshing out what was said.
In that version, Anthopoulos tried to sell the idea that offseason transactions were sort of irrelevant and that the Braves could wait until the deadline to add players if required. He cited the psychological value of acquiring a needed player at the deadline. Both interviews fell flat as a pancake.