Alex Anthopoulos Talks Braves Payroll as Spring Training Begins

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello, one and on, Welcome to the Ladies' edition of the Hammer Territory Podcast. It is me and Steven Tolbert back in the Satele. It's been a few weeks since we have been together on a regular show, but it's good to be with you once again. And it was a pretty active day and exciting day as we got to see some names that with some people that we have been wanting to see for quite a while, and those people said some interesting things into microphones and we're going to get into what Alexanthopolis in particular had to say in spring trans Spring training started, Stephen, before we get into that. Always a pleasure to see you, sir. How are you today.

00:00:58
Speaker 2: Sean, what's up brother, Yeah, it's good to be on with you. Man. I decided to wear the Braves hat today. You know, we had the one guy in the YouTube comments who is very mad that I had a Brewer's hat on. I thought about worrying it again just to double down, but we went Braves today just because you know, spring training has started. We've got pictures and catchers are reported, a lot of the position players already. There's it's kind of become a regular thing. You know, very few players actually report the day that players are supposed to report. They come the same day or sometimes earlier than the pitchers and catchers show up, so most of the players are in camp already doing batting practice, doing interviews. Obviously, Alex and Thoppoless gave a kind of a big interview right at the start of camp, and that's going to be the focus of today's show because he had some interesting things to say.

00:01:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely did. It will kind of go in a bit of the order of what Alex and thoppols had to discuss, you know, mainly hitting on a few topics before we get into the main topic, which you know will be you know, some interesting comments that the had in terms of how the off season progressed. And you know, obviously, you know, the big question on everybody's mind is, you know, payroll, and we've talked about that at length on this show in weeks past. But let's first start with the beginning of the interview Stephen, where he talked about Ronald Acunya Junior and Spencer Strider, and of course Ronald Accuonya Junior himself spoke it was good to see Ronald in action, good to see Ronald, you know, engaged, and you could tell that he was ready to get going once again. In overall a positive report, But the big thing from Alex Andhopolis was that really nothing had changed. Ronald is not going to play in any of the spring training games. He's going to do plenty of work, you know, basically on the backfields, I guess for a lack of a better way of putting it, but the Raids are basically going to keep you know, keep tabs on how he's doing, and he'll continue to progress. So the big takeaway from me, Stephen is that it's good to at least see proof that Ronald is healthy and active and obviously has made a lot of progress. But also the big takeaway is nothing has really changed. Once we get to the start of the season, probably will get more information, but it still seems like that early to mid May makes sense as when to really expect Ronald to be back in good actions.

00:03:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was notable to me that he said he's not that Ronald's not gonna play in any spring training games. I don't know if that we had that information before. I guess we kind of assumed, I thought he might get into a couple near the end, but Alex just went ahead said he's not gonna play in any spring training games. He might do stuff on the backfields and dh and stuff like that. If you talk to Acunya, you know, if you listen to a Cunya talk, he is much more I can play pretty soon. If you listen to Alex talk, they're gonna be much much more cautious about it. I think what they don't want is they don't want a situation like we got in twenty two where he's back, but he's not really back. He's not Ronald Acuna Junior. He's kind of a shell of himself. And I think they're trying to avoid that this time around, where they just give him more time. Obviously, this injury happened earlier in the calendar than the previous one. You know, the first one he tour was in mid July. This one was in May, late May, so he's already had a you know, a month and a half more to recover than he did last time, and so they're just gonna take it very slow. And yeah, like you said, I think May around the early May is gonna be you know, if he's not gonna play in any spring training games. And obviously he's gonna have to rant back up during April, you know, in the minor leagues or wherever extended spring training, wherever they want to do it. So yeah, early May looks like it's gonna be the mark. But it was notable me that he's not gonna play in any spring training games. I just came right out and said it. There wasn't any you know, doubt. He didn't. He didn't leave a question at the end of it. He just said, matter of factly, he's not gonna play in any spring training games. And so that kind of takes the some of the questions out of it. When we see the lineups every day in spring training and Acuna is not in it, now we know why, and maybe that's why I did it to just to avoid the the constant questions about it, and it just kind of settles it for the rest of spring. But yeah, early May looks like when it's gonna he's gonna be back. So hopeful we'll get more closer to the twenty twenty three Ronald than the twenty twenty two Ronald.

00:05:05
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and that's another thing that you know, he discussed as well. And we will, you know, when we talk more about you know, season previews and things such as that, we'll discuss what Ronald mentioned, But I will say that and one thing that Ronald alluded to was that he feels he's in a much better place in coming into this season than he was going into the twenty two season. And it's not just because this is a second time experiencing things. Alexanthopolis himself said that Ronald was in a better position going into this year, much further ahead, so that at the very least is encouraging that should you know, basically answer some questions in terms of what version of Ronald we're gonna get when he comes back. Hopefully once he returns, yes, you would expect you know, for you know, a few weeks even to a month or so. He needs to you know, get you know, reallocated to the game that he loves. But maybe he'll be back to his normal self much quicker than what we saw in twenty twenty two.

00:06:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the goal. I mean, you know, we'll do a whole Ronald show a little bit later, but yeah, if he's back to normal, then I mean that's everything for the Braave. I mean he's just a you know, he got put on he got put on the MLB. I think they did like a top one hundred and he got put like sixteenth on the list. And that's because of the injury obviously. I mean two years ago, when he was healthy, he was the best player in baseball. So the Braves need the best player in baseball. And I said before when we were talking about Michael Harris, and I'm not ready to give up on Acuna still being that guy. Even though he's had two, you know, full knee reconstructions. I still think that guy is in there. I don't think we'll see the maybe the seventies stolen bases, but the bad is still very much a monster when he's healthy. So yeah, here's to it. And you know, may can't get here fast enough because baseball is just more fun when Ronald's on the field.

00:06:53
Speaker 1: I said reallocated. I think it's reacclimated. I don't know what the word is.

00:06:58
Speaker 2: You're a Tennessee guy, you don't know. Yeah, I know either of those words.

00:07:02
Speaker 1: That's why I say so many words. So if I say a word wrong, by the tenth time that I've said what I've said over and over again, You'll get what I said. But the point that I'm getting at is is that getting Runnald back to feeling like himself is what we're all waiting to see. But let's get into the main, you know, and to the meat of the conversation with Alex and Thopolis, and that was that's the subject that many people have been waiting to hear straight from him all off season, the lack of moves, you know what has been out there. You know, we've heard others, you know, such as just some Tuscano allude to the fact that, you know, maybe the brains were a bit more limited than they had thought at the beginning of the off season. This the off season progressed and Alex and Thopolis. Of course, he didn't come straight out and say it like he did earlier in the off season when he kind of alluded to the fact that they can increase payroll steven. There were several times in this interview on Friday where Alex again didn't directly talk about it. But you can take his comments and what he said, and it's pretty clear to me that a big takeaway from yesterday is that, yes, the Braves, basically, while they're not going to allude to it. It does seem as if many of the questions that people have had about, you know, where payroll is and are they a bit more limited, it seems like that there may be a bit more truth to that then we had initially anticipated at the beginning of the off season. Is that the main takeaway as we start to dissect comments, is that the main takeaway that you had from his comments yesterday.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: So yesterday when he was talking, and if you missed the interview, it's all over social media. You can just type in Alex and Thoppos's interview yesterday and there's actually video of it too, so you can go watch it if you want to. While he was talking, he you know, he was talking up how big their payroll already is, how many contracts they already have on the books, and that is usually somebody somethings that gms say when they're trying to defend not making any more moves, and so a lot of people took away from it that they're not going to make any more moves, and it's very possible that they don't make any more moves. I did note when Alex said that Jojamenez was the one loss they haven't been able to account for yet. Part of me thinks that that's his way of saying they're still looking for a reliever. There's still quite a few players that haven't signed. There's still quite a few players that haven't been traded. I think the Braves could still make another move. I think the Braves need to make another move. You know, you and I and Scott did that whole show about do they have enough pitching, And the answer to that question is always no. Even if you do have enough pitching, you don't have enough pitching. So I think the Braves should make more moves, specifically a reliever. I think reliever has jumped to the top of my list of what they need. I think you can talk yourself into Grant Holmes being able to replace Charlie Morton. Even if I don't necessarily believe that, I can understand where the Braves believe that, and I can I can see that argument. The bullpen is an argument I have a hard time buying at all. So but yeah, I was listening to those comments and it was the first time I was like, Okay, he's talking about what they've already spent in kind of a defensive manner. That's typically what you do when you're trying to convince people why you're not gonna spend any more money. And so, yeah, yesterday was the first time I really thought, man, maybe they really are resetting the tax. And you know, that's disappointing if I'm being one hundred percent honest and we try to be honest with fans. You know, the year that they're hosting the All Star Game, the year after they had so many injuries, an off season where they lost so much in free agency. You know, the battery is packed every night. It is disappointing if they're cutting you know, payroll is about twenty million down from where it ended last year. And if they're really cutting payroll by that much now again, Alex will spend money in season, so it won't end up being that much at the end. But that's disappointing. I mean, there's no other way to say it. And I'm still gonna hold out hope that there's another move in there somewhere. I really, I just have a hard time believing this is the bullpen they're gonna go. I know there are people that love Perdomo. I know there are people that love polar I know there are people that love Day's Bell, and I get that, but even with those three guys, there's another spot open in the bullpen. And it's much better if those guys are you're, you know, six seven eight versus your five six seven. I think they need another high leverage guy, you know, even just like a David Robertson signing or a trade for a decent reliever makes the off season just look so much better. I'm gonna hold out hope that that's what's gonna happen. I still think that's what's gonna happen. But I will say yesterday, and I want to get your opinion on this, Yesterday was the first time I thought to myself, Wow, they they maybe really are gonna cut payroll and reset the tacks. And I know they're gonna be fans like, yeah, we said that all along, and there have been people that have said that all along, but I just I couldn't believe it until I saw it. And it's we're not done yet. This the season still a month away, so you know, we're going to reserve judgment. But yesterday was the first time I thought to myself, Wow, they they really might do this.

00:12:10
Speaker 1: I know people have, you know, in comments and things like that, they they've really been wanting us to kind of you know, you know, rant and for lack of a better way of putting it, they've been wanting us to have that opportunity to really you know, you know, show disappointment. And I agree, I'm disappointed as well. I reference back a few about a month ago. You know, we had this conversation where I still really did not feel that it was the case that payroll was having a big of an impact on the off season that some may think because it just didn't make sense for it to do that coming off two straight seasons, or it should be coming off you know, last season, but also twenty twenty three where we had so many injuries. Depth certainly is something that was in need. You've had both expected and unexpected needs pop up this offseason. You have the Battery, which is a consistent opportunity of making money that you know that we feel has certainly helped them increase payroll over the past several years. You've got the All Star Game coming up. You're obviously in the midst of what you feel is a very clear window to try to win another championship. All those factors to me point two continuing to increase payroll, and Alex himself said it as well. But then yesterday it just I didn't want to accept it. But yesterday, to your point, was kind of the first time where I'm like, Okay, there's some truth to it, more than likely. And the biggest thing to me that stood out was, I know a lot of people took towards the end of the interview, when Alex talked about, you know, they have to be a bit more selective when it comes to how they spend their money, they took that as the big comment. The other big part of the comment was when he started off talking about the payroll, that they already had so many guys that they had invested in, you know, years a few years ago. It was clear the reason why they were doing this. They were trying to get long term savings in place, long term financial flexibility to where those contracts were so elevated later on in this decade, to where they could still continue to add to the team. But yesterday, I'm not gonna say it sounded like he regretted it, but it was more towards that. It was more like well, we've already got so much invested in the team, and I know that some of these contracts are starting to elevate, but it looked like for the first time also those long term investments. With Alex's comments, he seemed to be referred to them more as a burden than a benefit in order to sit here and add to the team. And that really made me raise my eyebrows. When it came to what to expect before the start of the season.

00:14:35
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, Alex. Listen, Alex did this to himself. Like two days after the season ended. He came out into a press conference and set into a microphone. He was just point Blake asked his payroll going up, and he said, yeah, it's going up. He didn't give any qualifiers. He didn't say, well, I got to find the right guys to pay. He didn't say well, I haven't talked to Terry yet, I don't know. You know, there's all sort of things he could have said to quantify, to obfuscate, you know, that answer, and he didn't do any of that. He just came out flat out and said, yeah, Perol's going up. And so when you say that, you obviously create the expectation among fans that Perol is gonna go up. You can't. You can't tell everybody it's gonna go up and then wonder why people are questioning why it hasn't gone up. You you kind of made this bed yourself. And so you know, I know they're gonna be people that will defend Alex and defend the team. And it's a Listen, the Braves are a very good team. The Braves are probably gonna win ninety plus games this year. So you know, we do want to make sure we're we We don't want to get too crazy with this. But if the GM says Peril's going up and then Perrol doesn't go up and in fact goes down, you open yourself up for criticism. I mean, that's just how it is. If I was, if I was, you know, advising Alex, I'd say, next time somebody asks you that question two days after the seat over, don't give such an affirmative answer, you know, give give a wishy, washy answer, Give a word slid answer that doesn't mean anything, that doesn't tie you to anything. But when you just come and flat out and say payroll's going up and it doesn't go up and in fact goes down. You get what you get in terms of criticism. Like I I you know, there's not really any defending that, so I understand why fans are mad. I could listen. I completely get it. I am still holding out hoped. I think they're gonna make another move. I've said that. I know, I've said that all off season. I said that before the Profile signing. I still believe it. I think they're gonna make another move. I think they're gonna add a reliever, and then then they'll obviously make moves in season to increase payroll as well. So I'm not I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet where I fully believe this is just the team. They're not adding anything else until we get to opening day and there's nobody else available, then we can have that conversation. I still think they're gonna add. The comment about Joejamenez, you know, when he was talking about Charlie Morton, he said, you know, we believe that Grant Holmes can take that role. He didn't say Charlie Morton as a hole that we haven't filled yet. He said specifically, we think Grant Holmes can be what Charlie Morton is currently so in their mind, obviously internally they feel like Grant Holmes is the replacement for Charlie Morton. But when he got to Joemennez, he didn't say that. He didn't say we think Daves Beel Hernandez can be what Joejimennez was he said, maybe he can, hopefully he can. But what he started with is we haven't filled. We haven't been able to account for that loss yet. So that tells me, and maybe I'm crazy, and if I'm wrong, I'll admit i'm wrong. And I know I've said this all all season, but that tells me they're still working on something. I think they're still trying to add a reliever. And until we get to the end of the to the end of spring training, which is the official end of the offseason, I'm gonna believe that they're still trying to add a reliever. And you know, if they do, they do. If they they don't, well obviously talk about it either way. But I'm not there yet where I'm fully convinced this is the team, this is the payroll, you know, going into the season.

00:18:10
Speaker 1: And I want to clarify on my end that I'm not to the point to where I don't feel like they're going to add I'm basically saying that, you know, them taking care of every hole with a significant addition. I never really expected for that to be the case. But I'm more saying that going into the season, I think there's still going to be there's going to be more questions out there than many of us had hoped there would be remaining as we go into the season, if that makes sense. And I'm also not trying to defend Alex, but when you take what he said at the beginning of the season and yesterday, when you kind of look, you know, further into his comments, you know, he looked like he wasn't necessarily scrambling, but he was basically just trying. He didn't seem convinced himself that the reasons is for the lack of moves this offseason, the reasons that that didn't occur. He didn't really seem to believe in the words that he was saying. And I'm not sitting here trying to, you know, overly criticize. The point that I'm getting at is I wonder if something has happened like at the time that Alex made the comment tried after the season to now, did something occur as the off season progressed where the Braves ability to add was more limited than they thought. I don't have the answers to that. I'm not sitting here again trying to say this is the reason why not to criticize Alex. To your point, he should have probably not been so direct at the beginning of the off season. But I wonder as the offseason has progressed, the Braves just realized they just didn't have the ability to add as they thought. That's something else that kind of came to mind yesterday. It just seems like as the off season progressed, the Braves did not have as much room to add as they thought. So now going into the season, they're really focused on what they've got to work with to maybe feel some of these needs internally, feel more of these needs internally than they had originally thought to start the off season.

00:19:51
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and the off season started with a bunch of cost saving moves. Remember, I mean they declined Darnault's option, which was very controversial, and Darneaud is a beloved player in Atlanta. He was a very good He was one of their best hitters last year when Murphy was so bad, and it was a very reasonable options, like eight million dollar option, and they declined it. And they restructured Ronaldo Lopez's deal, they restructured Aaron Bummer's deal, They moved on from Solaire, saved a bunch of money there. You know, they non tendered Loreano, they non tendered Driffin Kaneing, who was the return for Solaire. So they did all these moves at the beginning of the offseason. And the way they sold it was, we are not cutting payroll. We are giving ourselves as much room so we can go out and be aggressive in the market. Right, That's how they sold it. And so naturally, when you're not aggressive in the market after that, you know people are gonna ask questions like why downgrade from Travis Darnaud to to Chadwick Trump. If you're not going to use those savings anywhere else on the team, it just looks like you just got worse at catcher just to save money. And that's listen, that's fair. That's a fair criticism, and it doesn't mean the team's not good. The team's fantastic. And I actually kind of like having Sean Murphy being able to play more now that he has a traditional backup. But like if you spin it as we're doing these coll saving moves so that we have ammunition to go add to the team during the winter, and then you do very little in the winter. People are gonna ask questions, and you know, Alex knows that he's been in this business long enough. And again when you tie that also to the fact that you said payroll is going up and it doesn't go up, people are gonna get mad. And so again I'm not ready to say this is the team yet. I don't think this is the team. I think they're gonna add another reliever between now and opening day, and I think payroll's gonna go up, and then they'll do stuff in season and payroll's gonna go up more. I don't know what the final number will be, but listening to him talk about Joejamannaz yesterday made me even more believe that they know they need another reliever and we'll see. You know, it has to match up. I think they were in on Tenor Scott and I think the Dodgers outbit him. I think they were in on Jeff Hoffman and they didn't like his shoulder. If they sign either one of those contracts, payroll looks a lot different. This is a different conversation. So I don't know if their ability to sign free agents has diminished or they just never got to the finish line on the ones they liked. And that's fair like that, you know, if you don't if you try to sign a guy and he doesn't sign because he the Dodgers paid him more money, or he doesn't sign because you don't like the medicals like, I get that that happens. So but at the end of the day, people are just gonna judge you based on what you get done. And Alex knows that. And I think that's why he was in a bit of a defensive posture yesterday, quite honestly, is that he knows he's gonna catch criticism, and I think he knows it's a bit of his own fault for saying unequivocally that payroll was going to go up in November. I think if he could have that press conference back, he would have been a little more, you know, he would have been a little more conservative in his answers versus just being so emphatic in his answers because that whole looking back at that whole press conference, I mean when he talked about the all the coaches were gonna come back, they fired three coaches. Like a week later, you talked about all the guys with options are gonna get picked up. They declined our those options. He said, payroll is gonna go up. Looks like payroll is gonna go down. Like that whole press conference is kind of comical now when you go back and listen to it. But I'm guessing if he had it to do over again, he would maybe be a little more conservative in his answers, you know, back in November.

00:23:28
Speaker 1: And then the last thing that I'll end with is that Okay, So you know, again coming back to the perspective of questions and answers, right, plenty of questions have been there throughout the off season, more than we More of those questions than we thought are still unanswered as we go into spring training. But I would have broaden the scope of these questions a bit more because now as we've seen this payroll occur, We've seen we've seen Alex and Thopoulos's comments occur. We've got some big contracts that are in the final year are of their contract. We've got some big payroll guys in the final year of their contract. This starts to shed light on the fact, okay, do we fill them with significant contributors? You know, Dansby Sponson left before the start of the twenty twenty three season. Now, I'm not saying we should have paid Hi one hundred and seventy five million, but we obviously have stayed focused on filling him with the cheap option. In Orlando Arcia, Max Reed and Charlie Morton both have left. I know you can sit there and say, well, Spencers Wellemach and Chris l are the replacements for them. I don't think that's true. We have not gone out and added another significant arm when we had the need. What occurs with Rice Iglesias, who's owned sixteen meion this year and Marcelo Zuna, who's owned sixty meion this year. If they have good years, they potentially could get the twenty million dollar range each for both of them. What if after this season they obviously leave in free agency and now we've got other significant holes to feel the ability for this team to be able to fill significant holes as we start to lose more and more players to free agents, which we've really seen happen this off and our ability to replace that value now does it become as certain? And that to me is the big long term question that comes from Alexanthopoulos's comments yesterday.

00:25:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, listen, that's fair. I mean, you know, they obviously lost a lot this offseason to free agency, and like you said, they've got the two big guns next year coming off the books are Iglesias and Ozuna on top of some other smaller stuff. Are they gonna replace those guys? You know, we've watched you know, Freddie Freeman leave, We've watched Dancy Swanson leave, we watched Max Freed, Charlie Morton, AJ Minter. You know, the Braves have watched a lot of really good guys leave and it's a fair question to ask are they going to replace them because they didn't really replace them this offseason, at least not in the marketplace. Now they will tell you that, you know, Spencer Stryder coming back is kind of the replacement for Max Freed, and Grant Holmes emergence is kind of the replacement for Charlie Morton and on. Hel Perdomo is the replacement for aj Minterter. We'll see. The proof will be in the putting on that. You know, if Grant Holmes goes out and throws an incredible year and he's like a legitimate starting pitcher, then that opinion is a lot more valid. Right. If on hel Perdomo comes out and shows that he can be a really good reliever, that validates that opinion, you know that it validates that move. So the proof will be in the pudding in a lot of ways. We'll learn a lot this year, you know. But it's fair to ask after this offseason are they cutting you know, is this a one year thing of just resetting the tax? Are they winding back payroll overall? Is this kind of the new level that they're gonna be at and that means they're not gonna be able to replace the guys that leave next year. I don't know. That's a fair question. This offseason has gone very different than I thought it would. I think it's gone very different than a lot of people thought it would. I'll say it again, I'm not convinced the off season is necessarily over yet, And until some guys come off the board and go somewhere else, I still think the Braves are looking to maybe add but there's no doubt this off season has gone very different than people thought it would, and the Braves are banking on some internal some guys internally stepping up and filling roles that they've never filled before. And if that works and people stay healthy, then Alex will get a lot of credit. And if it doesn't, then Alex is gonna catch a lot of shit. And that's just the that's the name of it. When you have a quiet off season and and things work, then no one cares. If you have a quiet off season and things don't work, everybody cares. So you know, in a lot of ways, the play on the field will determine the final opinion on this off season.

00:27:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again it comes back to, you know, the thing about certainty versus uncertainty, right, you know, we were so coming off twenty twenty four, the performance of the off season. We're a lot more uncertain going into this season. We were a year ago, two straight years when we've had to deal with significant injury problems. In this time around to our who was our most valuable pitcher, who is our most valuable pitcher and our most valuable position player in terms of what they've done in recent years, and now in Ronald Cooney Junior and Spencer Strider, that's uncertainty. Now we have you know, payroll, you know what's there in terms of payroll, and we've lost so many sources of certainty. Right Max Reed was reliable as a starter as you could be as a top of the rotation starter. Charlie Morton was as reliable as you could be, taking the ball every fifth day, a j miner from the left side, being a back into the bullpen option was as reliable as you could be most years. But now we've had those become holes to feel and what are we filling them with? Sources of uncertainty? So I think that that's the other thing that stands out is that if we had you know, more you know guys, more option, internal options like higher prospects that we knew more about and things such as that, that we're filling these holes. That may be the case, but I think that as we're just seeing a stretch of uncertainty that is continuing to rise with this team. And while the known sources of success in production we know are very good, we also know that they are not as reliable as they once work to stay healthy. I don't mean that as a criticism, it's just the simple truth. So the depth behind those options being more uncertain than it has ever been before. Again, I definitely feel that anybody who wants to criticize that, it's fine. But if you don't feel as confident that this team going into this season, while the talent level was there, is going to be able to have the consistent production health what it may be to really get to the expectations than many of us have. I don't blame you for feeling uncertain yourself that they're going to be able to rise to the occasion and get the job done. I still think this team should be World Series of US. I definitely think the World Series is an a reasonable outcome. But again, there's just a lot more questions at this point in time of the off season that are still relevant than I thought there would be a few months ago.

00:29:56
Speaker 2: And that's what it is. Really. Our expectation was we would have more answer at this point than we have right and that's where people are upset or not upset, but confused, Like we just thought we'd have more answers and right now we're gonna go into the season, it looks like with a lot of questions, that doesn't mean it's gonna be bad. Like all, you know, most of those questions could be answered, like Spencer Strider could really just be back and back to cy young level Spencer Strider, Ronald Kunye could just be back. I do think the offense will be better next year than it was last year. I don't think they're gonna have to pitch as well as they did last year to win. I mean, last year they won a lot of games like two to one, three to one because the offense wasn't doing anything. I don't think that's gonna be the case again this year. I do think that I do think the pitching staff as a whole can take a step back and the results not be any worse because the offense is gonna be better. I think Profar is a big addition. I think he helps in a lot of ways. And I think, you know, Olsen will be better. I think Riley will be better. I think Ozzie will be better. I think Murphy will be better. Akunya is a you know, Acunya is just a wild card. At this point, We'll see what happens. But the pitching staff shouldn't have to be as good this year as it was last year. I could be wrong about that, but I think the offense will carry more of the load this year than it did last year. And we'll see, you know, most of the questions of this team are around the pitching staff. We'll see, we'll see what Grant Holmes looks like. You know, the schedule early on is very tough. They go to San Diego to LA the first two series of the year, they come home, they play the Marlins and the Phillies. So they played basically three of the four best teams in the National League, you know, in their first four series. And they're not gonna have Strider or Acunya. So we'll learn pretty early what this team looks like. You know, Spring training is going to be fascinating for guys like Ian Anderson and Grant Holmes, just to see how they look. Same thing with guys like Perdomo and Polar. If they don't add another reliever, these guys all of a sudden become critically important. So you know, one good thing about a lot of questions is it does lead to a lot of intrigue, Like there will be things to talk about this spring because we don't have a lot of answers to some of you know, the questions that we started the off season with. We don't have a lot of answers, so you know, that does lead to at least some entertaining, you know, topics for spring training. But I think the offense will be better. I still think they're going to get another reliever. And this is still a very good team. And I know people are upset with Alex right now because of the payroll stuff, but this is a very good team. And I still think they're trying to add and we'll see, we'll see what happens.

00:32:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, And and the other thing that the best way I could sum it up is this is that I think myself, you, Stephen and Mini, when you look at this team on paper going into spring training the past three seasons and right before the season started, you look at them on paper and you say to yourself, Wow, this team legitimately has a case to be the best team in baseball so far this spring training or going into the start of spring training this year. When you look at this team on paper, you still say wow for the same reason, but you also see yourself saying while a second time where you're like, hey, there are a bit more questions, don't hear that I had originally thought? So I think that's a good way to sum it up. But here's the thing that I'll say, is this just because there's more questions, that does not mean that they won't wind up having positive answers once we get into the season. And I will say this, I will defend Alex all day long than this. Typically, when he has questions to answer when it comes to putting the product on the field, more often than not, his track worker shows he answers with the quality response. So if we're going to bank on that, I'll continue to bank on it, even if we may not have as much to bank with as we once thought. Stephen, any more comments from you as we wrap up this edition of the Hammer Territory podcast.

00:33:41
Speaker 2: Now, I'm just having Baseball's back. We're actually gonna get you know, the technically the position players report Monday. Of course for the Braves, most of them are already there anyways. But then we're gonna get full squad workouts and then we're gonna get in the games. I get their spring training games. They don't mean a ton. But again, like we just talked about here, the Braves are gonna have some things that they need to see and training. They're gonna have bullpen spots open. They're gonna have back of the rotation spots open. Especially since Strider is not gonna be there to start the year, They're gonna have two rotation spots that they're gonna have to fill internally. So how these guys look in spring is gonna matter. Same thing with the bullpen guys, how they look. They they brought it in an army of minor league free agents, so you know spring training is gonna have some some interest and you know we'll be able to see it and talk about it. They're they're they're showing a lot more spring training games. We're actually gonna get video of it more this year. You know, you can stream games a lot more often in spring training than you used to be able to. So I'm excited. I do. I would love for the Brace to get one more reliever. I'd feel so much better with one more reliever. But we'll see what they do. But baseball is back. March Madness is almost here. Best time of the year for a sports fan, so I'm excited.

00:34:51
Speaker 1: I definitely am as well. And hey, you know what again, the other good thing about it is is that if it's fitted disappointing offseason for you, if now we we have more, you know, more as certain truth than ever that Hey, a lot of the questions that we have are gonna be answered internally by the talent that's already on the team. Replace that disappointment from the offseason. As Steven mentioned with intrigue for spring training, because if the answers are going to reveal himself on spring training, that just allows for us to enjoy it more, and thus we'll also be able to talk about it, enjoy it and have some fun. So because baseball is fact. For Steven Tober, you can find him at be Underscore Outliers. My name is Sean Comen. You can find me at Stat's sac Find us on the next Twitter, find Hammer Territory across all forms of social media, and also part of the Found Territory family of podcasts. I've got the Braves hat on this time, but we will be with you again soon. Thanks so much for joining us, Go Braves. We'll talk to you again soon here on the Hammer Territory podcast.