[The first of the Where Do We Go From Here Series, courtesy of Jon S. Additional entries welcome at jonathanf@bravesjournal.com, which works now. Lest people think I don’t do any editing, I have region-checked the spelling of favourite — jf]


Everyone is here for the same reason. We have all adopted the Braves as our favourite professional sports team. The origin stories vary. Maybe Dale Murphy gave you a pat on the head when you were a kiddo. Or your ten-year-old self wanted to stick it to Yankee-fan-Dad by boasting that your NEW FAVOURITE TEAM just beat the Pirates in the 1992 NLCS and you stayed up to watch while he foolishly went to bed early. (guilty) Or maybe you’re a hugger and love that Freddie guy who does the same thing. The point is, despite our varying journeys to get here, we can agree on this: team wins – happy day, team loses – sad day.

On October 7 the Braves lost. Which means we are at least 142 days (at time of this writing) away from a happy day. That’s a lot of time to be sad. Let’s compound our sadness by arguing over things we have zero control over (i.e. roster construction). It isn’t productive, but at least it passes the time.

For the purposes of this post I’ve constructed a strawman out of italics to argue with. The strawman isn’t meant to be credible. Just italics.

My sadness is overwhelming and I demand satisfaction. This team bears little resemblance to the 2021 championship team and I do not like it. The only solution is to make sweeping changes!

It is true! Of the players on that World Series winning team only Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, Dylan Lee, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Spencer Strider remain and those last two guys weren’t even on the playoff roster! We owe these new players zero loyalty. They haven’t given us a single championship!

Let’s trade the bad ones away! For good players!

Good thinking! But which are the bad ones?

The guys who get paid a lot of money but don’t play very well. They’re basically robbing the team!

Okay… looking at the players with guaranteed contracts for next season. I’ve ranked them by 2026 salary divided by WAR.

  • Jurickson Profar INFINITE MONEY
  • Spencer Strider NEGATIVE VALUE
  • Sean Murphy $150M
  • Reynaldo Lopez $140M
  • Austin Riley $20M
  • Mike Yastrzemski $12.9M
  • Ronald Acuna Jr. $8.9M
  • Robert Suarez $8.6M
  • Ozzie Albies $5M
  • Matt Olson $5M
  • Chris Sale $3.3M
  • Michael Harris II $1.6M

See! It’s so obvious! Profar, Strider, Murphy, Lopez, Riley and Yastrzemski are way below market value ($8.1M/WAR). Fire them all into the sun! Especially Strider!

We should just release them? Then we get no WAR from them in 2027 but we still have to pay them!

Bench them?

Same result, no?

Okay new plan. Let’s trade them all for good players. There’s gotta be one GM who will fall for that trick. Paging Perry Minasian…

[The number you have dialled is no longer in service]

Plan C! Let’s trade them for other teams’ bad contracts!

This doesn’t solve our $/WAR problem. And we could actually use some of these guys.

But they cost so much money!

It’s not our money.

It’s about the opportunity cost!

You think having these guys on the roster is preventing us from getting better players?

Yes. I’ve made a wishlist of free-agent players that I want on the team. I want Tarik Skubal, Seiya Suzuki, Trevor Rogers, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Randy Arozarena.

Technically we have room for all of them. Especially since half the rotation is going to get injured and Profar is getting suspended again. And the team makes SO MUCH MONEY from The Battery.

We really can have it all!

How much do you think it will cost to sign all these guys?

Millions and millions!!! Let’s smash the @#%$ out of the piggy bank!

And how old are they?

They’re in their late 20’s/early 30’s.

What do you think the odds are that they’ll take short term deals?

Lousy!

Do you think they’ll have good $/WAR values at the end of their contracts when they’re 35?

Definitely not the pitchers. Or the shortstop. Middle infielders age like lemonade milkshakes.

So we’ll take a chance on the outfielders?

They’ll be bad contracts by the end, but that’s for future us to worry about. We’ll get great value at the front of the deal!

Kinda like we did with Strider, Riley and Lopez.

Sure! But there’s a chance the new guys won’t turn into pumpkins at the end of their careers like those three did.

Except Strider, Riley and Lopez are 29, 29 and 32. Pretty much the same age as your free agent targets.

That’s really not that old. But they’re injury prone!

So was Chris Sale.

You’re not allowed to use Chris Sale in these arguments. He’s an edge case.

Okay okay. I’ll cut you a deal. Let’s sign some players to contracts that could age badly and hope for the best. I dunno… Rogers and Arozarena. But also hold on to our guys that are under contract because there’s not much else to do but hope they turn it around.

Why are you making this offer to me? I’m a strawman made out of italics. I don’t call the shots here.

I don’t call the shots either.

So this whole exercise has been pointless?

We passed some time. And hopefully were entertained.

Good enough for me!