The Atlanta Braves still have money to spend this winter
But what actual upgrades are available to a roster that's already one of the best in baseball and are they willing to not reset the CBT to do it?
The addition of outfielder Jurickson Profar to a veteran-laden Braves lineup has fans salivating - a guy that hit .280 with a .380 on-base and 24 homers, someone who President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos called the “2nd best bat” in free agency, hitting in front of Austin Riley, Matt Olson, and Marcell Ozuna? Yes please.
But with the big offensive addition now behind Atlanta, where else can they upgrade? What has Anthopoulos said about their offseason pursuits and how much money is available, anyway? Let’s talk about it.
Not much room under the CBT, but there IS money
With the signing of Profar and his $14M AAV, the Braves are now projected (via Roster Resouce) to have a CBT payroll of just over $230M1 against a base CBT threshold of $241M.
Mark Bowman of MLB.com reported prior to Profar’s signing that the Braves had about $33M in salary space to work with this winter, so that’s about $20-21M remaining after Profar’s $12M.
With Atlanta preferring to hold back some money for in-season/trade deadline adds, that means there’s probably just about five million available to add someone and stay under the CBT, while there’s a bit more (but still not a ton) of total salary available, CBT be damned.
And that makes it tough because this roster isn’t in a position where it needs to add just anybody, especially in the rotation.
Adding a starter? There’s a high bar to clear
The Atlanta Braves have a lot of rotation depth. It might actually be enough for once.
In each of the last four seasons, the Braves have used between 10 and 13 traditional starters (so excluding relievers working in an opener capacity). And even with Connor Gillepsie being DFA’d yesterday to add Profar to the 40-man roster, they do still have enough starters to hit the low end of that number without factoring in prospects who could debut:
Chris Sale
Reynaldo López
Spencer Schwellenbach
Grant Holmes
Ian Anderson
AJ Smith-Shawver
Bryce Elder
Davis Daniel
Hurston Waldrep
Dylan Dodd
Spencer Strider (eventually - he says “shortly after the season starts”)
And again, this doesn’t count potential prospect debuts like Drue Hackenberg, Lucas Braun, or Ian Meija.
And so, AA told us on Thursday night that if the team was going to upgrade in the rotation, it needs to be someone better than Grant Holmes and/or Ian Anderson, both of who are out of options and would need to be shifted to the bullpen:
Who is that player, at this point in free agency, given that most top-end free agents have signed already?
Could it be old NL East foe Max Scherzer?
The 41-year-old righty threw in front of scouts at Cressey Sports Performance’s pro day earlier this week, with the Braves being one of the at least eight teams in attendance. There’s no indications that Atlanta was specifically there for Scherzer or that a deal is imminent, but given Atlanta’s rumored interest in Justin Verlander this offseason and past pursuit of both Dylan Cease and Garrett Crochet in trades, it’s possible he’s a player the Braves would be willing to push either Holmes or Anderson to the pen to acquire.
But that money thing comes up again.
The Braves can add someone as a starter, but getting a postseason-caliber guy means they’re spending more than $10M in 2025 salary and therefore going over the CBT threshold. While I’m sure they’d do it for a guy like Cease in a trade (he’s making $13.75M in his final year of arbitration), would they do it for Scherzer? His two veteran contemporaries, Justin Verlander and Charlie Morton, both got $15M for their services in 2025 and that’s probably the floor for Scherzer, as well.
There’s other options that may or may not be considered postseason starter quality by AA and the front office, depending on what route the Braves want to take: Jack Flaherty (free agent), Sonny Gray (trade - $25M salary in 2025), Pablo López (trade - $21.75M in 2025), and Jordan Montgomery (trade - $22.5M in trade) and the team could either use a unique structure (Flaherty) or get some cash in the deal (the trade targets) to fit those arms under the payroll limits for 2025, although they wouldn’t be able to reset the CBT with any of those acquisitions.
Reliever feels more likely
Despite AA’s assertion on Thursday that bullpens were more fungible and easier to fill - “ look in the bullpen, you always have room, right? You can always create room. […] we might sign for someone, we might trade for someone, we might have some people emerge” - this feels like a more likely target right now for a deliberate add.
Adding a reliever is probably the only way to make another signing and have a chance at staying under the CBT, especially since $10M goes a lot farther in the bullpen than the rotation.
The bullpen does work from a salary standpoint: Only 13 relievers are set to make double-digit millions in salary this upcoming season, with quality set-up candidates signing for anywhere from $6M in Cleveland (Paul Sewald, behind all-world closer Emmanuel Clase) to $10M (Aroldis Chapman in Boston and Jose Leclerc with the Athletics).
While I’d love to continue the “Curaçao Connection” by bringing closer Kenley Jansen in for a second stint in Atlanta, he’d need to both accept a pay cut (he made $16M in each of the last two years with the Boston Red Sox) and a reduced role (he’d be setting up behind incumbent closer Raisel Iglesias), I’m not sure if that’s in the cards or not.
Then again, AA is willing to go over the CBT again, incurring a 50% tax on his overage, if it’s the right deal….but only if it’s the right deal:
We were just going to look for opportunities, you know, and (if) the right opportunity presents itself, we'll do it. And I don't want to sound like a broken record, but we just don't want to force deals […] there's plenty of really good players that we like. A lot of them - trade, free agency - but you're trying to get the right fit. I think I mentioned on a radio interview or something like that, but (it) won't surprise me if we're still talking to people into spring training, just the way things are going. We're almost into the month of February. We’ll continue to see if something comes up that makes sense (and) we'll do it.
So this probably isn’t it yet for the Braves offseason…but if it is, it’s a pretty good roster already.
$230,343,334, to be exact.