Happy Opening Night! Logan Webb and the Giants will host Max Fried and the Yankees at 7:05pm central tonight on Netflix. Until then, we've got a subscriber mailbag that gets into the Braves' series of core player extensions, which teams have the most concerning injury issues, outlooks for the Rangers and Pirates, and much more.
Matthew asks:
As a Mets fan, several years ago all I heard was how the Braves had built the foundation of their next dynasty by convincing multiple players to sign seemingly below-market deals. Acuña, Albies, Murphy, Riley, Olson, Harris, and probably several others I'm forgetting.
Obviously the team was besieged by injuries when they missed the playoffs last year, but looking back now, how are those contracts holding up? Albies and Riley have regressed, Harris was a tale of two halves last year, Acuña is coming off two serious knee injuries, and Murphy's banner year looks like an outlier.
Giving Acuña a pass because injuries are unpredictable (and he's still an MVP candidate when healthy), are there any of these contracts that you think AA would like a do-over on? Or, since they were seen as being below-market rates, are they still showing positive value?
Alex Anthopoulos has sat atop the Braves' front office for more than eight years now. He's done a whopping 21 extensions in that time.
The biggest extension went to Austin Riley, who signed for $212MM over ten years. Had the Braves not done this deal, Riley would've been a free agent this past offseason, theoretically coming off a couple of injury-related down years. But he'd still be a 29-year-old with a three-year, 16.1 WAR run on his resume, so he probably would've signed a high-AAV opt-out deal. As it stands, the Braves probably paid a bit above market value for Riley's arbitration years. That's not a big issue, but from this point forward it's as if they signed him to a seven-year, $154MM free agent deal with an eighth-year club option. That's not really the type of deal Riley would've signed this past offseason, but the $22MM AAV is low enough where there's room for profit if he bounces back in the next couple years.
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Tim: Thanks for the great assessment of the Braves’ key extensions. I’ve wondered how some of those players view their deals as time goes on and they watch their peers sign much more lucrative deals. It’s something that can’t be quantified, but a reasonable person could expect a level of psychological impact that can hijack motivation and/or performance from time to time. Yes, they’re professionals… but they’re also human.
Where’s the Mets ring within 5 years with Cohen in charge with 400+ million salary? How’s that going?
HKY:
Disappointing, to say the least… but a red herring in response to my question, nonetheless.
On a more objective, positive note – Cohen also committed to building the minor league system and overhauling their analytics department. It seems to have worked, as even after graduating McLean and Benge and trading Jett Williams and Sproat, they still have a top 5-10 farm by all major outlets. So at least he achieved 2/3 of his goals.
While it’s fair to criticize Cohen’s spending, they still won 101 games in 2023 and made the NLCS in 2024. They’re positioned well from a cap perspective moving forward with ~$150M (excluding taxes) coming off the payroll after this season and another ~$75M going into 2028. From that lens, it seems they have a brighter future than detractors would like to admit. They’ll have room to continue spending while staying under the tax threshold and augmenting the roster with a steady pipeline of high-end prospects.
People forget that it took the Dodgers 10 years after Guggenheim’s acquisition to win a ring (albeit in a 60 game season) and another 4 years beyond that to win a real World Series.
I’m curious which of the below apply regarding your two comments here.
A. Entirely written by AI
B. A response was fed to AI that used it as the basis of an AI-written response
C. AI writing style has infected us so much that people just write like this now on their own
All options are mind numbing and depressing
John: I did not use AI whatsoever, my friend. Some of us have advanced degrees and years of real world experience.
Mockery is often a way to sidestep evidence. If someone can’t easily counter your point with facts, sarcasm and ridicule become a shortcut to dismiss it without engaging.
In more important news, it’s baseball season, LFG!
johnrealtime
All options are mind numbing and depressing
================
I’m not sure what this means, Just start, do you agree or disagree with their comments?
I didn’t have a problem with the content of your comments. I found them thoughtful. My comment was on the structure of it. I still think you may fall into the C category.
You are right, some of us do have advanced degrees and years of real world experience.
Enjoy the season
I laid out 3 options and commented that I found all of them mind numbing and depressing. I don’t follow what you’re not understanding in this. At no point did I comment on their opinions
Interesting that age was mentioned for three healthy Padres (all age 33) to a question about teams with injury/health concerns but not mentioned as an issue for other teams with much older stars, or guys age 33 such as Aaron Judge or age 33 with injury concerns, such as Blake Snell.
Definitely mentioned Snell, but if you’re saying there’s injury risk with Judge I do agree.
Yeah, Judge has missed a lot of games in past seasons, Machado though, the opposite?
I’d say Judge has mostly put the earlier career injuries to bed, but both have plenty of injury risk based on age.
True about Judge the past 5 years or so. But my point was that elsewhere in the article you don’t point out guys at age 33 being injury risks just because they’re 33+, except for the Padres. In the case of Machado, here are his past 10 full seasons Games Played (I exclude 2020, but he played all 60 games in that Covid year):
GP last 10 full seasons: 162, 157, 156, 162, 156, 153, 150, 138, 152, 159. Is Machado really the example of a 33 year old that’s an injury risk just because of his age? Love this article Tim, and I’m not a big Machado fan, but I can think of better examples than Manny!
Why wouldn’t the Pirates continue to negotiate on an extension with Griffin? Because they can keep him in Indianapolis all summer like they did to Bubba Chandler–and pay him the minimum until he is arb eligible AND delay his free agency by a year to keep the turnstiles spinning after Skenes leaves in 2029. Everything this franchise does is solely about money. Everything. Worst owner in pro sports and the record to prove it. 4 winning seasons in the last 32.
Having said all that, Skenes may be in his last full season with the club. Next year is the lockout year, then in 2028 he will be arb eligible and on the block to reduce payroll. Enjoy 2026 folks!
Konnor Griffin is 19 and only played a few games in AA. When Griffin comes up. I want him to be closer to his potential
Not a watered down version. In this case it’s more about development not money. Konnor shouldn’t be rushed. Patience!
It’s reminiscent of when the fans were clamoring for the team to promote Polanco
and turned out to be a failure at the plate over a period of time
I agree, be patient with Griffin. His time will come
or when fans were clamoring for Pedro Alvarez.
Polanco and Alvarez weren’t anywhere close in talent to Griffin, the best prospect in the game. This is all about service time and money, nothing else.
The guy hit like 182 in ST and is 19.
Not everything is about money.
That being said they would be stupid to not control his service time.They are a small market team with limited resources.
And don’t compare him to Skenes as he has a limited number of pitches in his arm,is 3 years older than Griffin,and it was very obvious that he was a fine ML pitcher.
I agree on Griffin. I believe if he raked in the spring they absolutely would have considered giving him the opening day nod. But as you said, he didn’t force their hand and he’s still only 19, so it was the smart move to give him more time in the minors regardless of their market-size.
Alvarez was a 2nd overall pick and top 10 prospect, but he couldn’t field at all and should have been drafted by an AL team.
Well as a Braves fan all I heard was how Mets would win a world series before 5 yrs was up after Cohen took over and after spending 400+ million a year and still have zero rings and very limited playoffs time. How’s that working out I wonder?
Ok, I’ll bite… $400M a year is just a tad exaggerated. Approximate luxury tax payroll by year since acquisition:
2020 – $193M
2021 – $207M
2022 – $299M
2023 – $430M
2024 – $347M
2025 – $437M
Annual Average – $318M
Then, as I wrote in my response to you above, they’re going to drop well below the tax line to $216M in 2027 and $143M in 2028, providing plenty of room to spend while augmenting the roster with high-end prospects from their top 5-10 farm system.
Damn, 430m in 2023 to go 75-87. Spent almost 5x the Marlins and finished 9 games behind them in 4th place.
What will you smugly complain about when the Mets are good and god forbid…win a WS?
Opening Day! This is the time fans want to gather today and watch. It used to be traditional Reds game. No not now not that I am a Reds fan. But I prefer tradition. So now we watch the opening pitch. ON NETFLIX!?? Grr. NETFLIX, APPLE and a cast of others. Sorry this is bad for baseball. The opener should be available to EVERYONE for free. MLB is expecting me to pay for all these premium services. Not happening with me tonight. Manfred you suck!
I refuse to give MLB any money at this point. No merch games or subscriptions. Over a decade now.
Freddie Freeman really broke a man this bad lol
Even has to exaggerate the “10 years” thing I bet
All I heard was the Mets would have a ring within 5 years of Money bags Cohen taking over and spending 400+ million a year on his team. How’s that working out for the Mets?
Imagine being so mad about the Mets that you go manic, commenting the same thing 3 times in a single thread 💀.
Do you need me to call someone to give you medical assistance? You keep posting the same thing. I’m not sure if you’re trolling or legitimately have a medical issue going on.
Sorry it kept saying it wasn’t posting my comments because of error, so I rewrote them then they all showed up.
Many Mets fans bemoaned the Braves FO’s ability to sign theses guys young and cheap. They were envious and now they’re exhibiting schadenfreude. I’m a Mets fan and I see the obnoxiousness in this behavior. Don’t be that.
I never heard anyone say the Braves built the foundation for their next dynasty. I had a lot of similar opinions as many Brave fans. That the extensions were good deals, but they had very little depth coupled with a poor farm. Add that to the rotation lacking with little payroll room to add TOR arms. That made the team draft pitching all the time while neglecting position players.
Which is why we are seeing those arms coming up around this time while the position players are either at the end or in the middle of their extensions.
I’d say this version of the Braves isn’t so much of a dynasty as they’ve had a decently long window. Their run from 1991-2005 was a dynasty.
All I heard was the Mets would have a ring within 5 years of Money bags Cohen taking over and spending 400+ million a year on his team. How’s that working out for the Mets?
I used AI for this post. See previous comments above.
I used AI for this post.