The Atlanta Braves made waves earlier this week when they were able to acquire one of the best catchers in the league, Sean Murphy, in a three team deal with the Athletics and Brewers. That move had significant effects on the team’s plans for 2023 and beyond. However, it was a complex, weird deal, so here is a breakdown of who went where and why.
Speaking of the “why”, one of the players that the Braves moved in that deal was William “Wild Bill” Contreras who won over Braves fans with his All-Star campaign last season (it is still hilarious that he ended up being an All-Star at DH despite not being the Braves’ primary DH). However, there were some things about Contreras’ profile that suggested he was overperforming a bit, so perhaps the Braves were best served to sell while his value was high.
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The other big rumor regarding the Braves yesterday came out of nowhere. Max Fried has turned into a bona fide ace for the Atlanta Braves over the last few years. While this has been a big boon to the Braves, it has also come with the realization that Fried is going to get more and more expensive pretty quickly and a contract extension could be astronomically expensive. However, it was still wild to see a national writer suggest that the Braves are at least entertaining the idea of trading Fried as soon as this offseason.
Elsewhere on the site, we took a look back in Braves history. Atlanta has historically not been shy about reuniting with players who previously played for them. In fact, this has happened enough that we had to break this into two parts with the Braves hitters reunion history going up yesterday.
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The biggest baseball news yesterday, though, came very late in the evening and came from outside the Braves organization. Carlos Correa has been arguably the biggest prize this offseason and it looks like the Giants finally found someone to throw a ton of money it. It was reported that San Francisco and Correa came to terms on a massive 13 year, $350 million deal. The number of massive, very long contracts handed out this offseason has been wild.
While we wait to see how Dansby’s market develops (and it sure looks like he is set to cash in as the last shortstop on the market and a ton of teams that want one), Carlos Rodon’s free agency continues on with his eyes set on getting one of these long-term, high AAV deals that have been getting handed out this offseason. Rodon still wants seven years at around $30 million a year and that has proven to be an obstacle in his negotiations with the Yankees.