After a 96-win season, capturing the NL East crown and posting the best home record (56-25) in baseball, the Atlanta Braves should be exhausting all resources in pursuit of a World Series run this year.
With spring training rapidly approaching, that's far from the case. As the Braves front office plays it safe this offseason, criticism is bound to trickle in from fans and media members. Unfortunately for this organization, the winter plight isn't a choice, but rather a fact of life for a team with financial constraints.
When the Los Angeles Dodgers awarded Clayton Kershaw a seven-year, $215 million deal, the best pitcher in the sport was given an annual average salary of over $30 million. Contrast that with the entire Braves roster, before arbitration filing began, coming in at just over $55 million, per Cot's Baseball Contracts.
The difference should be eye-opening for anyone associated with the Braves organization. When Jonah Keri of Grantland detailed what this deal means for Major League Baseball and referenced small-market teams, he might as well have been staring at Turner Field. Per Keri's column:
"The TV money flowing into the game is, in many ways, a boon to all, with the new national deal adding $26 million to every team’s top line in 2014. Unfortunately, the league failed to anticipate the massive gulf that would develop between the have and have-not teams once the wealthiest clubs signed their new local deals."
Ah, television money. If revenue sharing and national media money is intended to be the great equalizer in the sport, local television revenue is now what separates the rich from the poor. Although the Braves don't fit the profile of Kansas City or Pittsburgh, their current television deal is awful.
If you don't believe me, take it from Braves CEO Terry McGuirk, per David O'Brien of The Atlanta-Journal Constitution. The Braves executive had this to say about the franchise's television deal:
“We have a long-term, 20-year deal. It is what it is. It was a deal that we didn’t like when we saw it, when we inherited it. And we knew that in the performance of time, it would probably not be the deal that we would like to have in the marketplace to exploit."
For the Braves, money is a major factor. Unlike many franchises around the sport, Atlanta can't support a year-to-year payroll in excess of $100 million. In fact, over the last 10 years, the Braves have sported a payroll that high just once (2008) and averaged an Opening Day payroll of $89.6 million over the last four years, per Cot's Baseball Contracts.
While the team may have few large commitments—especially after allowing Brian McCann and Tim Hudson to depart in free agency—their payroll before arbitration settlements is a bit deceiving.
Through a combination of a fertile farm system, timing and poor luck, the Braves are in the midst of dealing with one of the biggest and most expensive arbitration-eligible classes in history. As Mark Bowman of MLB.com explained here, seven Braves filed for arbitration this winter.
The sinister seven: Craig Kimbrel, Freddie Freeman, Jason Heyward, Kris Medlen, Mike Minor, Chris Johnson and Jordan Schafer.
When reading over the following chart of arbitration projections, the $55 million payroll quickly and swiftly projects to over $85 million.
Within days of filing, Chris Johnson ($4.75 million), Jordan Schafer ($1.09 million) Mike Minor ($3.85 million) and Kris Medlen ($5.8 million) had settled (all according to Mark Bowman), avoiding a hearing, and, perhaps most importantly, backed up Matt Swartz's arbitration projections for MLB Trade Rumors.
Over the next few weeks, Atlanta will have major decisions to make on three key members of their future: Kimbrel, Freeman and Heyward. A case can be made to extend any of the three, especially Heyward, therefore ending this year-to-year charade and giving Atlanta cost certainty moving forward.
If settlements aren't rendered, team and players could be headed to messy hearings and record-breaking salaries for these young players. As you can easily see, the 2014 Braves payroll may be careening to its usual plateau.
Money, as in the case of any professional team, is a major consideration. Yet, for the current edition of the Braves, it's coupled with a roster that is hard to change. In one way, this is a good thing. Atlanta has built their team for this exact arbitration juncture, has few glaring holes and no obvious free-agent fit on the open market.
Sure, a No. 1 starter would make Atlanta more formidable in the postseason, but spending $17-20 million on a free-agent arm doesn't fit within the budget, nor makes sense considering the surplus of young, ascending starters already in tow.
From Minor to Medlen to the trio of Brandon Beachy, Julio Teheran and Alex Wood, the Braves have a five-man staff good enough to win the NL East next season. Gavin Floyd, signed for depth, could turn out to be better for $8.5 million than Tim Hudson will be for the San Francisco Giants at $11.5 million.
The Braves need their stars (Heyward, Justin Upton) to ascend, become MVP-level contributors and have bounce-back seasons from former free-agent signings (B.J. Upton, Dan Uggla) on long-term deals.
If Atlanta had a more lucrative television deal and bigger revenue streams, perhaps Gavin Floyd would be A.J. Burnett or a long-term deal for Jason Heyward would already be done. Those things, despite the excitement it would generate around this team, aren't in the works.
Instead, the Braves will return in 2014 as a very good team that's capable of competing for October once again.
You can say the Atlanta front office is playing things "too safely" this winter, but in reality, fiances, timing and roster construction didn't give them much of a choice.
Should the Braves have done more to improve this winter?
Comment, follow me on Twitter or "like" my Facebook page to talk all things baseball.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
No comments:
Post a Comment