Month: January 2024

The Braves announced this morning that they’ve signed president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos to an extension that will keep him with the team through the 2031 season. Anthopoulos had previously been entering the final season of a three-year contract extension that spanned the 2022-24 seasons. He’ll now be in Atlanta for an additional seven years.

“Alex and I have enjoyed a wonderful working relationship, and I look forward to that continuing for many years to come,” Braves CEO Terry McGuirk said in the team’s press release announcing the extension.

“I have been around this game a very long time and know that Alex’s track record of success is truly something special. There is simply no one better in the business. This extension gives Alex the runway to make long-term decisions and the opportunity to continue his track record of assembling teams that are perennial contenders. I have the utmost confidence in his ability to deliver championship baseball for our fans well into the future.”

The seven-year term of the contract extension is massive in relation to Anthopoulos’ baseball operations peers throughout the sport; most president of baseball operations and/or general manager contracts are three to five years in length. Given the unparalleled young core that the Braves have not only developed but also largely managed to sign to club-friendly contract extensions under Anthopoulos’ watch, however, it’s not surprising to see the team reward him with an uncommonly lengthy contract of his own — one that’ll allow him to see the bulk of those player extensions play out in full.

The 46-year-old Anthopoulos’ ascension to the top of the sport’s executive sphere is one rooted in the humblest of beginnings. His first job in baseball came with the Expos, where he was an unpaid intern working in their mail room and printing stat sheets. Expos scouts eventually took Anthopoulos under their wing, and he was moved to the team’s scouting department before being hired by the Blue Jays in 2003. From there, Anthopoulos climbed the ranks of Toronto’s baseball operations staff, rising all the way to general manager — a role he’d hold through 2015 before rejecting an extension under incoming president and CEO Mark Shapiro.

The Dodgers quickly added Anthopoulos to their front office, hiring him as a vice president of baseball operations working alongside president of baseball ops Andrew Friedman and then-GM Farhan Zaidi. That proved to be less than a two-year stop, as Atlanta hired Anthopoulos away from Los Angeles and named him general manager after former GM John Coppolella was dismissed and banned from baseball following reported violations on the international free agent market and in the MLB draft. (Major League Baseball lifted Coppolella’s “lifetime” ban after six years, in 2023.)

While some of the core pieces comprising the Braves’ roster were signed or drafted under the former regime — most notably, Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley and Max Fried — it was Anthopoulos who oversaw the extensions for each of Acuna (eight years, $100MM), Albies (seven years, $35MM) and Riley (ten years, $212MM). While Anthopoulos himself doesn’t necessarily oversee the draft, he did hire now-former scouting director Dana Brown — who’s since been hired as Houston’s general manager — and set the stage for a remarkable run of success in the amateur draft. (Brown and Anthopoulos worked together both in Montreal and in Toronto.)

From 2019 onward, Atlanta drafted names like Michael Harris II, Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder, Vaughn Grissom and Shea Langeliers (among others), each of whom has either emerged as a core contributor or been included in a trade to help build out the club’s current roster. (Langeliers was sent to Oakland in the Matt Olson trade; Grissom recently was traded to the Red Sox for Chris Sale.)

In addition to Acuna, Albies and Riley, Anthopoulos has succeeded in brokering long-term deals with the majority of Atlanta’s core. While Freddie Freeman and Dansby Swanson did ultimately depart in free agency — and Fried could well do the same next winter — the Braves have had more success on the extension front than any team in the game. Harris inked an eight-year, $72MM deal midway through his rookie season. Strider followed suit with a six-year, $75MM contract.

Less than 48 hours after acquiring Olson in what’s now a wildly lopsided trade with the A’s (who received Langeliers, Cristian Pache, Joey Estes and Ryan Cusick in return), Anthopoulos signed his new first baseman to an eight-year, $168MM extension. A year later, Anthopoulos again pried a star away from Oakland on the trade market, acquiring catcher Sean Murphy in a three-team deal that sent William Contreras to Milwaukee. As with Olson, Murphy quickly put pen to paper on a new contract: a six-year, $73MM deal.

The Braves, under Anthopoulos, have also made veteran Charlie Morton a fixture in the rotation, repeatedly signing him and extending him on a series of short-term contracts. Morton, originally drafted by Atlanta back in 2002, is now entering his fourth straight season as a Brave and has given the team 521 innings of 3.77 ERA ball and was a key part of the team’s 2021 postseason staff (3.24 ERA in 16 2/3 innings). Similarly, catcher/designated hitter Travis d’Arnaud has become a veteran staple on the club, winning a Silver Slugger in 2020 and making the 2022 All-Star team while combining for a solid .256/.315/.446 slash in four seasons since originally signing.

That 2021 postseason run, of course, is the crowning achievement of Anthopoulos’ career thus far. The Braves, powered by a juggernaut core and buoyed by deadline acquisitions like Jorge Soler and Eddie Rosario, blitzed through the second half of the season as the sport’s hottest team and rode that momentum all the way to a 2021 World Series title.

As with any baseball operations executive, not every move Anthopoulos has made has worked out. The three-year, $40MM deal for lefty Will Smith and the four-year, $65MM signing of Marcell Ozuna have had mixed results, at best, and the trade to swap out Smith for Odorizzi played out poorly as well. Smith rebounded in Houston, while Odorizzi struggled in Atlanta before being sent to the Rangers, with the Braves remaining on the hook for the bulk of his 2023 salary after Odorizzi exercised a player option. The Braves also acquired Kevin Gausman at what now looks like a bargain rate from the Orioles in 2018 but cut him loose via waivers a year later after he struggled in Atlanta. Gausman signed with the Giants the following offseason, broke out in San Francisco, and has since become a bona fide No. 1 starter in Toronto, where he signed a five-year free agent deal.

In comparison to the litany of successes under Anthopoulos, however, those misses are relatively minor in nature. And, while perhaps the Braves would like mulligans on some of those decisions, the simple fact of the matter is that none of them have stood as roadblocks to success. The Braves have won the NL East in all six of Anthopoulos’ seasons as general manager, and the team’s unrivaled collection of talent under long-term contract has positioned Atlanta as a legitimate dynasty in the division.

We’re reminded each year of the MLB postseason’s intrinsic randomness, but it’d be a surprise if the Braves didn’t reach the playoffs in the majority of the seasons under this new contract for their president — and another World Series appearance (if not victory) wouldn’t be a bad bet, either. It’s somewhat fitting that an executive known for his ability to hammer out club-friendly extensions now secures his own long-term deal — one that’ll assure him the opportunity to reap the benefits of the incredible crop of talent that’s been drafted, acquired, developed and signed long-term under his watch.

“I’d like to thank Terry for his continued support and trust,” Anthopoulos said in his own statement this morning. “The Braves are an incredible organization to be a part of, and I’m proud of the success we’ve achieve together. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to lead baseball operations and to strive to bring another World Series to Atlanta.”