While Max Fried and Charlie Morton both have new homes, Atlanta hasn’t done anything to replace them quite yet. In fact, the Braves haven’t signed a single Major Leaguer in free agency this offseason.
Passan does not expect that to last with Atlanta poised to get Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider back from injury for 2025.
“The Braves are about $20 million under the first luxury tax threshold, and [general manager Alex] Anthopoulos has suggested they could exceed it for the third consecutive season, so there is room to add,” Passan wrote on Monday. “Whether Atlanta spreads its gains out over a number of players to exploit falling prices or prefers to go after a single impact-type player, the Braves are poised to add [Acuña and Strider] to a team good enough to make the postseason without them.”
Passan added that the Braves’ offseason so far runs contrary to what we’ve come to expect from Anthopolous, whom he called “the king of the early-winter strike.” Instead, it’s been an offseason of free agent near-misses and watching two pitchers who combined to start 59 games in 2024 leave town.
The Jorge Soler salary dump gave the Braves spending flexibility
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The Braves’ one major move so far this offseason was to trade Jorge Soler to the Los Angeles Angels for relief pitcher Griffin Canning in a move that will save the team around $14 million. Even with Anthopolous willing to go over the luxury tax threshold, that theoretically gave the Braves some more money to work with.
The obvious place to add would be to the starting rotation as the team needs to make up for the losses of Fried and Morton — even with Strider due to return. Unfortunately for Atlanta, most of the big names are off the board, though Jack Flaherty remains unsigned. They could also make a run at Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki, but the Braves are not thought to be one of the top contenders for his services.
Wherever the Braves go from here, Passan expects the team to make a splash.
“When the entirety of a winter consists of dumping Jorge Soler’s contract on the Angels and a number of pursuits that never came to fruition, it’s a recipe for fan exasperation,” he said. “Not anger. Not disappointment. Just the desire for something better. Sometime before the Braves report to North Port, it’ll happen.”
Russell Steinberg covers Major League Baseball and the New York Liberty for ClutchPoints. A baseball and basketball lifer, he has written for Boardroom, SLAM, SB Nation, The Next, and more. He graduated from NYU in 2012 and still returns to serve as PA announcer and occasional broadcaster for the school’s basketball and volleyball teams.
