The Braves’ catcher tandem will remain intact next season. After re-signing backup Kurt Suzuki to a one-year contract on Saturday, general manager John Coppolella told Mark Bowman of MLB.com and other reporters the Braves are “strongly leaning toward” exercising starter Tyler Flowers’ $4MM club option for 2018. Buying out the O’Connell Sports Management client would cost the team $300K (Twitter link).
“This has worked great this year and we want to see if it can work as well in 2018 too,” Coppolella said of the Flowers-Suzuki tandem (via David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on Twitter).
Retaining Flowers should be an easy call for the Braves, who have witnessed the 31-year-old turn into a quality all-around backstop in their uniform. Flowers took an unusual route to do so, as he first joined the Braves as a 33rd-round pick in 2005 before heading to the White Sox in a 2008 trade (one that saw Javier Vazquez go to Atlanta) and then returning to his native Georgia as a free agent in December 2015.
During his two seasons as a Brave, Flowers has mixed above-average offensive production – including a .283/.377/.444 line in 345 plate appearances this year – with brilliant work as a receiver. While Flowers threw out a mere 5 percent of attempted base stealers last year and has caught only 19 percent this season, ranking well below the 27 percent league average, both Baseball Prospectus and StatCorner have placed him among the game’s very best pitch framers in the same time period.
All told, Flowers and Suzuki have been worth 4.5 fWAR this year, making them one of the top backstop duos in the majors in their first season together. Even if there’s some regression from the Braves’ catchers in 2018, they should still form a cost-effective pairing at a combined $7.5MM.
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$4MM team option with 300K buyout if declined, so it’s effectively a $3.7MM option exercised for a catcher with 2.2WAR in 2017.
Easiest call this offseason.
I think Chris Sales option takes that one
I stand corrected. Chris Sale’s team friendly team options final 2 years of contract def. It also wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Sale’s 2019 club option to also be easiest call of 2018 if his performance next year anything close to this year.
But is flowers team option 2nd easiest decision of this season?
Jose Altuve has a 6mil team option for the coming season and a 6.5mil option after that. I think those options would be easier than Flowers option.
Hm at this rate, I hope flowers option isn’t out of top-5.
I’m still glad Braves are able to keep both for next year.
Those early – career extensions often offer team options that are unquestionable givens to be exercised. Bumgarner I think has one this year, it looks like Jose Ramirez’ s options in a couple years will be the same way. Makes you wonder if guys will continue to take those kinds of offers
aff10, You bring up The age old question.
Take the money now in the form of a “team friendly extension” set you and your family for life, or go through Arb process year by year and risk unforeseen injuries to hit FA— often at a young age— have all 30 clubs bid on you— while still making millions in the Arb process. (Assuming you make it all 6 years through Arb process)
Yeah I agree, it’s not an easy decision to turn that kinda money down – it’s easy to criticize players generally for taking these deals, but on an individual basis, it’s makes more sense. I don’t think I’d have been able to sit there this off-season if I were Ramirez, for instance, and told Cleveland to keep the $25 million they were waving in front of him, and I’m sure Jonathan Villar wishes he’d accepted when the Brewers called. That said, I think players are going to continue to be more reluctant to take these kinds of deals in the future, because they can get REALLY team – friendly.
The Braves gave the Dodgers the business this year. I was impressed with what Flowers was able to do each series. It almost came down to wanting them to pitch around him, he seemed to get a clutch hit every time they needed one. Easy call for Atlanta.
The Suzuki/Flowers platoon has worked well this year, so why not go with it again?
after we traded Flowers to the white Sox for Vazquez, didn’t we trade Vazquez to the Yankees for Vizcaino?
That is correct. Vazquez pitched one season in Atlanta, then he was traded. The Braves even traded Vizy to the Cubs, then traded La Stella to get him back.
Definitely would be a no brainer type decision to pick up Flowers’ option. He’s been very good for the Braves.
Nothing close in the minors so if they didnt want to overpay for Lucroy this looks like only option and it should be a good one