The Atlanta Braves have now done the essential things this off-season. But “essentials” probably won’t carry through for 162 games.
I believe the opinions among the podcast crew are unanimous: we are all wondering why the Atlanta Braves haven’t been proactive — like they were early on this off-season with pitching — in filling out their bench depth.
Maybe the money is the issue (though we’re well past the “sell by” date on the majority of remaining options, so money shouldn’t be an issue).
Maybe others are being more aggressive in the market that does exist out there. That part is almost certainly true — heck, the Ozuna signing was accomplished via an essentially lazy process since the player really, really wanted to come back.
But as we continue to point out, these are not the actions of a team that are gunning for a World Series appearance.
We see the Dodgers go out and over-spend mightily to take Trevor Bauer away from the Mets. We saw them acquire and pay Mookie Betts last year. These are the actions of a motivated team.
“Well yeah, but the Dodgers have money and aren’t afraid to use it.”
True, but the Atlanta Braves have trade chips available. Are they holding them in the hopes of getting performance improvements? Are they holding them while being afraid to overpay?
Regardless of the reason, there’s a lot of Braves prospects who aren’t getting any younger… and the major league team still has needs that aren’t getting filled.
So here’s the podcast for this week as we’re about to head to Florida (virtually speaking). Feel free to listen via the player below or download using this link to check us out at your leisure.
But that’s the state of things right now with the Braves, which really is summarized in two words: unfinished business.
There’s always the trade deadline, though, right?