House That Hank Built
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Atlanta Braves are setup to be big spenders in coming offseasons

By James Kunkle

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - FEBRUARY 22: A South Korean banker carries US dollar bank notes at the Korea Exchange bank on February 22, 2005 in Seoul, South Korea. The South Korean won jumped to its highest intraday level in more than seven years in domestic trade on Tuesday, boosted by strong foreign equity buying and exporter deals. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - FEBRUARY 22: A South Korean banker carries US dollar bank notes at the Korea Exchange bank on February 22, 2005 in Seoul, South Korea. The South Korean won jumped to its highest intraday level in more than seven years in domestic trade on Tuesday, boosted by strong foreign equity buying and exporter deals. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images) /
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(Photo Illustration by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(Photo Illustration by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) /

What the future holds

As we mentioned earlier, the payroll is hovering right around the $150M mark for right now, where it ends in October is anyone’s guess but a team with playoff aspirations surely left a little room in the budget to make a trade come July.

So here comes the fun part and possibly tricky part as well, depending on how you look at it.

As of right now, the Atlanta Braves have only around $70M in guaranteed contracts for the 2021 season. Obviously that number will rise once you consider the salaries that arbitration eligible players like Dansby Swanson, Sean Newcomb, and Mike Soroka will receive.

On the flip side, that does include Darren O’Day who the Atlanta Braves hold a $3.5M option on following the 2020 season.

That number above also includes the almost $9M Ender Inciarte is scheduled to collect in 2021. I think most will agree that with the impending call up’s of Christian Pache and Drew Waters, eventually Inciarte will be the one moved to another team in a deal, which in turn would free up yet even more money.

The point being that following the 2020 season, the Atlanta Braves have almost no long term contracts on the board. They will no longer be obligated to pay the $65-$80M they are in 2020 to the following players-

Plus a few other smaller salaries that will be off the book.

It’s starting to become clearer and clearer why the Atlanta Braves are possibly the most envied team in the game at the moment. They have great young talent, no bad long term contracts, a bunch of money about to be freed up, and a farm system that is still loaded and among the best.

So that leaves one big, obvious question.

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