Atlanta Braves: Understanding who’s running my team
By Bill Felber
As general manager, Alex Anthopoulos exercises control over baseball-related functions of the Atlanta Braves. The team has flourished on his watch.
- Owner: Liberty Media
- President & CEO: Mike Plant
- Executive VP and General Manager: Alex Anthopoulos
Liberty Media Corp. has owned the Braves franchise since purchasing it from Time-Warner – which obtained it was part of its purchase of Turner Broadcasting — in February of 2007.
Plant’s tenure with the Braves pre-dates Liberty Media. He was hired as executive vice president of business operations in 2003 and was named president last year.
More from Call to the Pen
- Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
- Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
- Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
- Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
- 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals
But the franchise’s management culture dictates that Plant’s role with the team has largely been confined to non-baseball aspects – real estate and the like. That hands-off approach shows most clearly in the pattern of hiring general managers since Liberty took over.
When John Schuerholz relinquished those duties following the 2007 season, the group replaced him with his top assistant, Frank Wren. When Wren retired in 2014, John Hart was brought in for one season until a search settled on John Coppolella, whose removal two seasons later was forced by the 2017 international picks scandal.
The combination of the franchise’s natural separation between baseball and non-baseball duties, the emergency nature by which Anthopoulos was hired and the team’s success since that hiring has left Anthopoulos in one of the strongest positions of any front office executive.
Anthopoulos, 42, came to the Atlanta Braves as the capstone to a nearly two-decade career in baseball that began when he was hired as an unpaid intern during his student days at McMaster University in the 1990s. He turned that into a paid job in scouting, moving to the Blue Jays in 2003. Following the 2005 season Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi named him an assistant GM, and he was elevated to general manager following Ricciardi’s firing in 2009.
He continued as GM in Toronto through 2015, receiving the Sporting News Executive of the Year Award that season. His rejection of a five-year extension and subsequent resignation followed the arrival of Mark Shapiro as the team’s new president, a move that some interpreted as an intrusion into Anthopoulos’ authority. For his part, Anthopoulos has not discussed his reasons for stepping down.
A few months later he joined the staff of the Dodgers as a vice president, making him available when Coppolella’s banishment forced the Braves to seek a replacement on short notice.
Answerable to his bosses only for his overall performance and able to exercise broad discretion in baseball-related decisions, Anthopoulos and the Braves have jointly flourished since his arrival.
Statista puts the franchise value at $1.7 billion, up 13 percent from the $1.5 valuation at the time of Anthopoulos’ hiring. Final 2019 team revenues have not yet been published, but given that the revenues for just the first nine months of the year equaled the $442 million brought in during all of 2018, ownership should have no complaints. The Atlanta Braves generally rank just outside the top 10 in team revenues.
During Anthopoulos’ first two seasons, payroll has risen from $133 million to $160 million in 2019, still a modest 36 percent of the team’s revenues. But what Anthopoulos has done to improve the talent base cannot be argued with. Based on the net change in Wins Above Average,* he has averaged a 9.3 game positive impact per season on Atlanta’s roster.
In no particular order, the improvements wrought by Anthopoulos have included the 2019 signing of Josh Donaldson, the promotion of touted rookies Ronald Acuna Jr., and Mike Soroka, and the extension given to young star Ozzie Albies.
This year to date, anyway, Anthopoulos’ big off-season move has been the signing of free-agent pitcher Cole Hamels to a one-year, $18 million deal. Donaldson remains a potential addition.
Going forward, and absent some unforeseen turn in Atlanta’s fortunes, Anthopoulos’ position is among the strongest of any front office executive. He is running a profitable enterprise, he has virtually full operational control, and he has to date exercised that control effectively.
Next. Fausto Segura killed in traffic accident. dark
*This calculation is obtained by determining the net impact of all player transactions on team performance for the season(s) in question. Wins Above Average is a zero-based offshoot if Wins Above Replacement; thus, the final figure suggests the degree of positive or negative movement in the standings attributable to front office moves.