We are in the closing days of what has been a long offseason, and the story has been remarkably consistent when it comes to the Atlanta Braves. They made most of their moves reasonably quickly, had one of them backfire immediately after Ha-Seong Kim's injury, and then the Braves have just been monitoring the starting pitching market ever since, looking for the right opportunity, if any.
At this point, adding an impact starter feels more like a luxury than a true "need" as the Braves already have a lot of rotation options to choose from this spring. If they were to add an arm before the start of the season, Chris Bassitt or Lucas Giolito feel much more likely than an arm like Zac Gallen, even if his upside is definitely the highest of the three.
Still, there are some Braves fans who were clinging to hope that Atlanta could land Gallen and that he would become a Cy Young candidate again. That would be fun, but Bleacher Report recently (and correctly) put the Braves in the dark-horse candidate category for Gallen, and that was before the news came down that Framber Valdez just got $38 million a year for three years from the Tigers.
Braves odds of signing Zac Gallen just keep going further and further down
One overriding concern that remains true when it comes to signing Gallen is that he declined a qualifying offer. That means the Braves would lose a draft pick by signing him, which, in their case, means losing the 28th overall pick they got from Drake Baldwin's ROY win. While the Braves have said that a QO wouldn't deter them from signing the right guy, the right guy being Gallen is questionable at best.
If that weren't bad enough, the Braves also probably don't want to meet Gallen's likely contract demands now. Valdez got a pretty sweet deal for a high AAV that he can opt out of after one year. Atlanta isn't necessarily afraid of a high AAV short-term deal, but they basically never give out opt-outs. Gallen's price tag probably going up, combined with the draft pick loss, feel like hurdles that the Braves just won't try to jump over.
We'll know soon enough, as the pitching market could move very quickly with Valdez off the market and the start of camp just days away. The safe bet is that the Braves will continue to be opportunistic, but won't push too hard. Even if they defy the odds and add an arm, fans probably need to accept it isn't likely to be Gallen.