A day before their title defense began in the National League Division Series this week, the Atlanta Braves tweeted out the kind of announcement that has become common for them in the past two years. The Braves announced they signed rookie fireballer Spencer Strider to a six-year, $75 million deal with an option worth $22 million for a seventh year, a feel-good signing to kick off October by ensuring one of the game’s strongest young arms sticks around.
The Brave approach: Extend young talent and become a consistent contender
A day after Atlanta General Manager Alex Anthopoulos traded for first baseman Matt Olson in March and virtually guaranteed the departure of franchise icon Freddie Freeman, Atlanta announced it had locked Olson up for eight years and $168 million. The day before the trade deadline in August, while baseball eyes were focused on Juan Soto and other potential blockbusters, the Braves announced a 10-year extension for third baseman Austin Riley. In mid-August, they locked up rookie of the year candidate Michael Harris II for eight years and $72 million.
Every time the Braves announce one of these moves, the rest of the baseball industry groans a little louder.
Thanks to pouncing early on what most executives consider low-market extensions for Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies years ago, in addition to all the aforementioned deals, the Braves — who evened their NL Division Series with the Phillies on Wednesday with a 3-0 win in Atlanta — have a core in place for at least four more seasons: Their starting catcher (William Contreras), first baseman (Olson), second baseman (Albies), third baseman (Riley), center fielder (Harris) and top young pitchers Strider and Kyle Wright are all under contract — deals not negotiated under the pressure of free agency or arbitration — through at least 2026.
“That’s sort of the motivation in trying to get something like this done. Just to be around the guys that [Anthopoulos] has put together and the commitment to winning not just right now but in the future with the guys that are in this clubhouse is very obvious,” Strider, who is on Atlanta’s NLDS roster but is returning from injury, said Monday. “And that means a lot to me. It’s very cool and humbling to have the opportunity to stay here.”
If Strider stays through the end of that deal, Atlanta will have committed as much to him in the option year of that contract as the Toronto Blue Jays are paying Kevin Gausman this year, as much as the San Francisco Giants paid free agent prize Carlos Ródon. Those players had far longer track records than Strider when their current teams signed them. Strider has thrown 134 innings in the majors — almost all of them impressive, enough to accumulate more than 200 strikeouts. But not all teams are willing to commit so much based on so little.
A few teams have shown willingness to do so in select cases. The Tampa Bay Rays gave then-20-year-old Wander Franco the largest extension ever for a player with less than a year of service time last winter when they committed as much as $223 million to him over the next 12 years. The San Diego Padres signed then-22-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr. to a 14-year deal worth $340 million, the biggest ever for a player who had yet to reach arbitration. The Seattle Mariners locked up Julio Rodríguez during his rookie season, crafting a creative deal that would allow his earning power to grow with performance but limit their baseline risk if he doesn’t.
Franco hit .277 with a .746 on-base-plus-slugging percentage despite being limited to just 83 games because of injury this year — excellent numbers for someone who just turned 21 but nothing close to the superstardom Tampa Bay expects. Tatis, on the other hand, has already called the wisdom of his contract into question with off-field issues including injuries and a positive PED test that will keep him suspended until next May. Rodríguez is a front-runner to be American League rookie of the year.
But all three of those players were considered surefire superstars by the time they reached the big leagues.
Multiple executives from opposing teams suggested Anthopoulos’s willingness to put money down on players before they hit arbitration — a calculated risk, especially for teams with lower payrolls — is one of the key factors allowing Atlanta to lock in this core. Acuña was 21 when Atlanta signed him.
Albies, whose seven-year, $35 million dollar deal was widely panned as an egregious undervaluing of his talents, nevertheless signed when he was 22 — before hitting arbitration. Strider is 23 but is also a few years away from arbitration. The team hasn’t had to argue against his value yet. He hasn’t seen the system force Atlanta to give him a raise. Like Acuña, Albies and fellow rookie Harris, he is operating with a clean slate. Like the rest, Strider chose stability over uncertainty.
“I’m just excited that there’s some security in knowing I’ll be here with these guys in this clubhouse,” Strider said.
The other thing executives point to when discussing the Braves’ signing habits: For the past half decade or so, none of their young stars have been clients of agent Scott Boras.
Boras pushes his clients to reach free agency. His clients rarely sign extensions before then, regularly agreeing to large arbitration-year deals as their teams try to avoid contentious hearings with budding stars. Atlanta doesn’t tend to sign Boras clients, either, in part because Anthopoulos is generally averse to signing big free agent deals.
As willing as he has been to sign his own players to extensions — even short ones, such as the two-year deals he gave veterans Travis d’Arnaud and Charlie Morton — he has not bid big on the free agent market during his tenure, with the notable exception of the four-year deal worth $65 million that he gave Marcell Ozuna before Ozuna was arrested twice in two years.
And he hasn’t signed all his own players, either. When Freeman’s numbers didn’t match Atlanta’s, the team let him walk. Dansby Swanson will be a free agent after this season. But even if Swanson leaves, Anthopoulos will have to navigate turnover at maybe one or two positions in his starting lineup over the next half decade, barring injury or trade. That stability does not guarantee a run of titles. But it helps.
Winning a World Series, as the Braves did last year, is difficult. October is a painfully inexact science for an industry slowly whittling varied approaches into one data-driven consensus. Luck plays a far bigger role than anyone would like to admit. No one has won back-to-back World Series in more than 20 years. Perhaps that says it all.
What those past two decades seem to have taught those committed to winning titles, then, is that the best way to win in October is to be there — over and over, year after year, wearing bad luck out enough that it all goes right every now and then. Even that strategy is not exactly high-yield: The St. Louis Cardinals finished with a winning record every year since 2008 and won one World Series in that time.
The New York Yankees haven’t had a losing season this century but have just one World Series title since 2000. The impossibly automatic and dominant Los Angeles Dodgers have won more regular season games than any team in baseball since 2011 and 20 more games than the next closest team since 2017. They have one World Series title in that time, won in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
And even the Braves are seeing new holes emerge in their roster. The reliever who emerged as a folk hero during that run, Tyler Matzek, underwent Tommy John surgery Wednesday. Albies will miss the division series with a broken finger. Just because Atlanta’s core will be under contract does not mean it will be on the field. Injuries come for every roster. Change, on the other hand, will not be arriving in Atlanta anytime soon.
Source: WP
