The Braves were the offseason’s least active free agent spender. With payroll mounting, they allowed a star hitter to depart for a second straight offseason. Atlanta instead landed arguably the top player of the winter trade market, promptly extending him to join a loaded internal group.
Major League signings
- RF Jordan Luplow: One-year deal, $1.4M (eligible for arbitration through 2024)
- RHP Nick Anderson: One-year deal worth $875K for time spent in majors (eligible for arbitration through 2025)
- RHP Jackson Stephens: One-year deal worth $740K for time spent in majors (later outrighted to Triple-A)
2023 spending: $1.4M
Total spending: $1.4M
Option decisions
- RHP Jake Odorizzi exercised $12.5M player option instead of $6.25M buyout
Trades and claims
- Acquired LF Sam Hilliard from Rockies for minor league RHP Dylan Spain
- Traded RHP Jake Odorizzi and $10M to Rangers for LHP Kolby Allard
- Acquired RHP Dennis Santana from Rangers for cash (later lost on waivers to Minnesota)
- Acquired 2B Hoy Park from Red Sox for cash or player to be named later (later outrighted to Triple-A)
- Acquired RHP Joe Jiménez from Tigers for minor league 3B Justyn-Henry Malloy and minor league LHP Jake Higginbotham
- Acquired C Sean Murphy from Athletics in three-team trade that sent C William Contreras and minor league RHP Justin Yeager to Milwaukee and LHP Kyle Muller, RHP Freddy Tarnok and minor league RHP Royber Salinas to Oakland
- Acquired 1B Lewin Díaz from Orioles for cash (later lost on waivers to Baltimore)
- Acquired LHP Lucas Luetge from Yankees for minor league IF Caleb Durbin and minor league RHP Indigo Diaz
- Acquired CF Eli White from Rangers for cash
Notable minor league signings
- Ehire Adrianza, Jesse Chavez, Joshua Fuentes, Joe Harvey, Adeiny Hechavarría, Joe Hudson, Ryder Jones, Brian Moran, Kevin Pillar, Alan Rangel, Yacksel Ríos, Yolmer Sánchez, Magneuris Sierra, Matt Swarmer, Ty Tice, Forrest Wall, Brooks Wilson
Extensions
- Signed LHP Tyler Matzek to two-year, $3.1M extension (deal also contains 2025 club option and potentially buys out one free agent year)
- Signed C Sean Murphy to six-year, $73M extension (deal also contains 2029 club option and potentially buys out four free agent years)
Notable losses
- Dansby Swanson, Contreras, Adam Duvall, Kenley Jansen, Odorizzi, Robbie Grossman, Darren O’Day (retired), Muller, Alex Dickerson, Silvino Bracho, Jay Jackson, William Woods, Tarnok, Rylan Bannon, Salinas, Malloy
The Braves had an otherworldly second half to secure their fifth consecutive NL East title. Unlike the year before, they weren’t able to catch fire during the postseason. After losing in the Division Series to the Phillies, Atlanta went into the offseason again facing the potential departure of a star position player.
As was the case with Freddie Freeman a year ago, there was some early belief the Braves wouldn’t part ways with Dansby Swanson. The former first overall pick is a Georgia native and had emerged as a clubhouse leader, to say nothing of his excellent durability and quality production on both sides of the ball.
Yet reports even before the offseason began suggested Atlanta had floated around $100M in extension talks — a number that might’ve been acceptable early in the year but looked very light by the start of the offseason.
Atlanta made Swanson a qualifying offer that he predictably rejected. There didn’t seem to be much further contact; Mark Bowman of MLB.com reported in early December that Atlanta and Swanson’s camp hadn’t had any real negotiations since the start of the offseason.
Two weeks after that, Swanson was a Cub. His $177M guarantee with Chicago shattered Atlanta’s reported offer from during the season. The Braves picked up a compensatory draft pick but go into 2023 with a question mark at shortstop for the first time in years.
Swanson was one of four All-Star caliber shortstops available in free agency. Atlanta was never substantively linked to any of Trea Turner, Carlos Correa or Xander Bogaerts either, hinting at the payroll questions that surrounded the organization throughout the winter.
No organization has been as successful as the Braves at signing early-career players to long-term extensions. Deals for the likes of Ronald Acuña Jr., Ozzie Albies, Spencer Strider, Austin Riley, Matt Olson and Michael Harris II have locked in a core that should compete throughout the decade. Yet those contracts have run up the payroll, limiting the club’s flexibility to attack free agency.
Atlanta entered the winter with a projected franchise-record payroll. The Liberty Media ownership group floated the notion of running top five payrolls in the near future. That raised the expectations among some within the fanbase but always felt a bit misleading, as Atlanta’s existing commitments put them in the back half of the top ten in spending already. There simply didn’t seem to be much room for the front office to play the open market.
No other team spent less in free agency. Atlanta’s only major league free agent signees were corner outfielder Jordan Luplow and relievers Nick Anderson and Jackson Stephens (the latter two of whom signed split deals that pay less for time spent in the minors).
All three players had been cut at the start of the offseason — Stephens by the Braves themselves — and none will open this year on the MLB roster. Luplow and Anderson have already been optioned to Triple-A, while Atlanta ran Stephens through waivers and sent him outright to Gwinnett.
Without much spending capacity, Braves’ brass turned to the trade market to bolster a win-now roster. Atlanta orchestrated arguably the biggest trade of the winter, a three-team blockbuster that registered as a major surprise.
There was never much doubt the rebuilding A’s would trade Sean Murphy. However, few would’ve pegged Atlanta as the landing spot back in November. The Braves already had a quality catching group consisting of Travis d’Arnaud, William Contreras and Manny Piña. There were plenty of other teams with a more dire catching need.
Murphy is a special player, though, one whom Atlanta pursued despite that positional depth. He’s among the sport’s best defensive catchers and has hit at an above-average level throughout his four-season career.
Murphy has topped 15 home runs in each of the last two years despite playing his home games in one of the sport’s least favorable offensive environments. He draws walks, has power, and posted a personal-low 20.3% strikeout rate last season. There aren’t many more valuable all-around catchers.
Even a team with as much depth as the Braves would upgrade from adding a player of that caliber. Shortly after the Winter Meetings, Atlanta pulled it off by looping in the Brewers in a three-team deal that would send young outfielder Esteury Ruiz from Milwaukee to Oakland.
Contreras, a quality hitter with some defensive concerns, was shipped off to Milwaukee as their catcher of the future. Piña headed back to the A’s as part of a salary offset. The Braves relinquished some upper level rotation depth, packaging Kyle Muller, Freddy Tarnok and High-A pitching prospect Royber Salinas to Oakland.
Atlanta gave up a handful of well-regarded players but no one in that group looks like the kind of headliner the Braves will be devastated to lose, particularly since Murphy steps in as an immediate upgrade over the best player they relinquished.
A big part of Murphy’s appeal was his three remaining seasons of arbitration eligibility. While he was controllable at below-market rates through 2025, Atlanta committed to him as part of the core long before he ever donned a Braves uniform.
Within weeks of the trade, Murphy and the Braves had agreed to a $73M extension that buys out three free agent years and gives the club an affordable $15M option for a fourth. It was another extension that has the potential to be a team-friendly pact and aligns well with the contention window for this core.
With Murphy in the fold, d’Arnaud gets pushed into the role of overqualified backup. Atlanta quickly made clear they wouldn’t look to trade him. They’ll instead deploy him frequently as the designated hitter and on rest days for Murphy. It served to indirectly upgrade a DH position that was one of the few position player weaknesses on the roster.
How to divvy up DH playing time dovetails with one of the other questionable spots: left field. Marcell Ozuna hasn’t performed well through the first two seasons of a four-year deal. He’s still due $37M over the next couple seasons and remains on the roster. Atlanta looks set to give him another shot to reestablish himself offensively while splitting time between left field and DH.
That’s also true of Eddie Rosario. He followed up his 2021 World Series heroics with a disastrous ’22 campaign, hitting .212/.259/.328 in 80 games. The organization has attributed those struggles to an eye issue for which he underwent corrective vision surgery last April.
There’s presumably some merit to that but Rosario has been one of the sport’s streakiest players throughout his eight-year MLB career. He’s not likely to be as bad as he was last season but he’s also not the established offensive force a team would be enthused to have in left field.
Rather than bring in a clear upgrade, Atlanta took a volume approach to left field. Luplow signed to add a right-handed matchup bat to the mix. The Braves took a flier on the toolsy Sam Hilliard, a former Rockie with big power but massive strikeout tallies. Atlanta also acquired defensive specialist Eli White from the Rangers and brought in veteran Kevin Pillar on a minor league deal.
Adam Duvall and Robbie Grossman were allowed to depart in free agency. Hilliard and Pillar remain in MLB camp and could have the leg up on season-opening bench spots, with Hilliard out of minor league options and Pillar having the right to retest free agency if he doesn’t make the Opening Day roster.
It’s a hodgepodge of options without a clear solution, one where the organization seems set to take a hot hand approach. Whoever’s in left will be joined by two of the sport’s top young outfielders in Harris and Acuña. It’s a similar story on the infield, where three stars are joined by one area of concern.
Olson and Albies will be back on the left side of the infield. Riley has third base secured. Atlanta maintained throughout the winter it’d be an open competition to replace Swanson. There seemed a general expectation that 22-year-old Vaughn Grissom would take that job after he flashed some offensive potential last season while Albies was injured.
Grissom’s production tailed off after a scorching start and prospect evaluators aren’t convinced he’ll be able to handle the position defensively. Atlanta settled the Opening Day shortstop debate yesterday, optioning both Grissom and former first-round pick Braden Shewmake to Gwinnett.
The job now falls to Orlando Arcia, an experienced utility option whose career offensive track record is below-average. The 28-year-old hit at a decent .244/.316/.416 clip in part-time action last season, however. The Braves will go with stability over upside in the early going, turning to Arcia and likely tabbing non-roster invitee Ehire Adrianza as a utility option off the bench.
There’s no question they’re in for a downgrade relative to Swanson, though that would’ve been true regardless of which player won the job. Arcia is an unexciting stopgap whom the club will count on as a low-end regular while giving Grissom and Shewmake more developmental run.
The Braves could have turned to a veteran free agent like Elvis Andrus or José Iglesias for little cost but apparently don’t consider either to be a better player than Arcia.
While a veteran won the shortstop job out of camp, Atlanta’s fifth starter role looks as if it’ll fall to a rookie. The Braves have an elite top four with Max Fried, Strider, Kyle Wright and Charlie Morton.
Atlanta cleared a path to the fifth spot for a young pitcher at the start of the offseason, paying down $10M of Jake Odorizzi’s $12.5M contract to offload him to Texas. That deal brought back former first-round pick Kolby Allard, who has gotten hit hard at the MLB level and will start the year on the injured list because of an oblique issue.
With Odorizzi out of the picture, the fifth starter job seemed to fall to one of Ian Anderson, Bryce Elder or Michael Soroka. Soroka fell out of the Opening Day mix by suffering a hamstring injury. Meanwhile, Anderson and Elder got leapfrogged on the depth chart by prospects Jared Shuster and Dylan Dodd, both of whom have excelled in camp.
Anderson and Elder were optioned out, leaving Dodd and Shuster to battle for the fifth spot. Neither has yet played in MLB; they’re both coming off strong seasons in the upper minors and have quality secondary stuff and command to compensate for mediocre velocity.
As with any team, the Braves are sure to cycle through a number of pitchers at the back of the rotation as injuries and performance necessitate.
The fifth spot shouldn’t be a huge concern thanks to the elite front four and a bullpen that again looks like one of the game’s best. They let closer Kenley Jansen walk after one very good season in Atlanta but have ample possibilities to fill the high-leverage innings.
The Braves acquired Raisel Iglesias at last summer’s deadline as a ready-made closing replacement for Jansen. A.J. Minter and Dylan Lee are excellent setup options from the left side. Atlanta brought in veteran specialist Lucas Luetge in a trade after he was designated for assignment by the Yankees to add a third quality left-hander.
Collin McHugh and Kirby Yates are right-handed setup options. The Braves landed one of the better relievers available in trade this offseason, sending third base/corner outfield prospect Justyn-Henry Malloy to Detroit for the final arbitration season of hard-throwing righty Joe Jiménez.
That’s seven spots accounted for if everyone’s healthy. Anderson and Stephens could get looks in a depth capacity at some point. Old friend Jesse Chavez is back in camp as a non-roster invitee and might get the first crack at a long relief role.
Atlanta agreed to a two-year deal with Tyler Matzek to cement him as a part of the 2024 relief corps, though he won’t be available this season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in October.
Once the offseason roster work was complete, the Braves turned their attention to a couple administrative concerns. Atlanta signed manager Brian Snitker to an extension that runs through 2025, tacking on two guaranteed seasons to his existing deal.
That came on the heels of a notable front office departure, with vice president of scouting Dana Brown departing in January to take over baseball operations with the Astros.
There were a few high-level changes this winter but much of the Braves’ offseason is built around continuity. The Braves struck for one of the biggest trades and added a couple relievers in smaller deals. They did virtually nothing in free agency while watching Swanson and Jansen sign elsewhere.
While it may not have been the most exciting winter for the fanbase, the Braves will head into the season with a legitimate goal of claiming a sixth straight NL East title.
The organization has committed to this core and the group will try to again hold off the ascendant Mets and Phillies in arguably the game’s most competitive division.
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