On Monday the Braves decided to bring back catcher Tyler Flowers and outfielder Nick Markakis, but let Julio Teheran become a free agent.
Technically, the Atlanta Braves let Tyler Flowers and Nick Markakis become free agents momentarily before re-signing them.
But that was just to move money around on the payroll, we all know that they really just exercised their $6 million team options for 2020.
While the Braves essentially saved $18.5 million by not picking up the 2020 options for Julio Teheran and Billy Hamilton.
Atlanta had to pay each of them a $1 million buyout, which goes against the Braves 2019 payroll. And if you include the $4 million they paid in buyouts to Flowers and Markakis, that adds $6 million to the 2019 payroll.
That’s significant in that it raises the Braves final 2019 payroll to almost $143 million, which means we now have a better idea of what the Braves have to spend going into the offseason.
According to Spotrac, Atlanta’s current payroll for 2020 (accounting for estimated arbitration players) is around $88 million.
If you assume Atlanta’s budget for the 2020 season is $140 million, that gives the Braves around $50 million to spend this offseason.
But let’s conservatively say AA wants to start the season around $130 million, which gives the Braves $40 million to play with this offseason.
That’s enough to maybe resign Josh Donaldson, a tier two starting pitcher, a veteran catcher to pair with Flowers, and a veteran bullpen arm or two.
Looking at it that way, you can understand why Atlanta had to bring back a couple of veteran guys in Flowers and Markakis that aren’t very expensive.
But there are a lot of other reasons why the Braves brought them back as well.