Fans of the Atlanta Braves are probably well aware of the comments that the Braves front office have put out there into the world talking about working towards having a top five payroll in the league. This was understandably heartening for fans and, frankly, should be the expectation. The Braves are absolutely printing money right now and the payroll should go up to compensate for that.
However, with this talk that the Braves aren’t going to be playing in the big-time shortstop market even if they are unable to re-sign Dansby Swanson and just general fan anxiety in general especially as the Braves get close to the luxury tax, some of that enthusiasm has waned to be sure. Hopefully, the comments made today by Liberty President and CEO Greg Maffei will ease some of those concerns.
Liberty Media President and CEO Greg Maffei at Investor Day on Braves payroll: "I fully expect to be in the top five. We can afford it."
— Chris Vivlamore (@CVivlamoreAJC) November 17, 2022
It is absolutely worth mentioning that the Braves currently are already at #2 in payroll for the 2023 season (according to Spotrac) so this isn’t a signal necessarily that the Braves are going to go hog wild on the free agent market. However, it does seem to lessen the concerns that the Braves and their ownership will view the luxury tax thresholds as hard caps or significant deterrents from doing what they want to do.
It will be very curious in the context of Maffei’s comments as to where the Braves’ payroll does end up going into 2023. They may have the second highest payroll right now, but we haven’t seen many of the top free agents signed yet. Players like Aaron Judge, Justin Verlander, Jacob deGrom, and Carlos Correa are going to require some pretty significant coin to bring into the fold and will alter the landscape significantly over the course of the offseason.
All of that said, it is still nice to hear Liberty Media say that they are expecting the Braves’ payroll to be top five in the league even though it won’t stop some corners of the internet from hating them regardless of what they do.