Alex Anthopoulos has been in the business of baseball for a long time. His tenure with the Blue Jays, which culminated in a fantastic 2015 season that saw one of his trade acquisitions, Josh Donaldson, win the AL MVP almost out of nowhere, is well-documented and lauded. But perhaps, when all is said and done, his time as the GM/President of Baseball Operations for the Atlanta Braves will go down in history as one of the best stretches of front office work after the Steroid Era. Money is an interesting issue in baseball, because unlike other sports franchises, MLB teams don’t have a strict budget or a salary cap. Small-market teams struggle to keep rosters together, but the teams that spend their money really spend it. Major League Baseball has always been at the forefront of gigantic contracts for its stars (although the NBA is rapidly catching up in that regard), but Alex Anthopoulos seems to never have gotten that memo, and that’s a good thing.
The Braves are in a large market, for sure, and just won the World Series. Their front office has every excuse in the world to chuck money left and right at any free agent they please and could sign most of them. But ever since their NL East division crown in 2018, Anthopoulos and the Braves have slowly been building up a juggernaut through their farm system and sneaky trades, then signing the guys who they value the most to long-term deals, years before they hit free agency. Their roster is so deep and so young compared to how good they are that any other National League team (yes, even the Dodgers), should stare in awe at the Braves’ roster management. We can talk about their vibrant pitching rotation that they boast, with punch-in-the-gut young arms like Max Fried, Spencer Strider, Ian Anderson, and Mike Soroka, all of whom are going to be in the Peach State for at least the next two years, but it’s their potent lineup that impresses me the most. Ronald Acuna, Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, Matt Olson, and Michael Harris are getting paid moderately to be a part of a core that is almost guaranteed to be in the playoffs going into the late 2020s. Let’s break down each player’s extended contract and assess how much they’d actually be paid in free agency if they had never taken their long-term deals that they signed before or during their arbitration years.
Ozzie Albies
We’re starting with the second baseman from Curacao because his 2019 extension is the most unwarranted of the bunch (seven years, $35 million, with $7 million team options in 2026 and 2027). The length mixed with Albies’s abilities at the plate make this contract the most perplexing, but the average annual value is sublime. To have someone with an above-average career OPS+ of 105 signed for at least another three years at a 7-figure-per-year clip is genius on the part of the Braves. The biggest problem that Albies brings to the Braves’ lineup, besides his current injury, is his terrible chase and walk rates, but with the power that he can show on his best days and excellent fielding at second, he’s a positive asset on this roster no matter how you slice it. Ozzie would be a free agent at the end of this season if he never signed his deal, which would put him in a precarious position, given his injury status, so I’d say he’d garner anywhere from $7-13 million a season over 5 years. So far, Anthopoulos is one-for-one.
Ronald Acuna Jr.
Ronnie is having a down year in 2022, but there is no doubt that he has a seat on the MLB Youngster edition of Mount Olympus (which sounds like a future blog post idea now that I'm reading it in writing). That makes his eight-year, $100 million extension (which, like Ozzie's deal, also includes two team options) he signed in April of 2019 that much more impactful for the Braves’ finances. Acuna’s contract if he became a free agent after the 2023 campaign would easily hit $300+ million overall. This is an easy win for Atlanta as they try to ease their star outfielder back to full form after an ACL injury cut his 2021 short.
Matt Olson
Perhaps the most “circumstantial” contract of the bunch, given the drama with fellow first baseman Freddie Freeman, Atlanta native Matt Olson signed his big deal after being traded to the Braves from the A’s this past offseason. As he was set to become a free agent after the 2022 year, Olson signed an eight-year, $168 million extension with his new organization even before he put on a Braves uniform. The $22 million in AAV is a hard figure to dissect for Olson because he had such a good year in 2021 for Oakland, but has had much worse seasons throughout his career. Being the slugger that he is (and the fact that he’s having an above-average 2022 overall), Olson’s contract is probably accurate for what he would’ve received this winter had he not extended his contract with the Braves. However, the fact that Alex Anthopoulos signed him before he had a chance to hit the open market is a plus, for sure. Three-for-three.
Austin Riley
Call me an Austin Riley superfan, but I think he has a chance to be more beloved by Georgians than Acuna. If I said that three years ago, I could’ve been executed for high treason, but how can you not see the stardom that Austin Riley exudes? He’s essentially the righty National League counterpart to Rafael Devers, except his team actually wanted to extend him. Riley signed a 10-year, $212 million extension right before the 2022 Trade Deadline, the largest contract the Braves have ever given out. If you think that Austin Riley is going to be worth $21 million a year by 2030 if he continues on the pace that he’s on, you need to check the history books. Albert Pujols’s contract that he signed with the Angels in 2012 was for $24 million a year. If a player of The Machine’s caliber back then signed a similar contract today, it would be worth well over $40 million a season. Riley’s contract will soon be worth half his actual value. Book this deal as another success for Double-A.
Michael Harris
I’ll keep this one short and sweet. Harris is a rookie, and a good one at that. The Braves see a lot of upside in him. This past Tuesday, Harris signed an eight-year, $72 million contract with Atlanta. Just based on inflation, this is probably going to be a good contract, so let’s just hope that Harris becomes the next Mookie Betts, which is what his current skillset advertises. See? Short and sweet.
Be scared, NL East: the Braves are set for a while, and as a team that values control and development over signing big names, that “while” will be a long one. And if you think that Vaughn Grissom and Spencer Strider won’t also get the Anthopoulos treatment, then you’d be dead wrong. It’s interesting to look around the league and note that there aren’t that many mega-star free agents that go onto win the World Series with their new teams. Manny Machado and Bryce Harper have a chance this year, but there aren’t as many big free agent (not traded for and extended) world champs as you might think. Perhaps the Braves know a secret that all of us don’t, because the Baby Braves are winning like nobody else is or will be.
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