Future of Braves Broadcasting and Latest Free Agent Pursuits

00:00:23
Speaker 1: Welcome on and all to the Heathery Territory Podcast. My name is Sean Colemen. Hope wherever you are and wherever you are listening, that you were having a wonderful, wonderful Friday evening. I've got college football playoffs going on, basketball going on as well. Hope you've had a great week. Me and Steven Tolbert are back with you once again. Not much to talk about in terms of off season movement, but something that we did talk with you about a couple of storylines off the field we discussed with you about a week ago. We got some major updates on that, and that, of course, is the future of Braves broadcasting. That Let's talk a bit about where free agent, where free agency is trending, and how the NLASE is kind of in the middle of that. All that on this evening's episode and is always here with me once again, my podcast partner, one of the best when it comes to breaking down the Braves at Steven Tolbert. Steven, how are you, sir?

00:01:16
Speaker 2: What's up, buddy? Yeah, it's we got some news a couple of days ago that we I mean, we knew it was coming. It was it's been coming down the tracks for about two weeks now, but we got the official word, I think on Wednesday, that the Braves and a bunch of other teams had canceled their their TV contracts with the Main Street Sports, which is the owner of the RSNS that the Braves and a bunch of other teams use for their broadcasting rights. So, and there was a lot of questions, and I spent some time on Twitter, I think on Wednesday, trying to answer a few, but there were so many questions. And this is not something that people really track follow, which I understand. It's it's a bit in you get a bit in the weeds where that people just want to know where they can watch their favorite team, Like that's the nuts and bolts of it. And I get that, and I don't expect people to really follow the stuff all that too closely. But we've made a you know, obviously, we told you guys that we would track it and report on it as soon as stuff happened, and stuff happened, so it was time to do a show kind of dedicated to everything that's gone down. You're muted already, I mean not even I'm two minutes in.

00:02:30
Speaker 1: It's important to be focused on this because, I mean, folks want to know where to watch the Braves, and let's be honest, in general, when it comes to sports nowadays, you've just got so many places. It's great to have so many places that you can watch games, but when it comes to a team that you cheer for, it's hard to really pinpoint where you can consistently watch the team that you cheer for. And that's what has been you know, pretty awesome about baseball and basketball and things like that, at with Ballely what became FanDuel, mainstream Sports whatever it is, it's that was a place for folks, especially in the mid South and the Southeast, to know where they can go to consistently watch their team. That should remain the case, but now you just don't know where you're going to be able to do that. So those details are important, and so Stephen, let's start there. We've discussed, we've discussed last year about what's kind of led us to be in here, what kind of has resulted in the fact that you know, we eventually were going to likely see the Braves being a different source when it comes to broadcasting. But what are the options, what are the potential outcomes. Let's start there, because based on what direction the Braves could potentially go in the short term in the long term, that really will kind of help folks understand. Okay, where do I need to invest my money and my resources to potentially watch the Braves, you know now? Or can I do something that maybe you will allow for me to watch them years to come. That's up in the ear.

00:04:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you have to kind of go back a year if people will remember when what was formerly Diamond Sports Group was in bankruptcy and the Braves obviously are a part of the nine MLB teams that are under RSN contracts Regional Sports Network contracts all with this Diamond Sports Group. It was formerly called Bally Sports. It was formally before that, I think Fox Sports. Right now it's called Fandel Sports. Again, I do want to remind people Bally Fandel those companies have nothing to do with the running of these are those companies just bought the naming rights. I keep I still keep people see people saying, well, these sports betting companies are ruining everything. Fandel has nothing to do with the running of these rsns. They literally just bought the name. So a year ago, Diamond Sports Group actually made it out of bankruptcy court, which was a surprise. A lot of people thought that was for them. They made it out they can convinced a judge that they could restructure, and the way they restructured was they changed the name. It's a new company called main Street Sports Group, and they renegotiated all of their deals with their MLB, NBA, NHL teams, and the deal they put in place at least convinced a judge on the short term that they could pay their they could pay down their debt, that their creditors were going to get reimbursed, and they allowed them to restructure under this Main Street Sports. Well, we got worried about two weeks ago that this main Street Sports Group has already started missing payments to teams. So teams sell their rights, they sell their TV rights to these networks and in exchange, these networks pay the teams every month, you know, as a premium basically. And we got report that this main Street Sports Group had already missed a payment to the Saint Louis Cardinals, I think, and which is obviously not a good sign. And a report came right at the right after Christmas that this main Street Sports was very close to just completely dissolving. They were out of money, they had no money left, they were trying to sell to a different London based group, and everything was looking pretty dire. And then we got word two days ago that all of the MLB teams canceled their contracts with main Street Sports, which is for the Braves purposes, FanDuel Sports Network, which is where you watched the games last year. So what that leads to is, just as we sit here today, we don't know where the Braves are going to be on TV next year. There are two outcomes that are far and away more likely than any other outcome. One is they can always renegotiate a new deal with either Main Street Sports or if they sell to somebody else, whoever that parent company is, and they can just, you know, negotiate essentially a one year deal and leave all the distribution exactly the same. And that's probably the easiest because it's just it's pretty seamless. Everybody would be able to watch the Braves the same way they watched them last year. It would be a one year deal, and then it would give the Braves a bit of runway to come up with a plan for what to do after twenty twenty six, so that is a possibility. The most likely possibility, however, is that this Main Street Sports ends up in bankruptcies again and maybe doesn't make it out this time, and MLB actually takes over distribution of the Braves broadcast the way they have for a bunch of other teams. There's like six or seven teams at MLB is currently controlling the distribution for because these all these rsns are in just dire straight. I mean, this RSN model has been dying very slowly for like twenty years now, and teams keep going back to it because it's far and away the most profitable do your TV distribution is having these these networks pay you these massive amounts of money. The problem is because they're paying all of this money, and they're having to pay all the money to actually put on the broadcast, Like they have to pay for all the talent, they have to pay for all the cameras, the trucks, the producers, pregame and postgame. They're footing the bill for all that, and then they're also footing the bill to pay these fees to these teams. It's just very hard for these companies to actually make money, Like it's just they're always going to operate in the red, and it's just how much money he are you willing to lose before you finally call it quits. And it looks like the parent company that owns these rsins is finally ready to call it quits. So that's a long way of saying the most likely outcome for twenty twenty six is MLB owned the Braves broadcasting rights for twenty twenty six, and then after that the Braves would be pretty much free agents and could do a number of things which we can go into if you want to, But that that's where it stands today. And I know there's there's more specifics we can get into, but that is the thirty thousand foot view of what's.

00:09:07
Speaker 1: Happened in relation to what could be next, the options that make sense for twenty twenty six, you know, in terms of MLB having the rights, what have you? What could be the long term option? And I think that it's worth you know, kind of discussing. You know, where we've seen kind of you know, the broadcast right serving as an area of profit for the team or you know, money for them to work with for the team. You know, for a while, we heard about it, especially when the Braves were going through you know, some of their rebuilding in the late twenty tens and you know, the the you know, middle of last decade. The fact that the Braves had one of you know the worst TV contracts in terms of you know value that was out there. I, me and you were talking about it before this episode, and kind of in line with when they moved into Truest Park at the time SunTrust Park, they renegotiated the deal to make it a bit more profit, will be a bit more league average. Well, of course, now what has occurred is that now a big source of the profit for the Braves is the battery they just have. They absolutely hit a home run, no pun intended with a all around ballpark experience outside of just the game itself, and they thus from that have been able to profit from it. So relying on the TV deal for that quote unquote money to work with is not as big of a need. Right With that being said, and the fact that overall this this structure of regional sports you know setups being you know, a TV deal that could serve as you know, giving you given franchises money to work with. It seems like the Braves should just once again take care of themselves, just like they did with the Battery, and they built up that opportunity to where I've heard you and many others say they're basically printing money through what you know, the activity at the battery. It may make the most sense to where they come up their own network because then all allegiances, you know, all rights, you know, all you know, whatever tape you got to go through to get stuff done, you're in control of it. And you also get direct profits from it. And I'm sure that there's plenty of opportunity around Atlanta and the region and things such as that where you could make that into a very profitable venture. So in terms of they made some good decisions financially to support the ball club now and into the future. When it comes to finances, coming up with their own TV network seems to be the way to go.

00:11:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was another question that people asked a lot. Could the Braves just do that now? And the answer to that is it's it's a really tough spot in the calendar to try to get that put together for the twenty twenty sixth season, that's not realistic to do for in the next two months basically when games start, or at least spring training games start. That is I think the long term goal. I will say this, the Braves have a big enough TV market, because the Braves essentially have a monopoly on the southeastern part of the country, that they could one hundred percent justify their own TV deal are their own TV network one hundred percent. If the Yankees can do it, the Dodgers can do it, The Braves TV market is is massive, so they could do it. The reason that teams are hesitant to do that is because while you do control everything, you also are responsible for all the costs of everything. And like I was just saying, with these regional sports networks, they just write a big fat check to the team and then they handle all the cost of everything else. And that's for the teams. That's a you know, that's an A plus deal. We just get all the money and somebody else handles all the cost. And as long as somebody's willing to say yes to that, then they're gonna keep doing it. And that's why, you know, I've had people ask, well, if these regional sports networks have been dying so long and so slowly. Why do teams keep signing up for them? Because it's a trum this deal for the teams. They don't have to worry about any of the distribution, any of the cost, and they just get big fat checks every month and it helps pay for a lot of things, and so long term, I do think that's the direction the Braves should go, but I would not be surprised if they didn't go that. I would not be surprised at all if they called like Amazon or Netflix and said, hey, do you want our streaming rights? Do you want our distribution rights? Like it sounds it sounds good in theory to have your own network, but there's a lot of cost associated with it. So I would not be surprised if they said no to that. I wouldn't be surprised if they found a more traditional network and asked them if they wanted I mean, you know, I saw everybody saying call TBS and get them back on the superstation. I don't know if they're gonna do that, but I wouldn't have Listen, what's your free agents? And you've got a bit of runway to work with. There's a lot of options out there, and I think streaming, especially Netflix and Amazon specifically, and probably Apple, the big ones that are a lot of people already have. I think at some point a team is gonna make a deal with one of those networks. I don't know if it'll be the Braves. I would be it's gonna be fascinating. But yes, to answer your question, that is a viable option after this year. Now for this year, it's almost certainly gonna have to if they don't renegotiate a new deal with the same company, it's gonna have to be MLB that runs things for twenty twenty six. And I do want to talk about that for one second because there was a lot of questions about this. So the way it's happening for other teams is if you have MLB dot tv and you're out of market, then you've always been able to watch the Braves on MLB dot tv, so you're you would be unaffected. If MLB dot tv is the way you've watched the Braves because you're an out of market fan, that is, you're not in the Braves TV footprint, then nothing changes for you. If you're in market, you've never been able to watch the Braves on MLB dot TV because there's been blackouts, and people are very people. I understand people hate blackouts, but blackouts are a necessity when you are taking so much money from these networks, because what you're doing is you're selling your fees to a network. The network is selling their channel to a cable company, and the cable company is selling the whole package of channels to consumers as a cable subscription. So that is the economic chain, right, and it ends with you buying a cable subscription. So teams cannot allow you to watch in market games via something else other than cable subscriptions and take all this money from these networks. They can't do both. So that's why blackouts exist. They exist to force you to buy the local TV distribution. Well, if we get to a point where there is no local TV distribution anymore, then MLB will almost certainly just launch a package where fans could buy probably a season worth of Braves games on MLB dot TAM for like one hundred bucks or a hundred I don't know what it would be. I think for the I think for the padres it was like one hundred bucks for the season. I think for the Diamondbacks it was like eighty bucks for the season. The Braves are a much bigger market, so I'm guessing it would be more than that. I'm guessing be like one P fifty or something. I don't know, but the point is, as an in market fan, you would have access to watch the Braves via MLB dot tv, which you've never had before. That's never even been an option for you. It would probably be just a separate package where it's like a Brave's only package that you buy, and effectively it would replace you know, a lot of people pay for a cable subscription specifically to watch the Braves, so if you're somebody that does that, you could probably cancel that subscription and just buy the Braves package on MLB dot TV. We'll get into that more when we know exactly where the Braves are going to be next year. We'll talk about pricing and stuff, but I'm just I just want to make sure we articulate the most likely outcome is that MLB cans distribution. Next year, there will be a package for in market fans, which there's never been before, and it will probably be separate than the actual like standard MLB dot TV package that you normally buy. That's what they've done for other fans of other teams when this has happened. So that's my guess. But again the Devil's and the details on that, and we'll know more once we actually land at that point, which will we should know in a few weeks, like they have to resolve all this pretty quickly.

00:17:32
Speaker 1: And the thing that I'll say is this is that you know, we talk about the you know, the the regional sports network set up, you know, kind of being a you know, a dying entity in things such as that, and you know there's uncertainty when it comes to watching the Braves. Well, the thing that I want to make clear it's kind of like you're you're leaving from home and you know that you need to get to a destination. You're going to get to that destination. In this case, it's the ability to watch the Braves that's not going to go away. You're going to have a way to watch the Braves, an avenue to watch the Braves on a vision and into the future. And even when Stephen is talking about the fact that it may not necessarily be the most beneficial for a third party, who does the streaming for the Braves. It's mlbing of itself is still going to consistently keep the ability for fans to watch games, So that's not in jeopardy. It's just that it's more important now than ever to keep in tune with what's going on so that you know the details of how you can do that.

00:18:27
Speaker 2: And go ahead, Sorry, I do want to I want to bring up one more thing because this is I probably got this question more than anything, and the question I got was what happens to Brandon and CJ.

00:18:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And.

00:18:40
Speaker 2: So this is where it gets a little muddy. So technically, Brandon and CJ don't work for the Braves. Technically, Brandon and CJ work for Fandels Sports Network. If you ever watch the games on TV and they go to a shot of the guys in the booth, you'll see the little polos they're wearing. It doesn't say Atlanta Braves on those polos. It says Fandels Sports Network because the broadcast crew works for the network. That's what I was talking about earlier, where the network is in charge of all the cost of running a production, including paying all the talent. So Brandon and CJ technically work for the network, so if the network goes away, there's a very good chance Brandon and CJ go away. However, MLB still needs announcers for the Braves game. If they're gonna either if they're gonna do local distribution or if they're gonna control the local distribution, they still need announcers. So it's very it's very possible MLB could just contract with Brandon and CJ to still call the games, just not under the Fandel Sports Network banner. And now again that's where we get money. That's why I have no clue because technically Brandon and CJ don't work for the team. So I am in the same boat that all of you or most of you are in, where I love Brandon and CJ. I think, I think the Braves have a top five booth the game, and so I want to see those guys stay in those roles. But the company they work for, the Braves currently do not have a contract with it. That's the contract they got terminated two days ago. So there, and I saw CJ tweeting about this. It's just kind of up in the air. And there again, there's a chance the Braves could renegotiate with the same company and and just do a one year deal and everything stays exactly the same. The more likely outcome is they is they let MLB take over. But again, even if MLB takes over, they're gonna need broadcasters to call the Braves games, and it's a lot simpler just to use the guys that have been doing it for the last couple of years. So even if this network goes down, even if these are his ns go down, that doesn't necessarily mean Brandon and CJ will be gone, but their jobs are very much up in the air right now. I feel very bad for those guys, for all the production guys, the people in the truck, the camera guys, all of those people the pregame, postgame, the sideline you know, Paul Bird, all those people that you're that you've kind of come to know and love on the broadcast. All of those people's jobs are just up in the air right now. We have no clue what's gonna happen with them.

00:21:13
Speaker 1: It sucks.

00:21:14
Speaker 2: It's one of the worst parts of this whole thing is that you know, yes, this RSN model has been dying for years, but when it dies, there are real people with real jobs and real families who are mostly affected by this. It's obviously frustrating as a braceman because you don't where you're gonna watch the game. But outside and above that, there are like real people with like careers and families that they don't know what they're gonna do for a job next year. They don't know if they have a job next year. So that's the crappy part of this, and that's another big piece that we're gonna have to see how the dominoes fall, because even if it's not through the r sins, the Braves are gonna have to put on a broadcast of some sort. So they're gonna need the cameraman, they're gonna need the producers, they're gonna need the trucks, they're gonna need the broadcasters. So you know, it's a kind of a TVD on the broad cast team as a whole. But I think my guess is Brandon and CJ will be back next year in some capacity. I just don't know exactly what that capacity will be.

00:22:11
Speaker 1: Like. The one thing that I can say, and I'm not necessarily saying that this is a big determining factor or that it's gonna even play a significant factor, but I imagine that it could play a role. Is that if you are a fan of Brandon and CJ and the Braves overall presentation when it comes to watching the games, they're friends of the show. We're big fans of them. Let it be known. Put it out there on social media, because whatever source is going to take on the Braves, and if they're looking for announcers, I'm sure they have their ways of seeing what the reaction is to Braves broadcast in recent seasons, and without a doubt, it has been much better with CJ and Brandon than it has been previously. No offense to anybody else who was here before those guys. Obviously the Braves radio side of things, this isn't in the equation, but the Braves, again, I would say, have one of the top ten to top five radio and TV combos in the game. So this isn't saying tag Brandon, tag CG or anything like that, but hey, let it be know what you think. Let it be known that you love those guys because they are an absolutely wonderful combination of not only broadcasters but presenting the product of baseball. And I'm sure that that's what it will be or whomever takes on the Braves games, that's what they would love to have. So, as we mentioned, we've used it a little bit, maybe too much in this segment of the show, but TVD don't like those don't like that acronym or or those letters together a lot of times. But make sure that you do stick to the details so that you can fully know and we'll have you covered on how you can watch Braves games this season. But when it comes to watching the Braves games, we have a very good idea many of the players that are gonna be on this Braves team. But what's the latest when it comes to the Braves pursuits, they still have a need or two to feel. We'll discuss that in just a moment after a word from our partners. So Steve, and it makes sense that through the holiday season, the free agency market and just you know baseball activity, you know, kind of calm down a little bit that that typically does happen. We've seen the trade market pick up a little bit here over the past couple of weeks. You know, Edward Cabrera of course being traded to the Cubs being the most recent turn of events. We have seen the Red Sox make deals for pitchers. We have seen the Cubs make deals for pitchers. We have seen the Orioles make deals for pictures as well. Those were teams who seemed to be in play for some of these you know, bigger name free agents. The Yankees seem to be focused on hitting. They seem to be a bit more focused on kind of the middle tier. The Giants as well, we heard that earlier in the off season. The point that I'm getting at is is that a lot of the big name free agent starters are still out there, and while we haven't heard much on the Braves, we've seen some other potential landing spots for those pitchers find other ways to potentially address their pitching needs. So while we don't necessarily, well, I'm not necessarily saying that moves the Braves any closer to landing one of the big fish that's out there in the free agency pond. That's the latest development that we see. While there's no news on the Braves end seeing other teams that could potentially be in competition for those big free agent pitchers go other routes that could play in the Braves favor.

00:25:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're finally starting to hear some buzz on the top of the position player market, like Bobashet and the Phillies. There was a big rumor out there yesterday Kyle Tucker. The Blue Jays are apparently going hard after Tucker. The Mets are apparently going hard after Tucker. Cody Bellinger apparently wants a seven year deal for thirty million a year. Godspeed with that one. I don't think that's gonna happen, but we find I mean, for the longest time we were getting nothing on that end, so at least we've the the ices started to melt a little bit on the on the top end pitching side, I still have not heard like I don't remember last time I saw like a Ranger swore as rumor. You know, I thought the Phillies would be more aggress but they're apparently more in on a bat at the moment. There again, they were talking about Bashitt and maybe bringing back real Muto. I don't know why the Phillies aren't more in on the pitching side. With the uncertainty of Zach Wheeler, with that thorastic outlet syndrome he has, I thought the Phillis would be highly aggressive at the top end of the pitching right, and maybe they will be. Maybe there's just they haven't yet. But yeah, like you said, I think the Mets could use another starter. I was looking at the Mets rotation. It's it's not great. They got some young guys that are really good. But the Mets have a really good farm system. But for somebody who's is as rich as Steve Cohen and spends money the way they do, I assume the Mets would be in on one of these guys. But I could be wrong about that. So yeah, it's tough to if you ask me right now, like, where's Zach Gallon gonna go? I have no idea. Where's Ranger sure is gonna go? I have no idea. I think the Braves are in on these guys. But again, I just until Alex hands is one of these pictures of five six year deal for one hundred and fifty million dollars, I'm just not gonna believe it until I see it. So it is. It is a little weird that we haven't heard more about the pictures. We finally heard this week and last week about the hitters a little bit, but yeah, we'll see where it goes. You know, we're we're rapidly approaching spring training and it's it's the extended spring training this year because of the WBC, so you can't afford to be a little later than maybe normal. But we're we should be getting resolution to a lot of these big names here in the next couple of weeks.

00:27:36
Speaker 1: Of course, you still have Freddy Perralta out there. Mark Bowman of VIM willb dot com roade a really detailed article and Mark Mark Fines saying I believe I said his last name right, forgive me if that's not accurate. He also in the past week wrote an article that more summed up what the rumors had been throughout the off season than anything you know, just breaking as of late. But Mark Bowman talked about the fact he felt Freddie Perralta made the most sense for the Braves to be shoot out of all the options. And the thing about this could be that maybe this starts to drop the price a little bit for these pictures, and that of course really helps out Alex. But the other thing that stands out to me that makes it to where the Braves again should remain aggressive, is that as you get these updates on these position players. You see the Mets and you see the Phillies right in the middle of these conversations. If Boba Schett goes to the Phillies, that's a major development that definitely makes their lineup that much deeper. If the Mets were to land a significant hitter plus also one of these starting pitchers, that gives them reliable options to anchor both a staff and a lineup that had some really good potential. So when it comes to kind of delving out, kind of seeing you know how the top end of the free agent market will eventually follow, those dominoes will fall. Right in the middle of the mix are the powers in the NL East. And that's why the Braves need to remain aggressive because both for be because for the Braves, Mets, and Phillies, all of them, their off season is far from over and the moves that they make are likely going to be significant factors and how successful when they're gonna be not only next year but beyond.

00:29:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, what worries me a little bit is that outside of a big move at the very beginning of the off season when they signed Edwin Diaz, the Dodgers have been incredibly quiet, and I don't know. I just feel like at some point we're gonna get like this, this backbreaking news that the Dodgers are signing Kyle Tucker. Like the Dodgers could actually use another outfit they had They had Tioscar and Endez playing in right field last year, and Tiskar and Endez is a is the most DH that's ever been at DH. So like the problem is they have they have shoe Otani at DH, so they can't really do that. But I could see a world with the the Dodgers trying to move to Oscar and sign Kyle Tucker. They could use another outfit like the Dodge. There's just been oddly quiet, and that always worries me a little bit. But yeah, we I mean we should just we should know. I think at least we will have a better sense of the market. I just as I said here and now, I couldn't even tell you what Ranger Swres' market is. I have. I'ven't heard a thing about Ranger Swarez. Like all off season, I've heard of one or two things about Zach Gallen. The Cubs were reportedly interested at one point, but they just traded for Edward Cabrera, so they traded their number one prospect for Edward Cabrera, So I don't know, you know, that might take them out. I haven't heard much on Zach Gallen. I've heard more on Framberg, but even that's gone cold the last couple of weeks. So I have no idea where these top pictures are going to go. And even like the middle tier, like I have, I've heard very little about Chris Bassett in terms of like what his market is. So I think you are right. I think that could lead to the Braves advantage with some of these maybe prices coming down a little bit, or maybe we haven't heard something. Because there's so many teams involved, you know, no one knows where, who's going where, and all all these guys are going to get what they're projected or more. I have no clue, but we should. It should start thawing out here in the next couple of weeks because spring training is coming, and especially for pitchers. It's not as big a deal for position players, but especially for pitchers, they want to be signed and know where they're going in spring training and be able to get to spring training at the same time that all the other pitchers and catchers report the last thing you want to do is show up late to spring training and feel like you're behind all season long, because it seems like anytime that happens, the guy never catches up, like he's always just behind. And I think pitchers know that. So I think specifically for the pitchers, they're gonna want to get resolution to this pretty soon.

00:31:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, and especially with the World Baseball Classic, like it came out today that Freddy Peralta would be picturing for the Dominican Republic. Well, if you go a few more weeks and you know, that's when he's traded and then he goes and plays with the Dominican Republic, he can only you know, have you know, a month, maybe a few weeks with his new team before you're ramping up for the season, So that that makes a big difference. Of course, we also got the news today that the Diamondbacks are keeping can Tell Marte, So that's that's another you know, big target that's off you know, the market as well. So some things are happening. We keep her rumblings, we keep her in rumblings. You know, we finally want to see some dominoes fall. It does appear that the Braves are you know, still in the midst of that activity. The big thing is they need to be, especially with the Mets and Phillies looking to be active as well a couple of other things since we're now in January to watch out for. Of course, we've got the Hall of Fame. The twenty twenty six Hall of Fame class will be being announced. I believe it's going to be a little bit more than two weeks. I believe that it's going to be two weeks from this upcoming Tuesday. I could be wrong, but don't really have I don't think there's enough votes out there to really have, you know, a comfortable feeling about Andrew Jones, who is in his ninth of the ten years of the initial opportunity that players have to get in the Hall of Fame. But he is trending very well. For the trackers that are out there, they it seems to be above eighty percent right now. It seems like every one of the you know, ballots we see revealed have Andrew Jones mark. So that certainly is a good thing. We'll keep you tracked, we'll keep you up to date on that. Plus also international signing period. I don't necessarily know what the Braves are going to be as up there with the big names this year because they've been that way the past couple of years. But it seems like that there could be a few names that are out there that the Braves are in on. I think there's rumors that the Braves could be back near the top of the international free agency maybe in the coming years. But it'll be interesting to see what the Braves go about doing because you know, in recent years it seems like they've had a major influx of position player talent from the international signing classes. So both of those things will certainly be storylines to watch as well. So whether it's dealing with, you know, adding to the club this year or off the field, So much to cover, and this is the place that will have you covered no matter what, Steven, anything else from you as we wrap up this edition of the Hammer Territory podcast.

00:34:07
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I just remember the Braves and Dylan Lee are going to the arbitration earring. It was reported yesterday they were like two hundred k apart. I think one filed at two million, the other filed at like two point two. It's very common a lot of times, the numbers they file at are not the numbers they negotiated at. So people see that difference, they're like, why couldn't you just agree. My guess is the actual numbers they were negotiating out were much further apart. So that's happening. And then the Braves did make two minor waiver claims for pictures that I don't even remember their names.

00:34:42
Speaker 1: I'm guessing can wald wald le Chuck from the Athletics. I believe he's a left hander, and then George Soriano from the Orioles. It feels like it's more the you know, musical chairs type opportunity. You know, when it comes, these are.

00:35:01
Speaker 2: Guys that you claim so that you can try to slip them through waivers and get them to your minor league teams and get them get them off your forty. These are guys that end up get claimed, getting claimed like seven times. Yeah, but uh Videl Bruhan and uh Brett Wiseley. We're d faning both of those because the Braves have a full forty man. So the Braves kind of emptied out some of their middle endfield options that didn't have middle endfielders that didn't have minor league options in exchange for some pitchers that do have minor league options. So that happened o the last couple of days. Nothing massive, but I did want to mention the Dylan Lee.

00:35:35
Speaker 1: News absolutely, and so that that's certainly something to monitor as well. So the thing about it is this is that you know, here in the coming weeks, we should have you know, another you know, pretty major addition to the Braves. You know that we'll certainly, you know, break down and discuss. We're gonna be having season previews. We're gonna be talking plenty about what's going on leading up to, you know, the start of the season. But once it gets going, you got the World Baseball Class, you've got spring training, then we're going right into the season. So plenty of excitement. Given another month or so, folks, and we'll really get going when it comes to the Braves, especially when it comes to basketball on any level. You're not necessarily that happy with things right now, but hey, until next time. You got Stephen Tolbert at b Underscore outliers on Twitter slash x myself status as they see on Twitter slash x hammer territory across all forms of social media. Part of the Foul Territory family of podcasts. Until next time, go braves, We'll talk to you again soon here on the Hammer Territory podcast