A failed negotiation might help the Atlanta Braves bring back Dansby Swanson
A key member of the Atlanta Braves is in his walk year, but an impasse on an unrelated topic will make it more difficult for him to actually walk away.
If Dansby Swanson wasn’t in the midst of a career year, none of what follows might have mattered. The Atlanta Braves might not even be that concerned about losing their starting shortstop.
But things have changed. Here’s a player who had accumulated just 8.8 bWAR of production over the past 6 seasons… and suddenly he’s threatening to blow past 5.0 bWAR for just this season alone. Currently, his 3.9 ranks 10th in the National League… for any player.
Swanson’s batting average is up 36 points above his career numbers and his OPS+ has jumped from a “meh” 94 to a robust 123.
By the reckoning of fangraphs, Swanson is now leading all shortstops in baseball with a 4.5 fWAR while second place Trea Turner is well back at 4.0.
These are the kinds of players you want to keep around… never mind Swanson’s ability to ‘captain’ an infield with a great sense of situational awareness.
But with that dramatic performance increase, Swanson has also made himself quite a bit more expensive to retain… which has created two problems – one each for the Atlanta Braves and for him:
- The Braves’ side is that they need to figure out how to value his performance. The key point here is that they have to figure out if it’s “real”… i.e., will Swanson continue to perform at a level like this for the next 3-to-6 years or so?
- The problem for Swanson is that he may very well be playing himself into the position of being saddled with a Qualifying Offer at year’s end.
The Qualifying Offer Quandary
Ah, but the new MLB/MLBPA Qualifying Offer (QO) was supposed to be something that had been negotiated away this year.
It’s something the players clearly despise, for it makes teams immediately hesitate to sign QO free agents since they stand to lose a precious draft pick by doing so.
That hesitation costs such players money. Just ask Dallas Keuchel. Or Michael Conforto. Heck, even Craig Kimbrel couldn’t entice a team to sign him for all of the 2019 season.
It’s not all of the QO free agents that are impacted, but it’s certainly those “on the cusp” of earning monies near the level of the QO payday: a 1-year day representing the average salary of the 125 highest-paid players in the sport.
For the last off-season, that figure was $18.4 million.
There was an agreement among the parties early this year that the QO would vanish if they could come to an agreement to establish rules for an International Draft… one that would (hopefully) clean up the corrupt process (if you can call it that) by which amateur teens are signed outside the US and Canada.
It’s a bad situation… one that has seen the Red Sox and Braves both be sanctioned for bad behavior in the process.
But the deadline for those negotiations came and went yesterday (July 25th). As a result, there will still be business as usual for the next international signing period this Winter and the Qualifying Offer system will remain in place for now.
Getting Back to Swanson
There is speculation that once we get beyond the trade deadline, Alex Anthopoulos will turn attention to his All-Star shortstop, and perhaps send a contract extension offer his way.
Clearly, Swanson should be eager to see this, being from the immediate area, but there’s also the Freddie Freeman saga still fresh in his mind.
That said, here’s someone who was looking like a $12-14 million dollar player after last year and is now playing more like a $16-$20 million man.
But if he doesn’t like what the Braves offer… there is now the looming spectre of being handed a Qualifying Offer at year’s end. That might hurt Swanson – a lot – if he thinks the open market is the way to go.
There’s also the shortstop market itself. Trea Turner will be out there. Carlos Correa. Probably Xander Bogaerts. How many teams would want to spend a lot of money on a shortstop and then also sacrifice a draft pick for … well, he’s been an excellent player this year, but would you bet high on a long-term deal?
That call is almost certainly close enough for the Braves that they would give him the dreaded QO and an offer to pay him $18+ million for 2023 if they can’t get a true contract extension settled by year’s end.
Given that, what are Swanson’s options going forward?
Tossing a very large coin
With a Qualifying Offer in hand, Swanson could then either:
- Take the offer and return to Atlanta for 2023 while then continuing to negotiate a longer term extension. The difference after 2023 would be that he can’t be “QO’d” a second time.
- Reject the offer and take his chances. Mind you, his agent is the same one that misread the market for Freddie Freeman just 7-to-10 months ago.
That decision will hinge on a very important question, though: one that might be getting decided within the next week…
What is Swanson worth?
This is a question you probably don’t want to ask, for over the past 3 seasons to date (2020-present), Swanson’s fWAR is third among all shortstops … sandwiched between San Diego’s $340+ million dollar man Fernando Tatis Jr.and Bogaerts.
The Mets own $340+ million dollar man Francisco Lindor ranks 4th, by the way.
Swanson is just 3 months younger than Lindor, and his agent will likely suggest that he’s now joined these others at the “elite shortstops” table.
But if he does, the Braves will almost certainly recoil at the suggestion of a $25-30 million dollar annual payout and try the QO ploy instead.
Swanson, who’s making $10 million after winning his arbitration case this year, feels like someone who would fit well into the $17-19 million range.
Thus a 6-year deal in the middle of that range ($18 million average annual value) would come to $108 million.
Turner will have to worry about this QO problem, too. So will Bogaerts, if he opts out of his current deal (likely). Correa will not.
So while there could be a “musical chairs” game of rotating shortstops, the fact is that all parties involved might better off staying with their current clubs rather than fretting over draft pick compensation/loss issues… but don’t expect that to happen, either.
Swanson is just going to have to determine for himself the answer to the question that Freddie Freeman failed to resolve in time: how much money do I think I can leave on the table so that I can return to my team?
In Freeman’s case, his better paydays actually would have come by signing back with Atlanta. There’s a chance that the same situation could unfold for Swanson as well.
Next. Just as Predicted.... dark
Hopefully, though, this International draft impasse will end up driving our shortstop back toward home.