The Braves Almost Signed A High-Profile Free Agent

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello, Everyone's Episode one three six of the Hammer Territory podcast. I'm your host, Brad Rowick, coming to you on a Monday afternoon, and I'm joined by Scott Coleman. Scott, it's lunchtime for both of us, kind of on both sides.

00:00:33
Speaker 2: How are you, hello, Brad, I'm doing well. The podcast never sleeps.

00:00:37
Speaker 1: That's right.

00:00:37
Speaker 2: Even if maybe we don't have like groundbreaking sound all the alarms news today to talk about, but there has been just enough news since the last time we did a podcast to say, hey, let's do a show, let's talk about some stuff, and here we are.

00:00:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we should say at the top of the show we are part of Foul Territory as a network. We are Hammer Territory. We covered the Atlanta Braves all year long, and we actually have lots of podcasts in the bank. The last few days and weeks we had Justin Tiscano and Grant mccallay on the show. Last week, Scott and I did a show on Saturday. It is still relevant at this point in time. But as you sort of alluded to, there's a little bit of news and notes. This would be a short one, I promise of sometimes we say that and it's not. This is going to be a short one, I'm pretty sure. But we thought about Jeff Hoffman on Saturday, United scott and some interesting reporting since then. So in case you missed it, Jeff Hoffman was a potential target in the Braves. We talked about a lot this winter. Potential hybrid guy, reliever mostly but could be a starter, et cetera, et cetera. He signed a deal with the Blue Jays over the weekend for three for thirty three. Reasonable deal for him. It was reported at the time as we discussed that Baltimore had failed at physical on Jeff Hoffman, so that's the backdrop. Then today Monday, as we're recording this podcast, Mark Bowman in front of the podbe dot Com reported that Hoffman had a potential deal that was quote unquote next when he failed a physical with the Braves medical staff. So that's the closest the Braves have come to signing a preas it seems like I was the real one this winter. What did you make of this? Look, it's not a huge surprise when you feel a physical somewhere else. You might feel his physical summer, but hey, this is direct Braves News. And it was interesting timing too.

00:02:16
Speaker 2: I think our co host Stephen Tolbert said it best that it's fitting that in like two months, the biggest bit of news that we've had, like honest reporting Braves news, is that the team didn't sign somebody because of medical concerns. I will say, even if we would have all been really excited if the Braves signed Hoffman, if it would have come out that two other teams failed him on medical concerns and the Braves were the team that signed him, I mean, I think you and I would probably do a show terrified that. And it wasn't just Hoffman's elbow, but his shoulder is apparently the concern to So yeah, I mean, in the big picture, he signed with Toronto, probably the last time we're gonna say Jeff Hoffman's name on this podcast for at least a couple of years. But the fact that Mark Bowman, who I think even if I mean Justin said it on the podcast week ago, it's like Fort Knox trying to get information out of the Braves. But you know the fact that Bowman has been doing this for decades. He's very concrete in his reporting and his sources, so to me. I believe that. I think we said on the podcast a couple of days ago that we would not be surprised if the Braves did check in on Hoffman to some level. And this does kind of confirm that not only were the Braves in on Hoffman and that there were real concerns about medicals, but also the fact that the Braves are seemingly pretty serious about adding to their bullpen and spending some dollars in order to do it.

00:03:44
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you what you think this means, because I think it probably is just that there the bullpen and smoke is out there. To be sure, the Tanner Scott stuff from DVB we talked about a couple of weeks ago. He's still unsigned. For the record. Also, look, I'll be the cynic Scott. I'll do the jobs and sometimes that's you on the podcast. I'll do it right now and just say there's a whiff of Hey, guys, we're trying to this to me like there's a whiff of this could I'm not saying that that's the case. The Braves are not with a team that actually cares too much about pr I don't think Alex is a big pr guy really at all. I don't think he much does that kind of stuff. But like you could read this as a the Braves wanted it out there that they're trying to sign for agents because the buzz is so negative. I'm not saying that I think that, but that is a thing that I could see as a person who follows the media stuff very closely. This that could be an angle that you could take. But yeah, I think it more is, Hey, we're looking at the bullpen. Justin said the same thing, you know, we talked about, Like, I don't know, I so we believe at least I don't think that it's the number one priority for me, But if it is for the Braves, that would be in line with Alex's history. He is someone who likes to invest in the bullpen. We discussed that at nauseum this winter already. And yeah, there's also a potential that Hoffman could have been in line for a Erinaldo Lopez hybrid potential starter model at a cheap price that would have appealed to the Braves. But he still has been a reliever primarily. So I find it really interesting. I do think that if all we knew when we when that deal broke this weekend, was that the Braves were signing him to three thirty three and one team had failed a physical on him. We would have noted it on the on the Reaction podcast, you know, it'd been like, all right, this is a little bit scary. If it came out two days later another team failed him, our antennas would have gone up, like you said. So, I'm not saying the Braves shouldn't have signed jump Offen. We just can't possibly know that with where you and I sit and without access to the medicals. But shoulders are kind of scared. I mean, elbows are always scared for pictures, but shoulders are almost in some ways more scary if it's a real shoulder issue for a guy who needs to be able to throw hard all that stuff. So uh, I would like I would have liked to react to Jeff offensign with the Braves. That would have been fun for us, and he would have helped the team. If he's healthy, he would definitely help the team. But there's enough smoke here where it's like, all right, I always get it if if you actually and by the way, what did you make of this? It says potential deal. Boman did not say they agreed to a deal Bowman. The warning was very specific. It's aid potential deal. I wonder if it got as far as like, we agreed to a deal and then mixed it, or if it was like, all right, we have a rough framework in place, but we need to we need toe check out your medicals. I don't know which one of those it was. That's actually it's kind of in the weeds. But I thought I'm that interesting too.

00:06:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's chicken or the egg, and but it is an interesting point of how far along were they. You know, if Hoffman was cleared and the elbow and shoulder looked good, was it a matter of him then going to the room next door and signing a contract or was it part three of a five stage process in order to get him done? Make sure, you know, you're not wasting everyone's time for them just to be like, oh, his shoulder has problems, and you know, of course it's two medical teams, which I think really does lend the likelihood that something could be wrong with the shoulder. And funny enough, old friend Kirby Yates actually years ago the Braves failed. Kirby Yates on a medical and then Toronto ended up signing him and about two months later Kirby Yates underwent Tommy John surgery. I'm not saying it's, you know, a one for one comparison here, but I think it's probably fair to say that Toronto's medical standards might be a little bit less than what the Braves and other teams are. But just because there's concerns about an elbow or a shoulder, it does not mean the next time Jeff Hoffman picks up a baseball that he's gonna need two years worth of surgery and rehab.

00:07:27
Speaker 1: Right. Another cynical view would be like every picture has something you know what I mean, right, I mean that's it's a realistic thing. I can't remember why I saw say that, but it's it's true, like you could probably fail any picture on a medical if you wanted to.

00:07:39
Speaker 2: Uh.

00:07:40
Speaker 1: And there are degrees of course of this and sudden we just can't know. I do like to acknowledge on the show what we can and can't know, and we simply cannot know how bad the medical was on Jeff Hoffin. Well, there's no way of knowing that if you on's awes in the comments that you know, you don't almost certainly, so, uh, you know, I get it. It's one of those things that it's, uh, it's not quite an emergency podcast for us, but I thought that it was like, all right, this is probably needs to leave the show because it was a The Braves actually almost signed someone, and that's as close as they've gotten, at least that we know about.

00:08:08
Speaker 2: Maybe that's the title of this episode, The Braves almost signed someone.

00:08:12
Speaker 1: You know what'sott that's probably gona be God tell this episode once we posted, we've just workshop that on the air. There is other news that we'll get to. In fact, this is a little bit. It's smaller news, but it's a recognizable name if you've been following the na least for quite some time. The Braves reportedly signed a minor league deal with a spring training invite for Garrett Cooper. Who is Garrett Cooper? Well, he was the basically the full time first baseman for the Marlins for a few years not that long ago, and it's been joked about plenty. I think you have on this podcast, dading back to our old stopping grounds, talked about Garrett Cooper as a Braves killer. I actually wouldn't pull this. He actually lit the Braves on fire in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, to the tune of like an ops near one thousand across two seasons. He's not that good, but he was a Braves killer for a couple of seasons. But I will say he was a real starting caliber player in the big leagues for five years. He had a one to ten MRC plus with the More Orleans over five seasons from twenty nineteen through twenty twenty three. Now, last year he was kind of all over the place, didn't play very much, got dfa, got traded, et cetera, et cetera. So he's been off the radar and he's mostly a first baseman, which is interesting. But we'll come back to that in a second. What'd you make of this beyond just the obvious connection to a former at Eliska.

00:09:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's funny. We've mentioned probably a dozen non guaranteed spring training invite signings this winter, and Garrett Cooper probably doesn't rise to the level of like Brian de la Cruz, who has like some legitimately interesting things, and he's younger and has some tools and is not removed from being isn't far removed from being quite good with Miami. And then there's also like Eddie Alvarez, who we talked about for literally nine seconds on the podcast over the weekend. Yeah, Cooper's probably in the middle of that at some point point. You know, Cooper, if he wasn't in the National League East, he probably wouldn't be nearly as familiar of a name to most Braves fans. But you said it, once upon a time, he was a good hitter in the major leagues.

00:10:14
Speaker 1: You know.

00:10:14
Speaker 2: Of course, defensively, there's a real question, and that's probably the next point of this conversation, where does he play short of injury? But the Braves will have probably one spot on the bench where it's kind of like a wild card and they can utilize it however they want, whether it be a more offensive focus player, a guy who's a speed you know, speed thread on the basis, a super utility guy, a third catcher. Basically, the way you have to construct your team is is you have one spot to play around with. And if Garrett Cooper is going to be that bat off your bench, then I could see this working out.

00:10:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's two things here, number one, and we did a whole episode of Matt Olson recently. It's still relevant. That's that's in our podcast feed from a few weeks ago about just the first peetition in Medallsen and our capsule there, but we did know it on that show. The Braves have not really had a backup first baseman now they haven't really needed one because Olsen plays every game for every season basically, but in the event that he would ever get hurt, they might need someone to play first base. Cooper can definitely do that. It's a minor league deal as well, so like you could sign a minor league deal for a guy without having a plan. You could just be like, hey, Heyyre Cooper is a major league quality player. We want to bring him in. We have no plan. That's possible could be first base depth and the wild card here and you kind of allude to it a little bit, is that he used to play some outfield now corner outfield, you might imagine as a first baseman. He's not playing center, like he's not a great defender, but he might be able to stay in the left field, and he has played there in the major leagues. If I could played their two it was two games we hey play their last year for two games. He hasn't play much outfield since twenty Oney won those. Look, I think he's a corner infielder first baseman, but he might be able to stand there. And the reason why I'm bringing that up is that Number one, the Braves don't have a lot of outfield depth right now, as well documented. But also he's a could be a platoon player in a certain aspect if he can play left and again that's a big if, but he is a lefty masher. He has a career one point fifteen w RC plus against lefties, which is the opposite of Jared Kilnick. So if you were to pair someone with Jared Killick, I'm not saying he's a perfect, perfect player to do that, but if the Brays wanted to have a platoon guy, that's the side they need more than the other side. Is the guy who hits lefties. Jak Cooper can do that. I don't know if that's any part of this, but if you're squinting to try to figure out what the role could be, if he can play corner outfield, it makes a little bit more sense.

00:12:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think with Cooper you bring him to spring training and you throw him in the outfield and see how it is, and.

00:12:42
Speaker 1: Can you do this right physically? Yes?

00:12:45
Speaker 2: Is it Jorge solaierbad? Or is it like, Okay, let's play him out there and we'll be okay. But let's hope there's not a dozen baseballs hit to left field that night. He's clearly more of a bad first type of player at this point, and it does give you some insurance in case, you know, God forbid Matt Olsen get hurt. Also a DH if Ozuna were to pull something, then you need a DH every night. I think Cooper would probably be fine in that, but it's effectively a risk free proposition as a veteran player. If Cooper just stinks it up in the spring, he probably walks into Brian Snicker's office and says, hey, Snit, if you're not going to play me, if I'm not going to make the team, please cut me loose and I'll find another team to try out for. And you know, at this point in his career, he's in his early mid thirties. He might just want to be part of like the twenty sixth man on a really good team. He's not done a lot of winning in his career with Miami, And I think there's probably a point for players who are self aware that maybe they're not one hundred and sixty two games starters anymore. But if he's good enough to swing the bat occasionally and maybe stand in a corner and back up Matt Olsen or Marcelo Zuna, he might be interested in that. And if he has a good spring, sure he will be in the mix. And and the Braves could build a roster where he's able to be basically a pinch hit only type, even in an era where with the DH you just don't get that a whole lot in games.

00:14:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's also a minor league deal, so maybe you stick a big onette and play first base. They don't really have a minor league first base, but that they were in love with either, like you know what I mean, if you just if you want someone in the organization who you like, and it's it's Ulsen insurance. Like we talked a few times, like if Matt Olsen, you know, was out for two months, they probably put Ozon at first base, Sa'd be my guess. But if it was a week, you may not want to do that you might want to just call up a guy from TRIPAA to plug him in for three days, you know, and Garret Cooper would be very useful.

00:14:40
Speaker 2: To do that.

00:14:41
Speaker 1: He was bad last year in a pretty small sample size. I don't know if he's just cooked or what. It's hard to tell in that small of staples. It was like a hundred play appearances across through three teams. But he's fine in the minors. Like I think, Gart Cooper was a as of twenty twenty three, so not that long ago. You know, a year plus ago, was a major league caliber hitter. So if he's still that guy, there's room on your roster for at least an a forty man roster for a player like this, and the downside is zero. So I'm not like throwing a parade, but honestly, he's been a better major league player for longer than Brian Dayla Cruz. Like he's he's he's the most established major league player that they have signed this winter, which is funny, but it's true. Now, the upside's not super high on all those things. I think we said a pretty job blaying that out, and he is a first baseman. But I can at least see why they did it. If he's available and was like, hey, I'll sign an early deal with you. The answer if it's if it's just the yes or no, My answer is definitely yes, give him that deal and see what happens.

00:15:36
Speaker 2: Of course, yeah, hey, if and if he wants to play in Gwinett and be a backup guy and make one hundred and fifty thousand dollars or whatever the going rate is for a major league veteran in the minor leagues. Usually, funny enough, the Associated Press usually comes out with those figures. So in a couple of days we'll probably know what Garrett Cooper will make if he's in Gwinett and sticks around. But yeah, you take it chance.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: It's basically no risk.

00:16:02
Speaker 2: If he's over fifteen in the spring, you shake hands and say, you know, it's probably not gonna work out. But we're talking about Garrett Cooper for about ten minutes.

00:16:12
Speaker 1: Now, that's it we were at. Yeah, if we were at the point in.

00:16:15
Speaker 2: The offseason where the Braves had signed Tanner Scott and had signed Jerks and Profar and had traded for Sonny Gray or some other pitcher, you know, we probably would have talked about Garrett Cooper for two minutes. But I think kind of the state of the Braves offseason is it's like, oh, we know Garrett Cooper. Let you know, let's talk about him on top of course with Jeff Hoffman, and then one more item we're going to hit on here today.

00:16:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Braves fit's at least diehards will recognize Kirkuper because he played with the Marlins. That's the biggest He's the big, bigger name than like you said this earlier. He's a bigger name that he probably should be to us because we just even play a lot of baseball in the last several years. All right, last thing before we got here, on a short podcast, the Braves announced this. There was rumblings, there's spent a little bit of reporting on this already, but now it's official. The Braves are going to tell five Well, someone's going to televise twenty six of the thirty spring training games this year, which for some teams would not be a big news, but the Braves have frustratingly not done this for several years. Just for comparison sake, last year was eight, so they've more than tripled the output of games we can watch in the month of March, and it's through a combination of TV streaming, et cetera. It's FanDuel, which is the flagship you know, cable network that has the most of the game during the season. Also this Gray Media deal, which I think Stephen and Sewank talked about a little bit, but it's this local, over the year TV deal for spring training games. And then also they're going to stream nine games online for free at Braves dot com and in the actual MLB app But I know you're able to watch, and I'm jealous of you, Scott. You're able to watch the Braves. I'm able to with TV all year round. I can't do that locally without some high jinks. So not much to this. I just want to say it's it's a good thing that they will finally doing. Oh it's great.

00:17:56
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, those spring training games generally they're in the middle of the work. So you know, if you have an office job where you can have a little Braves baseball on in the corner while you do your thing, why not. It's a great opportunity to see the young prospects who were in camp, especially early on and who doesn't love watching Braves baseball And it has been a point of annoyance for years now, where like I think the Yankees broadcasted every single spring training game last year on Yes, and I think the Red Sox did like twenty nine out of thirty last year. And then you mentioned the Braves had eight games. At the end of the day, it's spring training. Usually by like the sixth the innning, you don't recognize fifty five percent of the players on the field. But it is great. It's a win for fans. It's great that And just a quick note that you mentioned now on FanDuel if folks missed the announcement maybe a month or two ago. FanDuel TV is effectively replacing Bally at least just basically in term of name olemness.

00:18:56
Speaker 1: It's just a name change. Just the same group that owns it, Diamond Sports Group. People think that FanDuel, the sports betty company owns it. That's not true. They're just a name. They're just a sponsorship deal for this channel. But yeah, nothing is. It should be in the same place that you already had. There is this long standing TV weirdness that will still continue in a lot of ways locally. I know it's pros specially for a lot of people. It's on YouTube TV, for instance. You have to have certain packages, you gotta have cable to get it. It's not a lot of fun. This is the one area where it's better to be scout in Arizona to watch the Braves than it is to be here in Atlanta, which is fun. It's funny, but it's true. Way, it's way cheaper. It's way easier to be out of market than in market, which doesn't make sense. But here we are in twenty twenty four.

00:19:37
Speaker 2: In God, let's hope that changes, not just for the Braves but for fans of everywhere. Get rid of ridiculous blackouts.

00:19:43
Speaker 1: And you know, I think it's coming. I think it might be another couple of years, but I think it's coming. We're getting closer and closer to that. It is so unbelievably stupid that somebody who lives in the apartment complex across the street from Truest has a harder time watching a Braves game legally than then.

00:20:02
Speaker 3: I do two thousand miles away. Yeah, I mean, come on, well what are we doing. That's that's well said, but hey, this is a good step in the right direction. I look, a lot of these games are at one o'clock in the afternoon. I won't be able to watch all of them. I won't tell you that I will, but I know a lot of people can watch more, a lot more of them now than they were in before. And a couple of these are actually there's a couple evening games, like six o'clock starts, four o'clock starts, so you can watch the more baseball and look.

00:20:24
Speaker 1: I think it on in the background is cool. Well, we love we love baseball, like we wouldn't be doing the podcast and probably listen to the podcast if you did love baseball. Having it on more in February and March is just a good thing. There's no uh no really nuanced to that whatsoever. It's like, hey, more baseball.

00:20:37
Speaker 2: Cool, Yeah, Spencer Schreider is going to make his first spring appearance. Boom, let's turn it on. Or Drake Baldwin is catching and batting clean up that day, Boom, let's turn it on. Or oh, the braves are running out there everyday regulars for five innings today. Awesome, let's watch five innings. You know that that kind of thing, and it is nice that I guess the Braves are taking a big step in the right direction to having those games broadcasting.

00:21:01
Speaker 1: One Okay, Scott, we have fulfilled our pledge to keep us one short. God bless it. We did it once. We never do it ever, but we managed to do it today on a Monday afternoon pseudo emergency, not so emergency, but quick unplanned podcast, Scott. For those people that might not be familiar with your work beyond the show, where can they find all of your musings on the internet.

00:21:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am at Scott Coleman at fifty five on socials if you want to follow along there. And let us hope, Brad, now that we are about a month away from pitchers and catchers showing up, let's help that the damn breaks and we get some Braves moves, we get some just more activity across the whole league too. I mean we've been pacing for like one signing every five days maybe the last couple of weeks, and it always slows down around Christmas and New Year's and everything. But let's help. We here at the end of the tunnel for the Braves just basically silent winter, and we are talking about real transactions and maybe not mind league deals where if you squint it's like, yeah, I could see Garrett Cooper twenty six man.

00:22:05
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, that'd be more fun to talk about for sure. No, we'll have more on the podcast this week. I don't want to spoil it. We have a couple of things planned, one of which is top member Corey Dits. I won't talk about it until it's done, but more to come on the show as always, so please subscribe to Hammer Territory anywhere you find your podcast. If you want to follow me, you can at bt rolling, follow Scott at Scott Holding fifty five, and the show is across social platforms at Hammer Territory, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, it's cetera. The biggest thing it's subscribing and telling your friends. We're also on YouTube. Please like the show there, comment if you'd like to on the podcast, five star reviews, all that fun stuff. We really appreciate you listening. We'll have more later on this week and we'll see you all. Thanks time,