Braves get Markakis; bigger move imminent?
Nick Markakis is set to join the Braves on a four-year contract. (USATSI)
An interesting offseason got a little more interesting for the Braves on Wednesday. A few weeks after trading Jason Heyward to the Cardinals, Atlanta’s new president of baseball operations John Hart signed long-time Oriole Nick Markakis to take over in right field.
Markakis is just the latest free agent bat to come off the market. Five of our top six and six of our top eight free agent position players have come off the board so far while our top 15 free agent pitchers all remain unsigned. Offense is down and teams are aggressively pursuing bats, understandably.
The 31-year-old Markakis is a fine player and the going rate for fine players is about $11 million annually, so the deal makes sense financially. For the Braves, this moves feels more like a precusor to something bigger than it does simply replacing Heyward in right. It feels like a precursor to a trade involving Justin Upton and/or Evan Gattis, specifically.
Hart and the Braves have made it no secret they are open to dealing Upton and Gattis this offseason. Upton is due to become a free agent next offseason and it’s unlikely Atlanta can afford to re-sign him, so it’s either trade him now, trading him at the deadline for something less, or settle for a compensation draft pick next year. Meanwhile, Gattis’ best position is the batters box — he’s essentially a DH shoehorned into the catcher or left field positions.
Upton and Gattis don’t fit as long-term pieces for the Braves for different reasons, so exploring trades for them is the logical thing to do. The club still needs outfielders though, and Markakis gives them a good one going forward. Not a great one, but a solid one. A fine player, as I said.
There were always going to be two steps to this process for Atlanta: 1) trade Upton and/or Gattis, and 2) replace them in the outfield. Hart just took care of the second item before the first. Free agent bats have been coming off the board very quickly this winter, so if Hart didn’t act to get Markakis now, he could have been left standing at the game of free agent musical chairs later in the winter.
Now, does all of this make sense for the Braves? I think that’s debatable. If you’re trying to maximize your chances to win in 2015, you don’t trade Heyward or Upton. If you’re trying to maximize your chances to win in two or three years, you don’t sign Markakis to a four-year contract. Atlanta seems to be setting themselves up for a run in the middle — not good enough to truly contend and not bad enough to tear it all down and rebuild.
We still need to see how the Upton and/or Gattis situations play out. A trade feels inevitable, but what’s the return? A young pitcher like Taijuan Walker? An established player like Rick Porcello? A package of prospects? Another shoe still has to drop and that will shape our perception of the team’s offseason. I just have a hard time seeing how subtracting Heyward and Upton while adding Markakis and whatever they get in a forthcoming trade improves the team.
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