Now that the top free-agent starting pitchers are off the board, we look at the best ones available for the Atlanta Braves to upgrade the rotation this offseason.
There wasn’t much hope that the Atlanta Braves would make a significant offer to Hyun-Jin Ryu before he eventually signed with the Toronto Blue Jays.
Ryu represented the last big free-agent starting pitcher available this offseason.
Coming into the offseason I thought Atlanta needed to add two starting pitchers. A frontline starter to pair with Mike Soroka and a veteran to replace Dallas Keuchel.
They’ve certainly replaced, and possibly upgraded, Keuchel with Hamels. But they still lack that number two starter at the top of the rotation with Soroka.
It was never realistic to think the Braves were going to sign Gerrit Cole or Stephen Strasburg who signed for $342 and $245 million respectively.
That really only left Atlanta with two free-agent options to consider as top of the rotation arms.
Zack Wheeler got $118 million over five years from the Philadelphia Phillies.
I wasn’t too upset about this one as Wheeler has some upside, but at five years is very risky considering his injury history.
The other option was Madison Bumgarner who ended up signing a five-year deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks for $85 million.
Apparently the Braves didn’t feel comfortable giving a fourth year to MadBum, much less a fifth year that the DBacks gave him.
And I know some people don’t consider Bumgarner a top of the rotation pitcher at this point in his career, but I would have been OK with Atlanta making this move.
With those players off the board, there aren’t many solid options left in free agency. Most likely if the Braves are going to find that top of the rotation starter this offeason it will have to come through a trade.
We’ll look at five names we know to be available who Atlanta could target this offseason.