Some unsourced Braves speculation entering Winter Meetings

Read this article and then marvel at how quickly I'm proven completely wrong.

Winter Meetings begin on Sunday. And while the stove hasn’t been ice-cold - some big-ish names have come off the board in the last few weeks - it’s widely expected that the executives’ gathering in Dallas will turn up the heat significantly. Jeff Passan suggests that Juan Soto might make his decision by the beginning of Winter Meetings. When he does, one major-market team will land a generational slugger and four will find themselves with $600 million of long-term money to spend. That’s good news for the likes of Willy Adames, Corbin Burnes, and Max Fried, all of whom could become very expensive Soto consolation prizes.

Ahead of what could become a feeding frenzy, I want to set out some educated guesses I have about how the market will shake out for the Braves, based both on what we know about the organization’s tendencies and what we know about the market so far.

If Willy Adames really wants to play shortstop, he’s a Brave

Willy Adames checks a lot of boxes for Atlanta. They prize durability. He’s played at least 139 games in every non-pandemic season since 2019. They value power and bat speed. He’s a perennial thirty-homer threat who posted a 77th percentile average bat speed in 2024. While he’ll strike out his fair share, he’s also posted a double-digit walk rate in three of the last four years. By Outs Above Average, he took a significant step back defensively this year, but that still left him as a slightly above-average defender. And if the Braves feel like their clubhouse could use another leader, Adames has developed a strong reputation as a mentor.

Obviously, these characteristics make Adames attractive to the rest of the league. While the Braves have been connected to Adames, so have the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, Phillies, Astros, and Red Sox. That’s basically every team that’s signaled it has money to burn this offseason, and then a few who haven’t.

Here’s the thing: the Yankees, Phillies, Astros, and Red Sox all have long-term starting shortstops under contract. All of them would presumably play Adames at third base, where he’s expressed a (somewhat reluctant) willingness to play. But the Yankees will likely exit the Adames market if they land Soto, the Phillies would have to move Alec Bohm to make way for Adames, the Astros’ first priority is Alex Bregman (and it doesn’t sound like they have a whole lot of payroll room), and the Red Sox would have to move Rafael Devers off third base and find a suitor for Triston Casas. These are all plausible fits for Adames, but not natural ones. And Adames’ skillset is less appealing at a less valuable defensive position, so it would be odd for one of these teams to value Adames in a way that would blow Atlanta’s offer out of the water.

That leaves the Dodgers, Giants, and Braves, all of whom could play Adames at shortstop. It would be foolish to count Los Angeles out of any player’s market, but between Gavin Lux, Miguel Rojas (who was quietly great at shortstop in 2024), Mookie Betts, and Tommy Edman, the Dodgers have a pretty strong personnel group in the middle infield. The Giants are certainly credible Willy Adames suitors - they’ve explicitly said they want a shortstop - but I bet they end up with Ha-seong Kim, longtime friend of Giants outfielder Jung-hoo Lee. This squares with Ken Rosenthal’s report that Matt Chapman has offered to handle shortstop early in 2025 while Kim rehabs from shoulder surgery.

Maybe Adames will sign with one of these teams in the next week; it’s not like he won't have options. But something that’s rarely true about high-end free agents might be true here: the Braves might want Adames more than any other credible suitor does.

Atlanta’s starting pitching options: Eovaldi or the trade market

Mark Bowman doesn’t often report rumors about Braves targets, so when he does, I listen. Bowman connecting the Braves to Nathan Eovaldi makes a ton of sense. Atlanta certainly needs a starting pitcher given that Max Fried and Charlie Morton are free agents and Spencer Strider will miss at least April while recovering from his internal brace procedure. FanGraphs’ Ben Clemens projected Eovaldi to receive a 3 year, $48 million deal this winter, and that aligns nicely with his track record. Eovaldi is a good third starter who you’re happy (if you’re a big believer in postseason stats as demonstrating a separate ability, really happy) to put on the mound in October. There are some concerns in his profile - he’s entering his age-35 season, has had elbow trouble in his past, and has seen his stuff steadily diminish - but he’s a very useful player.

Starting pitchers have gotten paid so far, though. Blake Snell, Matthew Boyd, Frankie Montas, Yusei Kikuchi, and Luis Severino have all either met or beaten their market expectations (though with Severino, it’s at least partially the result of the Sacramento A’s Tax). Anyone who hasn’t formally written Max Fried off from Atlanta’s future plans should probably say their goodbyes now - as should anyone fantasizing about Corbin Burnes in a Braves jersey. Walker Buehler’s October resurgence might have just been smoke and mirrors, as my Reddit friend /u/ZCampbell15 unpacked. Nick Pivetta would be very interesting to me - he’s been a pitch model darling for years - but the qualifying offer takes some of the shine away.

If the Braves don’t sign Eovaldi, I think they turn to the trade market. Garrett Crochet is the belle of the ball, and I doubt Atlanta gets something done there. But taking a shot on Tampa Bay’s Jeffrey Springs or giving Seattle their annual holiday gift of salary relief, this time via a Luis Castillo trade? Those strike me as more plausible options.

A big-name reliever is coming - with a secret skill?

Never mind the fact that the Braves have gotten some of their best bullpen work in the last five years out of Dylan Lee, Tyler Matzek, Grant Holmes, and Jesse Chavez - Alex Anthopoulos loves an expensive reliever. With A.J. Minter a free agent and Joe Jiménez missing at least the bulk of 2025 recovering from knee surgery, the Braves will no doubt look to add some pedigree to the bullpen. Maybe someone like Clay Holmes or Jeff Hoffman.

Holmes and Hoffman would be fun additions because not only are they great relievers, they’ve both been floated as candidates to take starter roles. Atlanta’s success with the Reynaldo López experiment might embolden the front office to try the same trick this offseason. And just as importantly, if Holmes and Hoffman are interested in starting, they’d probably like to go to an organization that’s navigated that transition successfully.

Signing one of these pitchers and hoping he can be an effective starter isn’t a substitute to getting a proven mid-rotation arm; the Braves definitely need one of those. But it takes a lot of starting pitchers to get through a season, and Atlanta might prize that sort of versatility from their bullpen acquisition.

They aren’t resetting the luxury tax

One of the first articles I wrote on this site was a piece that suggested that the Braves might set things up to reset the tax in 2025. The Braves snuck over the luxury tax threshold in 2023 and then absolutely blew past it in 2024, finishing mere dollars short of the third tax bracket. But the tax rates go up for each of three consecutive years over the threshold, which sometimes gives teams cause to duck under the threshold for a year and reset the rates.

As it stands, Atlanta has a luxury tax payroll figure of $217 million and the first threshold stands at $241 million. It seems extremely unlikely that they’ll move any contracts currently on the roster - a team that didn’t value relievers very much might try to salary dump the $16 million Raisel Iglesias is owed in 2025, but the Braves are not that team. So do you think Atlanta can acquire a starting pitcher, a starting-caliber outfielder, and at least one well-regarded reliever for a combined AAV of less than $24 million, even if it gets one or more via trade? I don’t.

Maybe I’ll write the same kind of thinkpiece in a month, and maybe next offseason, the Braves will actually reset the tax. They’ll likely have Iglesias and Marcell Ozuna off the books, to begin with. But it’s not happening in 2025.