{"id":277946,"date":"2025-11-12T06:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T06:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/277946\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T06:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T06:42:07","slug":"braves-focused-on-shortstop-rotation-early-in-offseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/277946\/","title":{"rendered":"Braves Focused On Shortstop, Rotation Early In Offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s not a whole lot of mystery surrounding the Braves\u2019 offseason needs.\u00a0Ha-Seong Kim declining<\/a> his player option leaves them back at square one at shortstop. They need more depth in a rotation that was battered by injury. They\u2019re potentially losing three high-leverage relievers (Raisel Iglesias,\u00a0Pierce Johnson and\u00a0Tyler Kinley) to free agency.<\/p>\n

President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos said on Tuesday that starting pitching and shortstop will take precedence early in the offseason. \u201cWe\u2019re going to focus on those spots,\u201d he told reporters (relayed by David O\u2019Brien of The Athletic<\/a>). \u201cWe\u2019ll see where those lead us, what the acquisition costs are and all that, and then we\u2019ll turn our attention to the bullpen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Braves more or less telegraphed that course of action when they declined their club options on Johnson and Kinley. The latter was particularly surprising, as Kinley could have been retained for $5.5MM. That seemed a bargain price for a pitcher who\u2019d turned in a 0.72 ERA over 25 innings\u00a0after a deadline deal with the Rockies. Johnson seemed a slightly easier cut given his rocky finish to the season, but he\u2019d still been a generally effective high-leverage arm over two and a half seasons with the Braves.<\/p>\n

Cutting Kinley and Johnson saved the Braves $11.5MM. Another $16MM came off the books once Kim opted out. Some of that is offset by raises for\u00a0Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.,\u00a0Spencer Strider,\u00a0Aaron Bummer and\u00a0Reynaldo L\u00f3pez. The Braves have $176.5MM committed to 12 players, though they\u2019re likely to have one of the sport\u2019s lightest arbitration classes.\u00a0Dylan Lee and\u00a0Nick Allen might be the only two arbitration-eligible players whom they tender contracts, and they\u2019d project for less than $4MM between the two of them.<\/p>\n

The Braves opened last season with a player payroll around $208MM. They should have a decent amount of spending capacity to at least make middle-tier free agent additions akin to last winter\u2019s\u00a0Jurickson Profar pickup. Their claim of Kim in the first place indicated they were willing to pay him $16MM. He\u2019s presumably still their main target at shortstop, where there simply aren\u2019t many alternatives.<\/p>\n

Bo Bichette is the only other free agent regular at the position. He\u2019d obviously be far more expensive than Kim would. The trade market looks barren, especially if the Nationals don\u2019t want to trade CJ Abrams to a division rival. Maybe there\u2019ll be a long shot trade option like J.P. Crawford or Ezequiel Tovar, but the likelier outcome is that the Braves would either need to stick with Allen or trade for a similarly low-upside stopgap if they don\u2019t get a Kim deal done.<\/p>\n

The rotation currently projects as Sale, Strider, L\u00f3pez, Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep. That\u2019d be an excellent group if all five pitchers made 30+ starts, but that\u2019s not realistic. All but Waldrep missed time last season. L\u00f3pez made just one start before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery. Schwellenbach broke his elbow and missed the second half. Sale is going into his age-37 season. Grant Holmes may or may not be able to pitch through an elbow sprain. The Braves can\u2019t run things back with only Bryce Elder, Didier Fuentes, and maybe Alek Manoah as their depth arms.<\/p>\n

Atlanta has not spent big on free agent pitching under Anthopoulos (though they reportedly made a run at Aaron Nola before he re-signed with Philadelphia on a seven-year deal). Could that change this offseason? Georgia native Dylan Cease, Framber Valdez, Michael King and Zac Gallen are among the more notable free agent starters available.<\/p>\n

Luke Weaver and Brad Keller are candidates for the mid-tier \u201creliever to starter\u201d conversion contract which the Braves tried with L\u00f3pez. The Braves have one of the weakest farm systems in MLB, which would put them at a disadvantage in a bidding war for a top controllable trade candidate like Joe Ryan. They could accommodate a decent-sized salary on the trade market, though, which perhaps brings someone like Sonny Gray, Luis Severino, Robbie Ray or Jack Flaherty into play if they\u2019re looking for a mid-rotation source of innings.<\/p>\n

Emphasizing the rotation and shortstop could leave them looking for cheaper bullpen targets later in the winter. Lee, Bummer and Joe Jim\u00e9nez (who missed all of last season rehabbing knee surgery) are their top internal options at the back end. They\u2019ll need to add at least one right-hander who can pitch in leverage spots while overhauling the middle innings group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s not a whole lot of mystery surrounding the Braves\u2019 offseason needs.\u00a0Ha-Seong Kim declining his player option leaves…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,14261,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-277946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-ha-seong-kim","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}