Atlanta Braves: Winter meetings primer, what to expect

Current roster holes

With the non-tenders of Adams, Peterson, and Santana, the biggest and most glaring hole on the team offensively. On the pitching side, the bullpen is one spot where many fans see a tremendous need, but how the bullpen is constructed will be interesting in the new front office. Regardless of whether it’s through a reliable bullpen arm or bringing in a veteran starter, a reliable arm that can give certain innings with the youth on the pitching staff is a definite need.

Let’s look at each individually on an internal basis:

Bench
The Atlanta Braves have been through a significant rebuild the last few seasons that has put them in the spot where they have a number of players at the major league level or within striking distance of that level. That could allow the bench issue to be less of a problem.

While super prospect Ronald Acuna won’t be brought to the major leagues to sit the bench, the Braves are already set fairly well with Lane Adams covering the outfield off the bench as he did tremendously well in 2017.

The infield could rely significantly on how the team chooses to man third base. Johan Camargo had a successful season at the major league level, and he offers the flexibility to cover a number of other positions. Rio Ruiz really has little more to show at the minor league level and is at a point where he needs consistent major league at bats to see if he’s a long-term fit. The team also (for some reason, unbeknownst to any Braves observer) has Adonis Garcia still on the roster.

While Camargo is really the only backup at shortstop or second base currently on the 40-man roster, the team could certainly make a move or two to sign a cheap veteran to fill that role. One thing to note – while Adams has no options left as the primary backup outfielder, all of Ruiz, Garcia, and Camargo do have options, so shuffling them between the majors and AAA to fill 3B with the hot hand throughout the season is certainly something feasible on a roster construction standpoint.

In the minor leagues really only Colon and long-time Braves farmhand Carlos Franco would really figure in to the bench discussion.

An additional arm
The Braves may have painted themselves into a bit of a corner with their offseason moves already with their bullpen. Of the 8 projected members of the bullpen, 5 currently are without options. That would mean bringing in a veteran bullpen arm likely would mean one of those arms is not on the 25-man roster, which means they’d be exposed to waivers.

The three bullpen arms that aren’t out of options are three of the team’s most certain bullpen members in Arodys Vizcaino, A.J. Minter, and Dan Winkler. Not currently in the projected bullpen, but also out of options would be hard-throwing righty Mauricio Cabrera.

The Braves will certainly be utilizing youth in their bullpen and especially in their rotation in 2018. Even though Max Fried had one of the best pitching performances at the Arizona Fall League and Luiz Gohara was dominant at times in the major leagues at the end of 2017, one or both could open 2018 in the minor leagues if the team chose to pursue a veteran arm.

The elder of the rotation, Julio Teheran, will be just 27 on opening day, which would certainly give the Braves one of the youngest rotations in the game.

So who on the roster could be on the move in the next week in order to fill some of these holes?

Next: Trade chips