In today's AJC, staff writer Tim Tucker has another of his periodic updates on the Braves' financial situation. This article appears to be based solely on "a new financial filing by team owner Liberty Media" as it contains no quotes from officials with either LM or the Braves, which begs the question of whether Tucker even sought comments or analysis from anyone in a position to shed real light on exactly what the information in the financial filing may actually mean to the team.

The article is entitled :

Liberty Media: Braves revenue up $17 million last year

These seem to be the key items of information:

For 2011, Liberty previously reported that the Braves had revenue of $208 million and adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization of a negative $6 million.

Liberty reported [the $10 million paid toward Derek Lowe's 2012 salary] as a fourth-quarter 2011 expense, dropping the Braves to the $6 million loss from what otherwise would have been a $4 million profit for that year. For accounting purposes, that took the $10 million Lowe expense off the Braves’ 2012 ledger.

... after taking that shift into consideration, the Braves’ adjusted operating income improved by ... $18 million for 2012 ...

My guess is this should almost certainly fall into the category of very good news since the Braves' brass, especially Chairman and CEO Terry McGuirk, have repeatedly indicated ownership essentially allows them to spend what they earn.

If so, GM Frank Wren may have considerably more budget flexibility with respect to the 2013 payroll than we have been thinking.