The Atlanta Braves’ front office isn’t ignoring what’s on. They are indeed watching the same games we are. Does that mean something might (finally) change?
Be assured: Atlanta Braves General Manager Alex Anthopoulos is paying attention to what’s going on.
Do the Braves need help with offense? Nope. Fielding? Defense? No. Starting pitching? That’s actually been working itself out over the season’s first month.
Bullpen? Oh yeah.
Jeff Schultz, writing in TheAthletic, (subscription required) caught up with Anthopoulos to ask him the obvious questions before Saturday evening’s game.
Schultz was told – and he made a point to note that the answer was ‘unemotional’ in its delivery – “We have work to do”.
You’ll note that this answer came mere hours before a 9th inning meltdown at the hand of A.J. Minter.
Now these things can happen from time to time, but the unique aspect of this particular game was that the Braves didn’t really have a lot of decent options available to get Minter out of the game quickly enough.
Eventually, Dan Winkler was dragged in for the final out… but before that, Winkler gave up the dagger: a 3-run homer to Trevor Story that turned a still-reachable 6-5 score into a 9-5 final.
Anything Changing?
Schultz followed up with Anthopoulos on Sunday morning. The answer to the question (unstated, but probably was along the lines of ‘anything changed yet?’) was this:
"“Last night was a really tough loss. As we discussed prior to the game, we’ve been working on making some changes.”"
This is where the penny-wise/pound foolish mentality is biting the Braves. Yes: I get it… there were at least 2 relievers that the team expected to have available to them right now: Darren O’Day and Arodys Vizcaino.
But there were thirty-three free agent relievers signed to major league contracts of all sizes this Winter. The Braves got none of them.
Now Anthopoulos is scrambling.
Schultz reports that ‘the [trade-]available names don’t excite him. That would tend to rule out the Giants’ rumors we’ve been talking about in recent days… ergo, the names that would excite him aren’t the ones that San Francisco are willing to deal at this time.
(Translation: Mark Melancon and his entire contract can be had. But teams would rather pull fans out of the stands to pitch in relief before taking on that money.)
- Of note: Craig Kimbrel was never ruled out is this interview.
- Also of note: the draft pick penalty is an issue, but is not a showstopper.
- Also of note: Anthopoulos spoke of a failure to align ‘years and dollars’ with regard to free agents.
(Translation: yeah, we’d really like to get Kimbrel, but he hasn’t lowered his price enough yet and I’m trying desperately not to allow our problems make me blink and accept his terms.)
Of course, the problems only got a little worse on Monday.
Remember that ‘penny-wise/pound-foolish’ thing from earlier? It’s still happening.