Atlanta Braves Podcast S2E2: why the Hot Stove on pause this week
The Atlanta Braves had some issues to work through this week as demanded by baseball’s calendar. So the podcast used this time for some reflections.
How do you handle arbitration negotiations after a oddball short season like 2020? For players having hot years… they certainly want to play that up. For those that didn’t… well, they can point to any number of reasons for their failures.
The MLB arbitration filing deadline has now come and gone and Fred spoke about the Atlanta Braves details on that subject yesterday.
Around the league, I expected a bit more controversy — and certainly more teams and players failing to come to an agreement on what their 2021 salaries should be.
But across the league… just 13 cases (I expected about 2 dozen). However, 2 of those impasses came with the negotiations involving Dansby Swanson and Mike Soroka.
You hate to see these things happen, but the situation for Soroka is a bit more disturbing in that the two sides are $700,000 apart (it was probably more than that when they were actually talking — the filing numbers simply represent the position each side actually chooses to defend in court).
That $700K represents 25% of Soroka’s “ask” and 33% of the Braves’ offer… large percentages apart.
Looking around the league, there are some similar gaps, with Carlos Correa and the Astros having the largest monetary difference in opinion of nearly $3 million. The largest percentage gap comes between Ryan Yarbrough and the Rays: $2.3m vs. $3.1 million.
Bottom line: if you’re looking for Soroka to ink a long-term extension with the Braves any time soon… it may be a bit before the two sides are on the same page financially.
But this topic and the opening of the 2021 International Market (which the Braves got to participate in!) could account for a bit of a slowdown in Hot Stove activity at the end of this week, and so we talk about how these things could impact the Braves.
Do expect signings… and maybe trades… to pick up next week and through the end of February as we’re starting to get the idea that decisions are coming shortly.
What kind of decisions?
- Universal DH or not
- Expanded playoffs or not
- Roster sizes
- a trickling of free-agent signings that soon will become a flood
- the expected 162-game schedule… which appears to be a done deal.
The podcast explores these things, things to come, and the early report on Alex Anthopoulos’ Atlanta legacy to date.
But with all that… it’s time to crank this stove up to “High” for the next 3 weeks… and thus, here’s the podcast:
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Hopefully you can engage us with a comment for anything you would like to either ask or opine about. Thanks for listening!