FanPost

Atlanta Braves Free Agency Preview: Position Player Edition

I always assumed that adulthood meant owning a nice house and driving a new car, and that being a professional baseball team was a financially stress-free endeavor. It seems, though, that myself and the Atlanta Braves are more alike than we thought. Poised for a breakout and on the organizational upswing, the Braves (to say nothing of myself) are but a handful of pieces away from being a legitimate challenger to the National League pennant. The only problem is, there's a budget. After rollicking through the NL East in 2018 with a middle-of-the-pack payroll, the Braves project to be middle-class spenders once again (this despite their seeming proximity to legitimate contention and the $400 million Cobb County taxpayers are paying for SunTrust Park).

We all have financial constraints. For instance, I eat 59-cent cans of black beans for lunch every day. In Atlanta's case, they've got, depending on who you ask, around $40 million to fill out a roster brimming with talent. It's not exactly a black bean budget, but still -- that kind of money can go fast, especially when you're shopping in the spendy aisles.

The Braves are in an interesting spot. The team has many needs -- more power, a couple frontline starters, some steadiness in the bullpen -- but also has one of the best farm systems in baseball, and therefore ogles of in-house options to fill those needs. With this in mind, one option would be simply to nibble around the edges of free agency, taking only what the team needs, the strategy GM Alex Anthopoulos used in his first season at the helm. Conversely, the Braves could use their allotted cash and take a whopping bite out of the free agent market, spending it all on a huge-dollar investment (Manny Machado or Bryce Harper, anyone?). This would be like, if you were hungry, eating 14 chili dogs at the Varsity. It does not seem likely that the Braves will take the second option, perhaps instead waiting for an in-season trade, and opting to use their prospect prowess as currency.

Some kind of out-of-nowhere move is coming -- it's Anthopoulos' modus operandi -- but, for the sake of seeing what kind of feasible moves are actually out there, let's try to meet Atlanta's needs with Liberty Media's meager allowance. Today, we look at the position players.

2019 Atlanta Braves Needs

  • Catcher (full- or part-time)

  • Third baseman

  • Third baseman

  • Backup first baseman/veteran pinch-hitter

  • Right fielder

  • Ace starting pitcher

  • Number two starting pitcher

  • Closer

  • Ace reliever

Catcher

Last offseason, and during the regular season, the Braves made separate runs at Miami Marlins catcher JT Realmuto. The Marlins, after dealing two MVPs last winter, reportedly asked for a king's ransom in Realmuto's return. The Braves, believing themselves to be princes, were not yet willing to make such a royal splurge. Could they be ready to this season? According to David O'Brien, the Braves made it clear to Tyler Flowers, whom the club recently extended, that his contract wouldn't necessarily prevent them from seeking a full-time catcher.

The top two catchers this season by fWAR are both presumably available: Realmuto (by trade) and Yasmani Grandal (via free agency). Of the two, Realmuto was a full win more valuable in 2018, and is under team control for two more seasons. Grandal just finished gnashing teeth and dropping pitches in a postseason from hell -- the switch hitter has pop, and the postseason is small-sampled, though brutal, affair, so it remains to be seen what kind of effect his painstaking playoffs will have on his free agency efforts.

In their annual free agent preview column, MLB Trade Rumors predicts Grandal netting $16 million per year on the open market. The site has Kurt Suzuki earning a quarter of that. If the Braves could lock the clutch Suzuki in at $5 million for a one-year deal, the solid if unspectacular Suzuki/Flowers pairing would cost exactly $9 million. The pair's combined WAR (3.2) is nearly equal to Grandal's (3.6). With $4 million already invested in Flowers, the team could easily reinvest cheaply in Suzuki, all while continuing to seek a Realmuto trade, which apparently might be happening...as we speak?

Free Agency Find: Kurt Suzuki - one year, $5 million

Third Baseman

In the intervening years since Chipper Jones' 2012 retirement, third base has been something of a daydreamed position for the Braves. It's as if the team just got so used to #10 trotting out to that position that it took them half a decade to realize he didn't play professional baseball anymore. In the five years betwixt, Atlanta has tasked each of these baseball men with playing at least forty games in a season at the hot corner: Johan Camargo, Ryan Flaherty, Rio Ruiz, Adonis Garcia, Juan Uribe, and Chris Johnson. Those six guys have combined to earn 6.7 WAR in five seasons of baseball, and if we take out Camargo's revelatory 4.8 wins in just under two seasons, the number falls to an unsightly 1.9 WAR among the rest of the roughshod crew.

Atlanta appears content entering the 2019 season with Camargo commandeering third base, which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- Camargo's 2018 was solid. If we look at the two teams that matched up in this year's National League Championship Series, however (as well as a team knocked out along the way), a truer vision for Camargo's usage comes into picture.

Basketball has entered its "positionless" era -- baseball looks to be in for something similar. Let's call it the position-yes era. Can Camargo play third, short, second, probably first, and outfield? Yes! As a switch hitter with almost no splits (116 wRC+ as a lefty, 115 wRC+ as a righty), Camargo is matchups-resistant and versatile in an infield where that's not the case for his young but enigmatically-batting counterparts, Dansby Swanson and Ozzie Albies. If Atlanta were to acquire -- or promote -- a starting third baseman, Camargo could provide daily at-bats, solid defense, and addition-by-subtraction matchups relief at other positions. The question is: who to acquire?

The three biggest three-bagging names are, in variously-tiered order, Manny Machado, Mike Moustakas, and Josh Donaldson. Machado figures to need some kind of intergalactic space calculator to tabulate how much he'll earn for the decade-spanning contract he'll sign, so we'll go ahead and count him out. You have to go back to 2015 to find a year when Moustakas performed better than Camargo's 2018, and the former Royal will command far more cash than Camargo. And unless Donaldson comes at a steep injury discount and he and Anthopoulos are secretly deep, personal best friends, a Toronto reunion does not seem likely in Atlanta.

The promotional option seems much more feasible, as highly-touted Austin Riley should be ready to play some third base in Atlanta in 2019. The big righty sported an .882 OPS across the minor leagues last year, and ended the season blisteringly hot, homering in seven of his last sixteen games. If the Braves could get Riley's right-handed bat in the lineup, while keeping Camargo's in it, while also providing relief for the growing Swanson and Albies, Atlanta's sans-Freeman infield could achieve its most optimal and thrift-conscious setup.

Free Agency Find: None. Promote Austin Riley, use Johan Camargo as everyday super-utility man.

Backup First Baseman/Veteran Right-Handed Pinch-Hitter

This is an admittedly small need for Atlanta, one they may attempt to address by issuing a minor league spring training deal to a veteran, or simply by picking around the waiver wire mid-season. Freddie Freeman played the full 162 last season, and if he's healthy (and if pitchers could resist the apparent bullseye on Freeman's wrist), I expect Brian Snitker to oblige him the full 162 again. Even if Freeman doesn't do the Cal Ripken in 2019, it may be for the best: tired, pressing, or Home Run Derby heebie-jeebies (not a thing, btw), Freeman bopped just seven home runs after the All-Star break in 2018. Freeman might get himself some days off in 2019, not because Atlanta may actually seek a veteran backup, but because of adjacent moves in the Braves' hot stove future.

The Realmuto Rumors (if any Marlins blog needs a name, I got you) persist, and JT played thirteen games at first for the Fish last year. Snitker could deploy Austin Riley late in games as a right-handed bat off the bench. Atlanta could go back in time to a version of the universe in which Adam Duvall didn't have a .344 OPS. Or they could just pay Mark Reynolds a couple mil to come hit a dozen or so dingers.

Free Agency Find: Atlanta will probably use the back roads to get here, but if they choose the easy route, sign Mark Reynolds to a minor league deal.

Right Fielder

This is the point where things get fun for the Braves. They have, it would seem, a lot of options. They have (some) money, their current batch of outfielders are flexible and could accommodate the defensive needs of any potential signing, and there are legitimate outfield free agents a-waitin'. Anthopoulos could sign a vet, swing a trade, or mortgage off the Battery for Bryce Harper. This thing could go a lot of different ways.

It would be disappointing to bring back Nick Markakis, beloved as he may be, as the primary corner outfield option. Markakis plucked the heartstrings of the team after the Dodgers series, but his pluckless bat produced just a .701 OPS in the second half. The options to replace Markakis, then, are varied, and listed in no particular order here: Michael Brantley (age 31), Marwin Gonzalez (29), Andrew McCutchen (32), AJ Pollock (30), and Bryce Harper (26).

Harper is obviously the jewel of the class, despite the priciness of the jewel and the potential that the jewel might bat .223 for the first four months of the season. He'll likely swing $30 million a year, which is a lot. The feasibility of Atlanta's participation in Bryce's courting lies in the length of their proposed relationship. Anthopoulos wants no part in the Pujols/Cabrera/Stanton-style decade-long deal. Perhaps if Harper embraced his inner Chosen One and signed a one-year deal, the stove could get really warm in Hotlanta. With apologies to any concerns about roster fit or Harper's "down" 2018 (his OBP flirted with .400, and his 135 wRC+ was better than Nolan Arenado's), the Braves, along with every other major league team, will try like hell to acquire Harper. He would be a massive coup for any lineup, and a boon for the box office -- even if we'd have to reverse a seven-year boo-reflex when he steps in the box. If Anthopoulos could somehow sweet-talk Harper into a LeBron-style short-term deal, Atlanta might be players. This, however, does not seem likely.

More likely, then, is Atlanta's pursuit of the thirty-and-over crowd. Among those, Pollock plays centerfield, not exactly a position of need for the Braves, and has appeared in 150 games just once in his career. Despite playing just 113 games in 2018, the former Diamondback did pop a career-high 21 homers, seven more dingers than Markakis, and in almost 250 fewer ABs. MLB Trade Rumors suggests a contract worth $15 million per year, while FanGraphs settles around $16 million. Despite the all-around production, Pollock's injury history should keep the Braves out of the running.

Gonzalez, Houston's super-utility man for five years running, would seem to fill several of the Braves' needs. He is a versatile switch-hitter with power, and is on the right side of 30. Last year alone, Gonzalez appeared in over one hundred innings at left field, shortstop, second base, and first base. With Gonzalez and Camargo in tow, Atlanta could go all Dave Roberts on us and just switch fielders all over the field mid-inning. However, after posting a 144 wRC+ and 23 home runs in a breakout 2017, Gonzalez returned to his and the league's average in ‘18, slugging just .409 with a 104 wRC+. MLB Trade Rumors and FanGraphs see him netting a sizable discount compared to the other viable outfield free agents -- something in the ballpark of $9-10 million. Atlanta should see him as a fallback plan after the next two fellows.

The two free agent outfielders the Braves should target are Brantley and McCutchen. The two veteran big leaguers are an interesting duo for consideration, noting their teeter-tottering toward the backend of their careers, and their recent status among the game's elite. Steals, athleticism, and across-the-board consistency have given value to both in their careers -- both players will play the 2019 season at age 32, an age when it's tough to count on things like steals and athleticism. MLB Trade Rumors predicts both Brantley and McCutchen to receive three-year, $45 million deals, a reasonable price to pay for potential All-Star-level production.

McCutchen spent last season in San Francisco and New York, slashing .255/.368/.424 across both leagues. Though no longer an MVP or even All-Star-level player, Cutch was still 20% better than league average, posting a 120 wRC+. And the consistency, man -- McCutchen hasn't played fewer than 146 games since his rookie season, and has topped 20 homers in eight straight campaigns. At this point in his career, he is a right fielder, but the Braves could easily swap McCutchen and Ronald Acuna at their whim. McCutchen could amply supply the veteran leadership Atlanta would forfeit by letting Markakis walk.

Brantley, the former Indians outfielder, is the type of player whose baseball card's backside your grandfather would recognize. He's batted .295 for his career. He doesn't walk much or strike out either. Brantley whiffed in just 9.5% of his plate appearances in 2018, second among qualified hitters, and he did it with relative pop: only other hitter in the top ten in K% who slugged in the vicinity of Brantley's .160 ISO was his Indians teammate Jose Ramirez (whose 11.5 K% and .282 ISO are mind-altering). Brantley's season-long batting line settled at .309/.364/.468, to the tune of a 124 wRC+.

An average defender, Brantley has occupied left field for the majority of his major league career, though Acuna could simply slide over to play right if Brantley signed with Atlanta. The hospital-sized downside to Brantley has been his health, as he's played in just 244 games over the last three seasons.

Brantley walks half as often as McCutchen, but Cutch strikes out over twice as much as Brantley. And while McCutchen has been the model of health throughout his career, this season marked the first time Brantley has played in over 140 games since 2014. Steamer projections posit both to be worth 2.6 WAR in 2019. Atlanta could use the right-handed bat of McCutchen to follow Freddie Freeman, while also booning from McCutchen's fading but still relevant star quality. Though it's basically a toss-up, the Braves should land Andrew McCutchen with a three-year, $45 million contract.

Free Agency Find: Andrew McCutchen - three years, $45 million.

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