Braves News: Max Fried headed to arbitration, IFA signing day, more
The Atlanta Braves have a big day today as the international free agent signing period opens up. The Braves are widely expected to sign one of the top players in the class, Luis Guanipa, to a healthy seven figure deal, although the rest of their class is not public knowledge as of yet. We put together an IFA preview where you can learn about how much money the Braves have to spend and how international free agency is expected to play out this year.
More Braves News
To the shock of basically no one, Max Fried seems like he is heading to an arbitration hearing. Nothing technically keeps the Braves from continuing to negotiate with Fried on a settlement, but the Braves have traditionally been a “file and trial” team which essentially means that once the team and the player file their arb figures, they just forgo further negotiations and let arbitration sort it out. The Braves filed $13.5 million for Max’s salary in 2023 while Fried filed at $15 million. Given Fried’s performance, he might be favored to win despite the fact that we are already well above what he was projected to get in arb this season.
We also took a look at the state of third base around the National League East going into 2023 yesterday. There are some decent players at the hot corner in the division, although fans of Austin Riley will likely be happy where we have the slugger ranked vs. the rest of the division.
MLB News
It was a relatively quiet day on Saturday around the league, although there were certainly some fascinating details to come out about Carlos Correa’s physicals with the Giants and Mets. The same doctor (who is a highly regarded ankle surgeon) was consulted by both teams regarding Correa’s ankle and he essentially “failed” Correa both times. That said, it does sound like the Mets also asked other doctors as well which makes us wonder what is going in that ankle of Correa’s.
Meanwhile, the Yankees are likely to be missing at least one of the arms in their rotation as Frankie Montas could miss as much as the first month of the season according to reports. Montas is dealing with shoulder inflammation which also plagued him a good bit last season.