How can Braves improve roster before spring?
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ATLANTA -- There wasn’t much surprise when the Braves traded Jorge Soler less than 24 hours after the World Series ended. This offseason move had been anticipated going back to July 29, when Atlanta reacquired the 2021 World Series MVP.
Nearly two months later, the Soler trade stands as Atlanta’s only significant move. Well, there was the team’s decision to decline Travis d’Arnaud’s $8 million option, so maybe it’s best to say the offseason has brought Braves fans no news to celebrate.
But it’s not like there’s a deadline to make offseason adjustments. The Chris Sale trade was one of baseball’s most significant moves last year. It occurred on Dec. 30.
So, there is still time for Atlanta to make a move that could significantly influence the 2025 season and beyond. But it is not clear exactly how the club could best improve its roster before the start of Spring Training.
Should the Braves add insurance to a talent-rich rotation that must prove its durability once again? Would it be better to add an outfielder to a lineup that will miss Ronald Acuña Jr. for the season’s first two months?
How do you replace the innings logged by the injured Joe Jiménez and free agent A.J. Minter, two of last season’s top three setup men?
Let’s just agree that signing free agent outfielder Bryan De La Cruz and acquiring right-handed pitcher Davis Daniel from the Angels won’t have a significant impact on anything beyond Triple-A Gwinnett’s bid to win the International League.
These depth moves can certainly prove to be valuable, but creating outer padding doesn’t take care of the internal holes.
Could the Braves get away with De La Cruz, Jarred Kelenic and Michael Harris II serving as their primary outfielders until Acuña returns? That’s certainly not a risk I’d like to take. If De La Cruz is in the big leagues, he seems best suited as the right-handed portion of a left-field platoon with Kelenic. So, the addition of another outfielder seems necessary.
As long as his medicals were fine following late-season hip and knee issues, Max Kepler seemed like a decent free-agent option. But he signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Phillies on Friday. Giving Kepler one year seemed a better option than giving Jurickson Profar the multi-year deal he might have earned after resurrecting his career with the Padres this past season.
With the free-agent outfield list thinning, there’s reason to wonder if it might be better for Atlanta to get an outfielder via trade. The same could be said regarding a starting pitcher.
Plenty of teams would love to have a rotation that has Spencer Strider, Sale, Reynaldo López and Spencer Schwellenbach as its first four starters. This has the potential to be one of the game’s top starting pitching groups again in 2025. But there are some legitimate questions about each of these four arms.
How effective will Strider be after he returns from right elbow surgery in late April or early May? Sale won the NL Cy Young Award after totaling just 151 innings from 2020-23. Can he do it again? Sure, but that’s far from a guarantee.
López rebuilt his endurance while serving as a starter for the first time since 2021. This could make it easier for him to shoot for 170-plus innings this season. But a pair of late-season arm issues create some concern. As for Schwellenbach, all he did was complete 168 2/3 innings during his first full season as a starting pitcher since high school.
There’s a chance each of these pitchers proves efficient and reliable throughout the season. But instead of taking a chance, I’d find some insurance, especially if I’m a team like the Braves, who have had to pull a name out of a hat to choose a starter for a playoff game in both of the past two seasons.
You can never have enough pitching.
This leads me back to my solution for the bullpen. It would be great if Daysbel Hernández, Dylan Lee and Aaron Bummer prove they can handle some more high-leverage roles. Grant Holmes might again become a key bullpen piece after possibly spending the season’s first month in the rotation.
But for now, Atlanta needs to bring a handful of extra relievers to camp and hope to find some of the magic the likes of Tyler Matzek, Kevin Gryboski, Peter Moylan and Chris Hammond have shown after being given a Spring Training audition.