Front Office: A+
A 60 win first half doesn’t happen by accident. The steps to this level of success begins long before opening day. That’s where Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos enters the fold. Building a winning baseball team starts as soon as the final out of the World Series is recorded.
The Braves were great last season, but that doesn’t mean they would be rolling out the same squad that won them 101 games in 2022. They had questions in free agency, holes in the roster to fill, and AA wasted no time.
His first big move was trading for an elite player that was available even though the Braves were very successful at his position in 2022. AA got Oakland’s best player for the second straight offseason, and immediately signed him to an extension. All Sean Murphy has done is put up career high offensive numbers and rank 4th in all of baseball in fWAR (3.9).
Everyone questioned the reasoning to not pay Dansby Swanson, and enter spring training with Vaughn Grissom the frontrunner for the shortstop job. Instead is was Orlando Arcia who won the job and received an extension that was a fraction of Dansby’s payday from the Cubs. Fast forward a few months and Orlando Arcia is set to start in his first All-Star game.
It has become wizardry. Fans from other teams’ across the league display more envy than a bitter ex-girlfriend. Braves fans call for his statue to be built outside Truist with every extension he hands out. He put together one of the best trade deadlines ever in 2021, with each acquisition playing a vital role in a World Series Championship. It’s been more of the same this year, and Braves fans hope they’re living in the Anthopolous era for as long as they can.