It’s that time of the offseason once again, as the Winter Meetings are set to get underway this Sunday down in Orlando, Florida. If you believe the current headlines, this should be an “active” Winter Meetings and hopefully
we’ll be seeing Atlanta Braves President/General Manager Alex Anthopoulos getting in on the action as well. The Braves have been relatively active so far during the offseason but as you can imagine at this point in the offseason, they are (hopefully) not done yet when it comes to improving the squad.
As such, it’s time to take a look at what the Braves have been up to since their season ended in late-September in disappointing fashion.
Personnel In
- Manager Walt Weiss
- Pitching Coach Jeremy Hefner
- Bullpen Coach J.P. Martinez
- First Base Coach Antoan Richardson
- Third Base Coach Tony Mansolino
- Catching Coach Dustin Garneau
- Major League Coach Tony Diaz
- Assistant Hitting Coach Darnell Coles
- RHP Carson Ragsdale
- LHP Josh Walker
- RHP Raisel Iglesias
- LHP Ryan Rolison
- INF Mauricio Dubon
- RHP Joel Payamps
- LHP Danny Young
Personnel Out
- Manager Brian Snitker (and all coaches but Tim Hyers and Eddie Pérez)
- INF Ha-Seong Kim
- INF Nick Allen
- RHP Pierce Johnson
- RHP Tyler Kinley
- RHP Nathan Wiles
Positions of need
Alex Anthopoulos publicly stated that the Braves would be looking at shortstop, starting pitching and bullpen. While the Braves have addressed their infield situation and also made additions to their bullpen, it’s safe to say that there’s still more work to be done. Retaining the services of Raisel Iglesias was good but the Braves have got some work to do when it comes to fortifying their relief corps. It was a bit curious to see them let go of both Pierce Johnson and Raisel Iglesias, so it’s extremely intriguing to see who will come in to replace those two in order to hopefully upgrade the bullpen.
The Braves also still need to figure out a better solution for their shortstop situation as well. While bringing in Mauricio Dubón was a solid move, it’s pretty clear that he shouldn’t be the every day starter for a Braves team that’s looking to return to the Postseason. The problem here is that the free agency market for shortstops is pretty paltry — part of the reason why Ha-Seong Kim opted out is because he’s currently one of the top available free agent shortstops out there. The Blue Jays are apparently pulling out all the stops in order to retain Bo Bichette, so Kim should be a very, very popular player when it comes to bidding for his services. Atlanta could solve a lot of their offseason problems by figuring out a way to bring Kim back into the fold but it certainly won’t be an easy proposition.
Finally, starting pitching is also a need for the Braves at the moment. While it’s nice having both Chris Sale and Spencer Schwellenbach in tow and there’s always the hope that Spencer Strider can put it together and return to good form, the Braves could probably do with improving their starting pitching situation as well. Gabe Burns of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that this is their priority, so we’ll see if that plays a factor in how they go about doing their business in the immediate future. Again, past the top members of this rotation, there’s a lot of question marks there and the Braves could do with turning some of those question marks into periods by bringing in some outside help for their rotation.
While this last one may not be a ‘need,’ it’s certainly a ‘want.’ Marcell Ozuna is currently a free agent, which means that the Braves now have a problem to solve when it comes to adding a bat with some pop in it. They could go down that path of finding a new DH (potentially re-signing Ozuna) or they could just choose to go with a DH-by-committee approach that a lot of teams are currently going with at the moment. Either way, the Braves could use a bit of a boost for an offense that has slowed down considerably since the “glory days” of 2023.
Draft Lottery
The Braves will also be busy in a relatively new arena of offseason business as well. Atlanta will be participating in this year’s Draft Lottery and they currently have the sixth-best odds of landing the first overall pick (and the bonus slot money that comes along with it) in the 2026 MLB Draft. This could end up being a watershed moment for a Braves farm system that’s in need of a boost — the Braves are already set to receive the 26th overall pick in the draft as a bonus for Drake Baldwin winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award, so just imagine having a very high draft pick on top of that. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens but for now, this is a unique opportunity for the Braves to get their minor league system back up and running strong again at a time where the standard is starting to dip just a little bit.
Rule 5 Draft
The Rule 5 Draft will take place the day after the MLB Draft Lottery and while this is always an event that’s worth at least keeping an eye on, it’s especially worth paying attention to since it’ll be very interesting to see if the Braves could potentially end up losing one or more minor leaguers. Blake Burkhalter and Ian Mejia are the two names to watch out for in terms of potential players who could end up on another team’s active roster once the Rule 5 Draft is finished.
Dale Murphy’s Hall of Fame chance
We’ll know by Sunday night as to whether or not Dale Murphy’s long journey towards the Hall of Fame will result in him finally getting granted a ticket to Cooperstown. As usual, he’s still. an outsider when it comes to who’s favored and who isn’t in this particular class of Contemporary Era candidates. Still, all Murphy and the rest of Braves Country can do (just like the lottery) is wait and see how the results shake out. Dale Murphy’s Hall of Fame chances have always been very tough to figure out but maybe this will be the moment where he gets his time in the sun. Again, let’s see what happens.
We’ll do our best here at Battery Power to stay on top of things over the course of next week. If there’s any big news coming out of the Winter Meetings, we’ll be right here to cover it for you. Will the Braves have themselves a busy Winter Meetings? Or will this turn out to be a dud of a week for Atlanta? It all starts on Sunday.
