The Braves next move should be to subtract so they can add

Whatcha got now?

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If the Braves shed all of those players, and assuming they didn’t bring any big league contracts back in those trades, they could save almost $20 million towards the 2020 payroll.

And really, the only player you’d have to replace of that group is Inciarte in center.

Now the Braves could have almost $50 million to spend to fill all of those holes.

That’s enough to possibly sign two big free agents like Josh Donaldson and Zack Wheeler or Madison Bumgarner.

And then there should be enough left over to upgrade at catcher and outfield through trades. Or you could go cheap at catcher and sign a veteran like Jason Castro.

I’ve already told you the four moves I would make with this extra money to complete the offseason and build a World Series contender for 2020.

But with the added flexibility in payroll, there are a number of different ways Alex Anthopoulos could build a great team.

Personally, I hope this is the direction AA goes. And I think this will be his goal over the next couple of weeks to try and set himself up for a big Winter Meetings.

The deadline for tendering a contract to arbitration-eligible players is December 2. Expect some trades to come down before that happens.

And the Winter Meetings are set to take place Dec. 9-12.

After the Thanksgiving break, I expect there to be a lot of minor deals like the ones mentioned above as teams try and set their payroll for the Winter Meetings.

Don’t be surprised if the next couple of moves for the Braves are more about subtracting players and money in hopes of setting themselves to be big players this offseason.