Max Fried left the Atlanta Braves for the New York Yankees at last week’s winter meetings. It was tough to blame Fried, who was never going to receive such an offer from Alex Anthopoulos. The Braves rotation is loaded thanks to an NL Cy Young season from Chris Sale, along with Reynaldo Lopez and promising prospect turned rotation anchor Spencer Schwellenbach.
Add in the likely return of Spencer Strider, another former NL Cy Young winner, and the Braves have themselves one of the best rotations in the league even without Fried. Of course, that does not mean Anthopoulos wanted to watch Fried leave. In recent winters, the Braves have lost too many homegrown stars – from Freddie Freeman to Dansby Swanson to Fried – all thanks to free agency.
While Anthopoulos has replaced each and every one of them, it is a lot of turnover in a market that is used to watching said homegrown talent stay home. That is not the case in the modern game.
Chipper Jones comes to Alex Anthopoulos’ defense as Braves fans panic
Fried received an eight-year, $218 million deal from the New York Yankees. That is generational wealth, and it’s tough to blame the southpaw for taking the money Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman offered.
Some Braves fans are disillusioned, however, and question Anthopoulos’ philosophy. Chipper Jones is here to put an end to that.
“I don’t care what anyone within the organization even Chipper has to say – I don’t trust AA at this point. The results are obvious and the eye test doesn’t lie. We are subtracting while everyone is adding and improving their rosters. I need to see evidence before I believe,” a Braves fan wrote on Twitter/X.
Chipper wasn’t having it, and is as active on social media as any MLB legend.
“You don’t trust him? What results…what eye test are you referring to? You wanna spend your money…or someone else’s? You don’t trust him, huh….he traded a backup infielder for a Cy Young winner and got the other team to pay for it. Might wanna cut him some slack when you boss tells ya that you only have so much to spend in an offseason. Man has brought you 6 divisions and a World Series!” Jones said.
There was more, but you get the point. Jones knows Anthopoulos personally and so he got a little defensive. To the same point, though, he is correct. Atlanta only has so much money to play with, and Anthopoulos is doing his best.
