- Righty reliever Shane Greene spent the previous year-plus as a member of the Braves, with whom he held his own, but he remains a free agent as the regular season nears. Greene could prove to be a late-spring bargain for someone, but it doesn’t appear the Braves will re-sign him for anything other than “a really cheap offer” in the $1MM range, David O’Brien of The Athletic writes. Unless Greene elects to settle for that type of deal, the Braves will be content to start the year with Will Smith, Chris Martin, A.J. Minter and Tyler Matzek as their main end-of-game options, according to O’Brien.
Braves Rumors
Latest On Maikel Franco
Free agent third baseman Maikel Franco is likely to choose his next club either today or tomorrow, tweets MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. The former Phillies and Royals slugger has been connected to both the Mets and the Orioles over the past week, and Heyman now adds that the Braves are among the teams “in the mix” for Franco.
While Franco has been connected to three clubs over the past week now, there have been indicators that not every rumored club is a serious player for his services. The Athletic’s Tim Britton reported that although the Mets indeed checked in on Franco at one point, they also don’t believe a deal will come together at this time. Meanwhile, in the days since the Orioles were first tied to Franco, Baltimore general manager Mike Elias has publicly stated that he does not foresee any free-agent additions for his team (link via MASNsports.com’s Roch Kubatko).
“I don’t feel that there are any imminent additions at this time coming from the free agent market.” Elias said as recently as Wednesday. “That could change, but I don’t see anything kind of barreling down the pike here right this second.” Certainly, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that Franco could land there, but it does throw some cold water on the possibility.
Turning to the latest rumored fit, the Braves make some sense as a potential landing spot for Franco, although they’ve already added veteran corner infielder Jake Lamb to the third base competition. Lamb signed a one-year, $1MM contract earlier in the spring, and while the deal isn’t fully guaranteed, it did place him on Atlanta’s 40-man roster. That gives the Braves three possible options already, as Lamb joins holdovers Austin Riley and Johan Camargo in the mix for playing time.
Riley excited fans and the organization alike with a huge first month in the big leagues back in 2019, he’s struggled since that point. Over his past 380 Major League plate appearances, Riley has posted a .211/.274/.387 slash with a 31.1 percent strikeout rate. Add in last year’s postseason numbers, and the overall line dips to .207/.270/.371 in a sample of 429 trips to the plate. Camargo, meanwhile, turned in an impressive 2018 effort but has posted a dismal .222/.267/.378 slash in 375 plate appearances since. As for Lamb, his 2018-19 seasons were ruined by shoulder injuries, and he got out to a miserable start in 2020 as well. After being cut loose in Arizona and landing in Oakland, however, he looked like the Lamb of old in 13 games down the stretch with the A’s.
Riley is a former top prospect who won’t turn 24 until next month, so there’s still quite a bit of upside in the former No. 41 overall draft pick. Lamb gives the Braves upside as well. He belted 59 home runs from 2016-17 in Arizona and made the 2017 All-Star team. Camargo, at the very least, is a strong defender at the hot corner and a switch-hitter at the plate.
Franco could still fit into the mix, particularly if he’s open to a minor league pact. It’s also possible that the Braves aren’t thrilled with Lamb’s slow start this spring — he’s 1-for-12 with a walk and a HBP — and could look to pivot. Lamb could be cut from his non-guaranteed deal prior to Opening Day for $161K or $242K, depending on the point at which the club makes the move, although 14 plate appearances would be an extraordinarily brief audition.
Baltimore represents the cleanest and most obvious fit of the three teams rumored to be in the mix for Franco. Incumbent Rio Ruiz hasn’t hit much over the past two seasons and is out to a slow start in camp. He also has a pair of minor league options remaining. Prospect Rylan Bannon figures to eventually get a look in 2021, but he’s only played 20 games of Triple-A ball and could potentially benefit from some additional development time.
Franco was at least a mildly surprising non-tender by the Royals back in December, as he’d turned in a solid 2020 season and drawn public praise from both his manager and general manager. Appearing in all 60 games for Kansas City, the former top prospect posted a .278/.321/.457 batting line with eight homers, 16 doubles and improved defensive marks at the hot corner. The Royals, however, cut him loose and moved Hunter Dozier back to third base, opting instead to add several players to their outfield mix.
Ender Inciarte Sidelined By Thumb Injury
- Ender Inciarte has been hampered by a thumb injury that has kept him out of action since March 4. Braves manager Brian Snitker told reporters (including Gabriel Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) that Inciarte is “progressing, but he’s not to the point he can go out and get a game at-bat right now, so we’ll have to see.” As Burns notes, star prospect Cristian Pache was already looking like a strong bet to break camp with the team, and an Inciarte absence would all but assure Pache of a spot on the Opening Day roster. Inciarte hit only .190/.262/.250 over 131 PA in 2020, and is now entering the last guaranteed year of his contract. With Pache and another noteworthy prospect in Drew Waters both knocking on the door for MLB playing time, Inciarte might be in his final year in Atlanta even if he does have a bounce-back season.
Contract Renewals: Gallen, Lewis, Alonso, McNeil, Anderson
As a standard course of business every spring, teams reach agreement on contracts with their pre-arbitration players. Since pre-arb players have virtually no negotiating leverage, their salaries aren’t far beyond the MLB minimum ($570.5K), and most teams now adopt a particular formula for assigning modest raises to pre-arbitration players who have performed above and beyond expectations.
When a player doesn’t accept this agreement, it has no change on his contractual status with the team. It just means that his contract is “renewed,” and the team will impose the player’s salary for the coming season. For a further explanation of the renewal process, MLBTR’s Jeff Todd provided an outline in a YouTube video last year.
Why would a player not accept the terms of his team’s raise? Often, it is just a matter of “principle,” as Cardinals righty Jack Flaherty (who had his last two pre-arbitration salaries renewed) said last year, as a player who excels during a season simply feels he is worth more than the minor raise a team is offering. Occasionally, you’ll see a player look for a more substantive raise, as Mike Trout’s camp asked for a $1MM salary for the 2013 season, following a 2012 campaign that saw Trout finish second in AL MVP voting in his first full year in the big leagues.
While Trout didn’t get his $1MM ask, some clubs have indeed rewarded players with pre-arb salaries worth well above (by a few hundred thousand dollars, in some cases) the minimum, both as a nod to performance and perhaps as a way to continue good relations with a player and his agent in advance of extension talks.
Here is a list of players whose contracts have been renewed for the 2021 season. As you’ll note, the members of this group have already enjoyed significant early-career success.
- Zac Gallen: The Diamondbacks right-hander finished ninth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2020, and has a 2.78 ERA over 152 career MLB innings.
- Kyle Lewis: The Mariners outfielder took a renewal on the heels of his Rookie Of The Year campaign.
- Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil: The two Mets regulars took renewals. As noted by Mike Puma of the New York Post, Alonso’s 2019 NL Rookie Of The Year campaign got him a larger-than-expected salary bump to $652,521 for the 2020 season “as a goodwill gesture” from the team.
- Ian Anderson: The Braves righty made a big impact in his first MLB season, with a 1.95 ERA over 32 1/3 innings. Anderson also has the least amount of big league service time (0.094 days) of any player on this list. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that Anderson will earn $575K while in the majors and $142,978 in the minor leagues.
Braves, Ryan Goins Agree To Minor League Deal
Although the team never made a formal announcement, the Braves agreed to a minor league pact with infielder Ryan Goins, as noted Baseball America’s Chris Hilburn-Trenkle in his latest roundup of minor league transactions. Goins is in camp and has collected two hits in six early spring plate appearances.
Goins, 33, has seen Major League time in parts of eight seasons, mostly with the Blue Jays but also with the Royals in 2018 and the White Sox from 2019-20. He’s never been much of a threat at the plate, as evidenced by a career .228/.278/.333 batting line in 1690 plate appearances at the MLB level, but Goins is a versatile defender with strong ratings at several positions. The bulk of his MLB work has come at second base (25 Defensive Runs Saved in 2095 innings), but he’s also graded out well at shortstop (7 DRS in 1460 innings) and at third base (average in 299 innings). Goins has seen brief stints in the outfield corners and at first base as well.
The Braves’ infield and bench is largely set, with Austin Riley slated for significant time at third base and both Jake Lamb and Johan Camargo behind him. Former Twins and Giants infielder Ehire Adrianza is in camp on a non-roster deal, vying for a spot as well. There may not be a clear path to a roster spot for Goins at the moment, but stashing Goins at their alternate site/Triple-A to begin the season would give the Braves some additional cover at multiple infield spots in the event of an injury on the Major League roster.
Mike Soroka Throws Two Simulated Innings
Mike Soroka threw two innings in “simulated game conditions” this morning, reports David O’Brien of the Athletic. That marks a key milestone in the 23-year-old’s recovery from the ruptured Achilles that ended his 2020 season last August. It remains unclear precisely when Soroka will be ready to pitch this year, although O’Brien notes there has been “widespread speculation” of a late April or early May return. Soroka has a 2.86 ERA/4.33 SIERA over his first 214 big league innings.
The latest on some other health situations around the National League:
- Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas had been expected to throw a bullpen session today, but that’ll be pushed back to Wednesday, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat were among those to note. Manager Mike Shildt said the right-hander feels good but wouldn’t guarantee Mikolas will be ready for Opening Day. Mikolas missed the entire 2020 season after undergoing surgery to repair the flexor tendon in his forearm, but the current issue is a “creaky” shoulder, notes Zachary Silver of MLB.com.
- Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly looks unlikely to be ready for Opening Day, per Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link). The right-hander has been dealing with shoulder soreness, but he has been able to throw a few bullpen sessions recently, per Juan Toribio of MLB.com. The hard-throwing Kelly spent a month on the injured list last season with shoulder inflammation.
- José Martínez has a “twisted left knee” after colliding with an umpire during today’s Spring Training contest, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com was among those to report. He’ll likely go for an MRI tomorrow. The Mets signed the 32-year-old Martínez this winter after he struggled through a down 2020 season split between the Rays and Cubs. A significant injury would be a blow to his chances of earning a backup first base/corner outfield role this spring.
COVID Notes: 3/4/21
The latest on how the coronavirus is affecting Major League Baseball:
- Braves left-hander Max Fried will not make his previously scheduled start Friday because he may have been exposed to COVID-19, Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweets. Fried has not tested positive, but manager Brian Snitker said (via David O’Brien of The Athletic) that he’ll “lay low” for a couple of days. At least for now, it doesn’t seem Fried will miss much time. As long as he recovers in short order, Fried could be the Opening Day starter for the Braves, having starred last season with a 2.25 ERA in 56 innings.
Latest On Yoenis Cespedes
Free-agent outfielder Yoenis Cespedes held a showcase in Florida that 11 teams attended on Tuesday, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. The Yankees, White Sox, Brewers, Blue Jays, Tigers (one of Cespedes’ ex-teams), Padres, Rays, Reds, Marlins, Cubs and Braves were all on hand to watch Cespedes, per Davidoff.
As Davidoff notes, it’s interesting that the majority of clubs that scouted Cespedes are in the National League, which doesn’t appear likely to feature the designated hitter position in 2021. DH seems like the logical spot for Cespedes if he’s going to continue his career, as he hasn’t played the field since 2018, he’s aging (35), and he’s coming off four straight abbreviated seasons because of health issues. The two-time All-Star, most recently with the Mets, played in just 127 of a possible 546 regular-season contests from 2017-20.
Cespedes opted out of last season in August over COVID-19 concerns, but heel and ankle problems dogged him before then and helped make the four-year, $110MM guarantee he received from the Mets in November 2016 a disaster for the club. The two sides agreed to an amended contract in December 2019 that reduced Cespedes’ base salary from $29.5MM to $6MM, but New York didn’t get any bang for its buck out of that.
While Cespedes comes with question marks, he won’t land an expensive deal, which is one of the reasons so many clubs are considering him. When healthy, Cespedes has been a force at the plate, where he has batted .273/.327/.497 (124 wRC+) with 165 home runs in 3,490 trips. That track record could make him a worthwhile buy-low pickup for someone.
Braves Report Major Revenue Drop, Operating Losses In 2020
Since the Braves are owned by the publicly-traded Liberty Media corporation, they are the only team in baseball required to disclose their finances, providing some insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted business. Liberty Media revealed the particulars on Friday (Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the details), with the Braves accounting for an operating loss of $49MM before depreciation and amortization in 2020. In terms of pure revenues, the club generated $178MM.
As one might expect, these numbers each represent a significant decline from the Braves’ financial picture just one year ago. In 2019, the Braves generated $476MM in revenues and had a $54MM profit (before depreciation and amortization). The Braves also added $115MM in debt thanks to construction costs in and around Truist Park and at their new Spring Training complex, bringing their total debt to $674MM at the end of 2020.
In an interview last October, commissioner Rob Manfred claimed that MLB’s 30 teams were facing a collective operating loss of roughly $2.8 to $3 billion in 2020. Since each club’s financial situation obviously has a lot of individual differences, it’s hard to necessarily extrapolate Atlanta’s losses considering they are just one piece of a 30-team pie. For example, Truist Park is the second-newest ballpark in the league, thus providing the Braves with a fresher revenue source than most other clubs.
As Fangraphs’ Craig Edwards wrote in December, however, the Braves are a pretty decent sample team to act as a barometer for the league as a whole “since Atlanta has a slightly better than average local television deal and ran a slightly higher than average payroll last season.” Edwards estimated the Braves for roughly a $65MM operating loss in 2020, so the team actually bettered his analysis. And given the $54MM profit in 2019, the Braves would still seem to be in the black over the two-year span.
It remains to be seen how the 2021 season will play out from a financial perspective since many teams will have either reduced or zero attendance for at least much of the year. Many on the players’ side (such as MLBPA officials and agents like Scott Boras) have taken the stance that 2020-21 will end up being something of a relatively minor setback to Major League Baseball’s overall financial health, which runs counter to statements made by Manfred and some team owners about the sport’s alleged dire monetary losses. Expect this debate to loom large throughout the season and beyond, as the two sides will face a very tense set of negotiations over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement — the current CBA expires in December.
Braves Outright Phil Pfeifer
FEB. 26: Pfeifer has been outrighted to Triple-A Gwinnett, the Braves announced.
FEB. 23: The Braves announced Tuesday that they’ve designated left-hander Phil Pfeifer for assignment in order to open a spot on the 40-man roster for corner infielder Jake Lamb, whose non-guaranteed Major League deal is now official.
Atlanta picked up the now-28-year-old Pfeifer in a 2016 trade with the Dodgers and selected him to the 40-man roster in Nov. 2019 to protect him from that year’s Rule 5 Draft. He’s yet to make his Major League debut, though it’s possible he’d have been called upon had their been a full 162-game slate played in 2020.
Pfeifer was hit hard in his first go-around at Triple-A in 2018 and hasn’t gotten much of a chance to redeem himself at that level thanks to last year’s lack of a minor league season. He did post very strong numbers between Double-A and a quick 7 1/3-inning return to Triple-A in 2019, however. On the whole, he tossed 133 1/3 innings of 2.97 ERA ball between the two levels that season, adding in impressive strikeout (28.7) and walk (7.6) percentages.
Pfeifer has a pair of minor league options still remaining, so he could pique the interest of a club with more acute pitching needs. At 28, he’s a bit old to be considered a “prospect,” but outside of an ugly 40 innings of Triple-A work in 2018, the lefty has a strong minor league track record.
