Atlanta Flexes Its Financial Muscles With Extensions
When the Braves signed Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies to phenomenally team-friendly contracts before the 2019 season, two distinct possibilities loomed. First, the team could bank the money they saved and put out a good team at a discounted price. Second, they could reinvest those savings and attempt to put together a great team. Which they chose would say a lot about how the team planned on operating long-term.
The question is no longer open. The Braves have overcome a season-ending injury to Acuña to surge to the top of the NL East, and while the Phillies and Mets continue to nip at their heals, they’re well on their way to a fourth straight division title. They’ve done so thanks to some new young contributors — Austin Riley and Ian Anderson have come into their own this year. They’ve made some savvy signings and trades — Charlie Morton has been their best pitcher this year, and Jorge Soler has been excellent since joining the team.
Now, the Braves are making moves to prolong their stay atop the division. In late August, they signed Travis d’Arnaud to a two-year extension. They followed that up by signing Morton to a one-year deal (both contracts have team options tacked on). Let’s take a look at both of those deals, as well as how they affect the team’s outlook for next year and beyond.
Signing d’Arnaud to an extension — two years and $16 million with a team option for a third year — was hardly an obvious move for the team. He missed the majority of the season after tearing a ligament in his thumb in May. He’s hit well since his return, but even so, his seasonal line works out to an 84 wRC+. Combine that with solid receiving, and the total package works out to a roughly average catcher.
What made the Braves so eager to lock d’Arnaud up? His replacements fell well short of that average catcher bar. On the year, Atlanta’s catcher position has produced -1.4 WAR, the worst mark in the majors. It’s not an individual problem; a huge array of catchers have combined to weigh the position down:
| Player | PA | wRC+ | Def | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Travis d’Arnaud | 148 | 84 | 4.2 | 0.5 |
| Jonathan Lucroy | 9 | 130 | -0.1 | 0.1 |
| Jeff Mathis | 9 | -100 | 0.3 | -0.2 |
| Alex Jackson | 28 | -20 | 0.2 | -0.3 |
| William Contreras | 166 | 72 | -3.0 | -0.4 |
| Kevan Smith | 101 | 17 | 2.6 | -0.5 |
| Stephen Vogt | 85 | 2 | 1.9 | -0.5 |
Relative to that mess, d’Arnaud is a huge improvement. That’s not to say that Contreras won’t figure it out, or that Vogt isn’t a capable backup. But for a team with an embarrassment of riches at most positions, giving away so much value at catcher doesn’t make sense. It gets worse: the list of free agent catchers this offseason is nasty, brutish, and short. Yan Gomes and Martín Maldonado are the headliners, and it gets worse from there. Miss signing your target, and you might be in for a long offseason.
It’s not just stability at an acceptable level, though; d’Arnaud has shown flashes of being far better than that, a plus offensive presence at the toughest defensive position on the field. In 2020, he had a breakout season, hitting .321/.386/.533 over 31 starts, good for a 144 wRC+. That’s hardly a reasonable expectation for him going forward, but he’s displayed plus power in four straight years now, and he doesn’t need to retain all of that power to clear a league average batting line given his career 18.8% strikeout rate.
Morton signed for more money than d’Arnaud, and he deserves it. After flirting with retirement this offseason, he’s been a rock atop the Atlanta rotation, making every start and putting up a 3.47 ERA, 3.29 FIP, 3.25 xFIP, 3.33 xERA, 3.52 SIERA, and probably a mid-3.00’s mark in several ERA estimators so advanced they haven’t yet been discovered. In other words, he’s been late-career Charlie Morton; since turning his career around in Houston, he’s put up a 3.37 ERA and 3.28 FIP over five years of work.
What’s more, he’s fought off the specter of aging spectacularly. His fastball averaged only 93.4 mph in 2020, his worst mark since his Houston rejuvenation. That was down more than a tick since 2019, which was itself down more than a tick from ’18. I don’t have to draw you a trendline; that’s a bad pattern. This year, he’s back up to 95.5 mph, and he’s throwing his snapdragon curveball harder than he has in four years.
Worried about spin in the wake of the foreign substance crackdown? Morton averaged 2,339 rpm on his fastball before the crackdown. Since then, he’s averaged… 2,337 rpm. He’s gained a hair of velocity, but it’s a non-story. There’s very little to nitpick about his season; his walk rate is up a smidge, but overall, it looks like he’s the same ageless Morton as ever, a two-pitch monster who will turn in six innings of solid work every five days until the heat death of the universe.
Does that production merit a $20 million contract? In my eyes, it easily does. Contracts will likely look different after this year’s CBA negotiation, but durable pitchers with track records of excellent performance are always going to be hot items in free agency. Getting someone like that on a one-year deal is the brass ring; Morton has said he’ll only play in the Southeast, so many teams wouldn’t be able to compete for his services, but on the open market, I think he’d be able to secure an even larger one-year deal.
There’s the matter of his team option, but it’s honestly a small matter. If Morton doesn’t want to play after next year, he’ll retire. If he wants to stay with the Braves, they’ll work something out. That might sound overly simple, but when you’re a pitcher of Morton’s caliber willing to sign a one-year deal, you can generally count on teams working with you on it.
The Braves have plenty of exciting young arms, but Morton is both a stabilizing presence and the staff ace. Anderson and Max Fried have both been excellent this year, but they’ve missed their fair share of starts — Morton has made 28, against 23 for Fried and 24 for Anderson (counting Triple-A). Mike Soroka won’t be back before next year’s All-Star break. Huascar Ynoa has been a pleasant surprise, but it’s hard to count on him as more than a mid-rotation arm next year. Morton upgrades the situation from sketchy to plus.
In fact, these two extensions set the Braves up to be above-average nearly across the board next year — give or take some outfield musical chairs. The key remaining point of uncertainty is what Freddie Freeman will do. Most likely, the answer is simple: he and the team will agree on an extension that lets him retire as a Brave, or at least keeps him on the team for the foreseeable future. He’s coming off an eight-year contract at only 31 years of age (32 when the contract actually expires) thanks to an extension he signed early in his career.
What it might cost to retain Freeman is an interesting question. Loyalty aside, he’s the best pure hitter available in this free agent class — sorry, Nelson Cruz, Kris Bryant, Nick Castellanos, and Corey Seager. On the other hand, he’s a corner infielder above the age of 30, hardly a group that draws outsize interest on the open market. Something like four years and $80 million would work for both parties; it’s close to fair value for his contributions, keeps him in Atlanta long enough that he can chase career milestones and Hall of Fame accolades there, and threads the needle of reducing his salary without looking like a slap in the face. I have no information on this whatsoever, but a deal in that vein makes perfect sense to me.
Here again, the Acuña and Albies contracts pay huge dividends (and underscore just how absurdly team friendly they were). The two of them stand to make a combined $20 million in 2022, $12 million more than they made this year. But that’s still a huge surplus for the team, which gives them the ability to spend elsewhere. With Marcell Ozuna’s future on the team very much in doubt, you might expect Atlanta to pinch pennies elsewhere, but their two under-market stars give them the space to splurge.
If the team extends Freeman for $20 million dollars and allows the rest of their free agents to walk — Drew Smyly, Eddie Rosario, Chris Martin, Joc Pederson, Adam Duvall, and Soler are the headliners there — they’ll have a payroll in the $140-150 million range next year, depending on arbitration awards and non-tender decisions. That’s assuming they’re still responsible for Ozuna’s contract, which is unclear at the moment.
If ever you needed an example of why teams want to sign their young stars to extensions, look no further. Whatever you think of those contracts (and you’d be forgiven if Albies’ in particular makes you cringe), it’s hard to disagree with the way Atlanta is using them to build a roster. Their existing contracts give them the ability to target proven veterans to fill in the rest of the roster. That can happen in free agency, but it can also take the form of extending the ones they’ve already found. Assuming they keep Freeman in the fold, it’s hard to find fault with the path they’ve chosen.
All statistics for games through September 6.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
You’re welcome.
I get you’re making below market rate, but it’s still enough to be a Member, Ozzie
Seems like the last move after signing Freeman may be to bring back Duvall, given the uncertainty with Atlanta’s top outfield prospects in AAA and the Ozuna mess. Regardless of the contract situation, I’d rather not cheer for a team with him on it. They’d still have holes in the bullpen, but maybe they’re committed to filling those with a mix of all those good-not-great starter prospects milling around AAA and the periphery of the major league roster
seems like the Angels and Freeman would be a nice fit. I wonder if Rendon’s implosion this year might have them hesitant to offer big deals to aging corner infielders going forward
You’d think Pujols’s deal would’ve already done that before Rendon.
This would be fun but they sorely need pitching. I’d rather they sign Gausman. Correa would be nice for them too, but they need pitching first imo.
If the Angels convince themselves that they can do their pitching staff on the cheap, I can see them going somewhat aggressively after Freeman. Their first priority has got to be an extension for Ohtani in the next 12-15 months, and if the luxury tax threshold doesn’t drop they may be able to swing both (especially if they wait until Upton is gone at the end of 2022).
4/80 for Freeman seems laughably small, particularly in length.
I think he’s going to be hoping for a contract that will go through the rest of his career, which very well might end in his age 35 or 36 season (I can’t figure out which one it would go through). The problem is that I’m guessing he think he’ll play forever.
Of course, based on what we’ve seen from FA contracts for first basemen lately, 4/$80M is probably a fair deal (see: Cabrera, Pujols, Davis, Howard…and Hosmer if you want). My guess is that the total guarantee comes out around $100M at either 5 or 6 years.
Wait wait wait…why is 4/80 a fair deal?
I would backtrack from the term “fair” upon thinking about it. “Fair” is subjective. If I were a team, given my budget, I would be nervous giving any deal of any length to a 30+ year old first baseman after what happened to Pujols, Davis, Howard, and Cabrera. Maybe you get lucky and they age like Carlos Santana, but they probably won’t.
I’d do 4/$80M without getting too worried. But the chances are this deal will start going south immediately, so I would not want to go much above that. Let someone else give him the money. And I would absolutely walk away if the total guarantee got much higher than $100M. Big contracts for 30-something first basemen are a trap.
The deal they sign, if fair, will start going south immediately, provided the expected outcome. That ain’t this deal. If Freeman had one more year on his current deal (let’s say at $20 million) and reports came out that he asked for a 3/$60 million extension and the Braves said no, fans would riot.
There is the freaking Goldilocks of comps for Freeman. Paul Goldschmidt. Within days of the same age, and as close to the same in position, body type, pedigree as you could hope to find. He got 5/$130 million. To me, that’s the starting point. Yes, the last couple of years could get messy. It’s not even impossible that it gets messier early. But this is the best chance to win. You don’t give that up. And you especially don’t when giving up is also sending your franchise player, who is very much an elite player still, off down the road to another team.
The odds of Freeman’s bat dropping too much to be a viable DH (which I think is inevitable for the NL) are really low – certainly less risk there than there was for Howard and especially Davis. Freeman and Goldschmidt are both starting off with better track records than the 4 guys being discussed here, as well as J.D. Martinez, who got $110m to be a strict DH.
Given the relationship between Freeman and the Braves, I don’t think there’s any need for opt-outs or other sweeteners like there have been for recent FAs like J.D. Something like Goldschmidt’s deal would probably keep Freeman from leaving Atlanta with a low risk of being an albatross contract for most of its duration.
You’ve outlined the playbook and the reasons why they’re going to do it, but it’s also not really a good idea if it means ownership is going to hold it against the front office later. If a team is fine with paying out extra money because the guy is a hometown star, that’s fine as long as they don’t cheap out later. But they often do.
We use Goldschmidt as a comp and he is on quite a heater right now but his deal is one of the worst in MLB from the team’s perspective, and pretty much the only ones who are worse are other first basemen on big deals. This is the worst demographic to invest in. This one might turn out better, but Freeman will be coming off of a worse season than Goldschmidt had (most likely).
If you take both Freeman’s current level of production (which is remarkably similar to 2019 too) and future projections, it comes out to about a 4-win player in 2022, and probably the aging curve looks like half-win decrements after that. By 2025 you’re looking at him being pretty average; by 2027 you’re looking at a guy who probably can’t start anymore.
I realize I’m shouting into the wind at this point and it could turn out well but there are big flashing warning signs all over this.
One would hope that paying a bit above the PV of future value for a face-of-the-franchise guy wouldn’t give a team an excuse to cheap out later, since one of the benefits of keeping a guy like Freeman (or Rizzo for that matter) should be some additional revenue from higher fan interest vs. the alternative of letting a fan favorite go.
That said, I can’t disagree about the track record of owners going cheap without rational provocation (Moreno, Ricketts, etc.)
This comment section is obviously a bunch of diehard braves fans. They understandably can’t look at Freeman without getting emotional. But I thumbed you up cause your right! Firstbasemen typically age poorly so its likely Freeman will be overpaid appreciably in the next contract. But as biased Nats fan I really hope they go way over $100 million and have him under contract into his 40s.
I think optics are going to play a large part in the terms of the deal, given Freeman’s stature as the face of the franchise. So that probably means giving him the highest AAV on the team, which would have to match Morton’s $20M.
On the other hand, you’d probably need to go at least 7-8 years if you want to sell Freeman and the general public on locking him up for the rest of his career. If that’s the case, you might swing something with a lower AAV spread out over a longer period.
So my guess is that an extension would go somewhere between 5/110 and 9/150. If Freeman hits FA, the gap between Freeman and other potential FA 1B/bats will drive the AAV up, so the landing point would probably be between 4/100 and 7/140.
You may be right but the idea of giving more than $100M to a first baseman of his age is a terrible idea. This mistake gets made so often that it will probably be made again, by Atlanta or someone else. Even if the projections make it seem like he’ll be fine, it seems like every first baseman turns into a pumpkin around this time.
Morton is $10M, not $20M.
I stand corrected. I thought Morton was $10M with another $10M for an option year. $20M is no bargain for one year.
Both the length and the dollars make it a bargain. He easily could have found a multi-year deal in FA but he continues to flirt with retirement.
As for AAV, he could’ve gotten $25-30M for 1 year on the open market as a 4 WAR pitcher even if he’s going to be 38 next year.
It’s not an Acuna or Albies bargain but it’s definitely below market.
By listing all those players (Cabrera, Pujols, Davis, Howard, Hosmer) you just reinforced the fact that Freeman will get more than $20m per.
And with that comp group also reinforced that history will not view the deal kindly. Yikes and gadzooks.
Well, while Pujols and Cabrera were much better than Freeman through age 31, those other guys really weren’t, and Davis, Howard and Cabrera were different body types, and Cabrera’s lifestyle can’t have helped him. Again, Pujols was leaps and bounds better than Freeman through age 31, but he actually wasn’t terrible age 32-36. If the Braves could get that production, $130 million would be more than fair.
Pujols, minus healthy knees and legs, dropped down to the Fred McGriff level in his mid 30’s, which is not a bad return if that’s where his deal ended. It’s the Eric Hosmer level performance in his late 30’s that turned his contract into a stinker.
It’s also the significant gut that helped turn his contract into a stinker. The carefully tailored uniform can’t disguise that he’s carrying the equivalent of an enormous Thanksgiving turkey strapped to his waist.
I get that Pujols is beloved in places, but he’s fat, he’s been fat for a while, and somehow it’s never mentioned.
Agreed on both counts.
His skillset doesn’t look like he’s likely to implode before 35.
(At 4/80 even Cleveland can afford him and he’d slot in perfectly.)
Even with lots of opt out and player options he should be in line for 100m+ and if the owners offer of a salary floor is serious (plus the expected NL DH slot), a lot more.
He hits lefties well, plays a solid 1B, and is pretty athletic overall. Even if his aging curve includes a lot of wear and tear type loss of range and quickness, he still has value as a 120-125 wRC+ type DH.
This is what I was thinking. Paul Goldschmidt got 5/130 a couple years ago at about the same age.
Goldschmidt is a real good comp. Both he and Freeman have been on a Fred McGriff type career trajectory thus far.
Both Freeman and Goldschmidt are sorely lacking in “Tom Emansky defensive drills” VHS tapes however
Anthony Rizzo is not excited if Freeman is signing for 4/80.
Heh. Anthony Rizzo would be lucky to get 3/45 if Freeman gets 4/80. Though I do think the market will be cold for Rizzo regardless of what Freeman gets. He’ll be 32 and only plays one position and it’s the least important position on the diamond. Hasn’t had a truly good offensive season since 2019. Most contenders have a 1B. Idk, I just don’t see a hot market for him. I heard he turned down 4/70 or so from the Cubs and I’m thinking he should’ve taken that and ran.
He’s got a bad back, too. Not only is the production down from his peak, you just can’t count on him long-term.
He’s got a nasty slider though. Just ask Freeman.
Paul Goldschmidt is almost exactly two years older than Freeman, and he got $130/5 for the 2020-24 seasons. I think Freeman is almost certain to match that and very likely to beat it.
He is a lock to beat it, imo. I’d take the over on 150m. Whether or not it will workout is another deal, but it is the most likely contract range. Guy just won an mvp and will get votes this year as well… Even if awards don’t matter, mvps aren’t gonna get 20m per.
“When the Braves signed Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies to phenomenally team-friendly contracts before the 2019 season, two distinct possibilities loomed. First, the team could bank the money they saved and put out a good team at a discounted price. Second, they could reinvest those savings and attempt to put together a great team. Which they chose would say a lot about how the team planned on operating long-term… The question is no longer open.”
I feel like that opening accepts some pretty brazenly untrue ownership spin without a challenge and is very removed from the Braves actual financial reality. Albies and Acuña would be in arbitration making way below their market value if they hadn’t signed extensions, so it’s misleading to imply that they could only afford to make the team better by signing TDA and Morton because they saved money on contracts that were universally seen as team friendly to the point of not being negotiated in good faith by their agents.
The Braves are also only 12th in payroll commitment next year, and given that they have fewer roster openings to fill, they will almost certainly drop to at least 13th behind the Giants. Their closest comparisons in terms of market size and market share are probably the Cardinals and Astros, and the Braves spend less than either.
In general, implying that sports teams run on some kind of fixed budget that they have to allocate like
a small business would is misleading. Ownership and front offices assemble teams the way old money New Englanders shop for antiques – there is a theoretical max to what they are willing to spend, but they never really come close to reaching it. They also evaluate each deal individually, so getting a good deal on one thing doesn’t make them more inclined to spend on something else. The fact that the Braves thought TDA and Morton were worth it for $16 and $20 million, respectively, has almost nothing to do with Albies and Acuña (aside from the fact that they wouldn’t sign the short term deals if the team wasn’t already competitive). If Mike Trout’s long lost, equally talented identical twin showed up the first day of spring training when every team had already assembled their roster allocating their theoretical budget for the year, they would all jump at the opportunity to give him $30+ million above their supposed budget limit.
You did hear the owners offered up a $100M salary floor in return for a fourth tier of “soft” cap, right?
It’s just a negotiating tactic at this point but it makes a case for budget predictability and making team payrolls be, in fact, a lot more like other businesses with fixed overheads.
Now, as a fan, imagine what teams like the Rays and ‘Dians might do with budgets regularly above $100M.
Even more competitive balance?
Less salary dumps?
More Hosmer deals? 😀
The new CBA coukd make things a lot more interesting.
That salary floor proposal was pure BS that the league knew would never be agreed to. It’s an opening salvo in the PR battle between the league and the MLBPA in advance of the next CBA negotiations. They knew it would be shot down, but they proposed it so they can claim they gave out a generous offer when the MLBPA counters with what they actually want, which is higher pre-arb and arb salary schedules and some changes to the free agency service time counter.
A salary floor/cap would make the league more competitively balanced, but the MLBPA would never agree (nor should they). Year in, year out competitive balance and economic fairness are mutually exclusive, because the only way to get competitive balance is to artificially limit what teams are able to spend (which results in economic fairness). The NFL is extremely competitively balanced, but star players don’t make anywhere near what they’re worth. European soccer leagues are very economically fair (the best players make the most money), but they are extremely competitively imbalanced (only a handful of teams in each league ever have a legitimate chance to win the regular season title).
I don’t think it would help competitive balance. Did draft pools help competitive balance? Did IFA hard caps help competitive balance? What about the luxury tax? All caps do is redistribute wealth from the players to the owners. Fans of small market teams like it because it gives them the illusion of competitive balance, but in truth, other factors have much more to do with competitive balance than limiting what players can earn.
Lol, I wonder if a mandatory salary floor would trigger the Rays and A’s current owners to throw in the towel and sell their teams. Marlins future looking way up since Loria sailed off into the sunset – so maybe ARod backs a new ownership group in Tampa, and say Dave Stewart does the same for Oakland.
Hmmm…..
No way. These teams are gold mines. Even the A’s and Rays could easily spend an extra 30-40M on payroll a year. Ticket sales, concessions, TV money, revenue sharing, advertising, investments, etc. These teams rake in money.
The mandatory floor comes with more revenue sharing–tgat’s why it’s tied to an expanded salary cap. And, as I said, it is a negotiating ploy, but it’s a ploy that would drastically boost small budget team payrolls by adding extra drag on teams like tbe Dodgers that can and will go way over cap for several years, reset one year, and go back to te topm
It’s a beautiful ploy because it puts the onus on the union.
A bluff.
But a bluff owners can live with. And with the union’s record of throwing young players under the bus they might get played yet again.
With enemies like the MLBPA the owners don’t need friends.
Bottom line, don’t be too quick to write off a floor.
I like the analogy at the end. The way I think about it is that situations like Albies accepting a crazy cheap contract, or Acuna proving to be a steal instead of just a team-friendly fixed cost, are basically “found money” – the same as finding an antique you love for much less than you’ve allowed yourself to spend.
The “fixed budget” type of thinking has a downside given basic human behavior. Say you’re rebuilding and you are easily nine figures below your chosen payroll target. If you really like a free agent veteran to anchor your young roster as they hit their prime, it’s only too easy to agree to overpay $5-10M per year since that single overpay still leaves you with tons of room. But, if you don’t make these kinds of deals a rare exception, you quickly squander any budget wiggle room that may be needed when your roster is “all-in”.
Right.
That’s where the Hosmer deals come in.
A young team with a lot of good cheap players might bring in a payer with more rep than skill just to meet budget.
“implying that sports teams run on some kind of fixed budget that they have to allocate like
a small business would is misleading…”
Perhaps you meant just MLB, but soccer teams around the world routinely lose money.
Soccer teams lose money because the economic model is entirely different from American sports. European sports are very free market/capitalist – there is no draft and no guaranteed team control. The best players make the most money in their prime (which is much more economically fair than American sports), but the leagues are extremely competitively imbalanced. There are only a handful of teams in each league that ever have any serious shot at winning a league title, and the only way for one of the other teams to join that group is to be purchased by ownership willing to lose a lot of money to win.
American pro sports leagues limit economic fairness for players (and thus increase the profit of ownership) in the name of competitive balance. The best players in their primes don’t make their actual market value, but every team has a legitimate chance to win a title in the long run.
I seem to recall that d’Arnaud had his best season offensively last year when he was regularly DHing? Between that and his health I kind of think he shouldn’t be catching everyday. Maybe a candidate to play the corner outfield 40% of the time, catch 40% of the time, and rest the other days. But that would mean they would have to find someone they don’t mind to catch the other 60% of the time. They’re going to be competing with every other team looking for catching help for Yan Gomes and Tucker Barnhart, and it doesn’t look like William Contreras is ready quite yet.
I don’t think he could play the outfield
Why not? He’s pretty athletic for a catcher, has sprint speeds above 26 ft/s. That’s not great but it’s not terrible either. It’s not like we’re talking about Wilson Ramos or Jacob Stallings or (shudder) Albert Pujols.
He wasn’t DHing regularly. He DHed 7 times and caught 34 (I presume 3 were games he subbed at catcher). My guess is the Braves hope to move more into a split-duty situation with either Contrares, Langeliers, or another lower-cost veteran. It’s funny that for most teams you could complain about the catcher position doing what it has in Atlanta this year, but the Braves rode a plethora of has-beens and never-weres to above average production at the catcher position for the last 4-5 years. It was always going to bite them at least once. Your luck will always run out.
Did he miss time last year too? Or rest a lot? That’s 19 games shy of the season. If he was resting I think that reinforces my point even more.
Tyler Flowers really was a pretty good player. I’m not so sure this works without someone who the rest of the league undervalues that much (or maybe it was just that he didn’t want to play anywhere else).
When the season started it seemed like a true split-time situation, but as TdA outplayed Flowers he took on a normal starting catcher role. Braves also got decent production from Kurt Suzuki and Brian McCann. I don’t think it feels overly optimistic to hope Contrares or Langeliers could at least be the lesser part of a catcher split-time situation.
To me, the positive here is that if Contrares or Langeliers ends up being really good, $8 million isn’t even really too bad for a backup catcher that can also maybe DH a bit, too.
Think: part-time DH.
Actually, if we go back to the 30’s a lot of the best teams wirked with dual catchers: one day on, one day off.
A lot of teams are using the dh slot to “rest” payers and still get the bat in the game.
TDA getting 2/16 just shows how scarce catching is. Morton getting 20M is fair. Freddie Freeman will probably point to the Goldschmidt deal as a template, so like 5/135ish. 4/80 is well short of what he deserves imo. 5/100 is getting there, but JD Martinez got 5/100 almost 4 years ago.
If the Braves are at the 4/80 range, I bet there will be several teams in on him there (Yankees, Sox, Giants, etc) and will push the price up.
…and Martinez can’t field.
Freeman is decent at furst and can fake it at third in an emergency. Plus he actually is the face of the franchise, Acuña notwithstanding.
Never forget that the Braves are trash, gained this financial muscle by stealing billions in public money on top of the basic games played with players. I hope their players do awesome but otherwise nothing good for that franchise outside of the worst
Haha easy big fella
Wait until I tell you about the [insert your team’s name here] and what they’ve been up to!
He’s a Cubs fan. Talk about the glassiest of houses…
Lol what? Anyone involved besides me programmed to write more than a cool sentence?
These things your trashing the Braves for in how they operate…is that much different from how the Cubs operate? Aren’t they guilty of many of the same things? Or any other ownership group? The Ricketts dicked around Bryant, they’ve cried poor for years (they’re not poor) to sabotage their club, turn Wrigelyville into a moneymaking playground, and basically piss away all the goodwill of a World Series title in less than five years. Pretty heady stuff there!
I certainly think the Braves wriggling their way into a new stadium is awful, but let’s not pretend that many of these ownership groups are pretty odious. I should know, as a Bucs fan, my guy sucks more than most.
Uuuuuuh…the very specific thing I mentioned the Braves doing is not something the Cubs have ever done, granted not because they failed to try and get some taxpayer money for their private stadium. The Braves do all that stuff the Ricketts and all the other owners do and then bullied their way into a multi-billion dollar heist of taxpayer funds to replace a 20something year old stadium. BOoooo Braves
And yeah there are several teams who have done similar – Loria made out like a bandit in Miami, the Rangers, the A’s have their hands out rn, etc etc
^this hahaha
I’m all ears here
Freeman is an important move, certainly, but I don’t think it’s quite as uncertain as the situation around Ozuna. Liberty has a budget and some wiggle room around Freeman. They have zero idea as to whether they’re paying OZuna next year- and honestly as a fan I don’t want to see him in Braves gear and I don’t think anyone else does either. Once they get clarity there, then I think you’ll see them make decisions about soler, Duvall , and even Pache.
When the Braves and Freeman agreed on his current 8/135 extension, there was a lot of good will going each way: Freeman getting a nice guaranteed deal, and Atlanta getting a rising star to agree to stay on through some rebuilding years.
Fast forward to now, and the Braves’ most recent moves have been to (1) go all-in for the playoff hunt even after losing Acuna made them look like a possible seller and (2) extending key veterans for the next few seasons. I have to think that the Braves have a big leg up on re-signing Freeman, and would have to screw up pretty badly not to get a fair-value deal done with him.
Plus, Freddie lives only a few miles from the new ballpark and he’s got some young kids.
If he moves, no one can rescue him on their 4 wheeler when it snows!
I was just about to mention that duke! Heck, I can just picture a sweet snowmobile with a big bow waiting in Freddie’s driveway if he stays with the Braves.
Freddie will get more than 100 million and probably more than 4 years.
No way Freeman signs for less than $25 million per year, probably 5 years
That deal seems on the low side for Freddie. Talk in the Braves-sphere has Goldschmidt’s last deal as a comp, so something like 5-6 years for 25-30 mill or so.
6×30 might be on the high side but stranger things have happened.
nip at heels, not heals?
Yup heels, as in the back of the foot. As though someone is close behind you.
Nip it, nip it, nip it!
Sincerely,
Deputy B. Fife
Braves being the once great franchise is pretty much done. Everything they do these days is on a budget. They’re not really interested in Wins anymore, they’ll act like it to the fans and put on a good show for 1 or 2 guys like this, but at the end of the day they’ll never be what they were. World series is outside of their budget that they want to spend. They could spend it, they just don’t want too.
Welcome to MLB in 2021. Live and die by efficiency.
Every team is this way. Some just have way more cash flow so it seems like they are spending freely. They aren’t.
This article is really bad. Freeman will get far more than $80M. Maldonado is not a free agent this offseason. Morton only signed for 1 year. Pretty simple stuff.
You suggest the Braves offer 2020 MVP and 2021 MVP contender and perennial 3.5 + Win player Freddie Freeman, less than the Cardinals gave Paul Goldschmidt and the Reds very old contract for Joey Votto? Sorry, that dog won’t hunt.
Even if Freeman’s presence wasn’t worth more than his slash line to the Braves, where do the Braves replace his production? There’s no one in the system or available who comes close to Freeman. As a free agent, the Giants and Angels will happily beat that even with a qualifying offer attached. In Yankee Stadium, Freeman hits 40 homers a year and makes their lineup and infield significantly better.
The Braves must at least match Goldschmidt’s contract to keep him.
Letting a player like Freeman walk means you have a plan B, and there isn’t one who can do what Freeman does for the Braves.