Does Atlanta Spend Money on a Free Agent Outfielder If Ronald Acuña Jr Misses Time?

The Atlanta Braves don't really have a lot of available money to spend. 

Let's clarify: They have money - Atlanta's revenue broke the $600M threshold for the first time last year, although baseball expenses increased as well. 

But will they spend it?

Does Alex Anthopoulos decide to go over the third luxury tax tier to sign a veteran outfielder if star Ronald Acuña Jr's "irritated meniscus" is bad enough to force him to miss regular season games? 

As of Monday morning, Atlanta is sitting at a 2024 cash payroll of $228M, per FanGraphs. 

But cash isn't the problem, the Competitive Balance Tax is. 

You see, Atlanta's CBT figure is significantly higher - $42 million, in fact, at just over $270M, and it's because CBT payroll is calculated differently than cash payroll: Cash payroll is, well, just that, the cash you're paying to your players this season. CBT payroll is based on the Average Annual Value, or AAV, of your deals. And since much of the Braves roster has upcoming seasons where their salaries are increasing towards the $22M max, their CBT figures are higher than their cash figures for 2024.

Now, Alex Anthopoulos has said to us, at the Winter Meetings and elsewhere, that he cares about the cash figure. They track the tax payroll because they need to pay that tax, but the concern is the cash payroll and actual expenditures in that season. 

But there's a complicating factor here: exceeding that third CBT threshold of $277M not only increases your financial penalties, it brings others with it. 

CBT penalties are severe when you hit Tier 3

First, the money: As a 2nd-time payor (Atlanta paid $3.2M as a first-time payor last season), Atlanta's penalties would increase from a 20% tax on all overages to a 30% tax. Additionally, since they're past the 2nd tier ($257M), there's an additional 12% surcharge on spending over $257M. 

But if Atlanta hits that third tier of $277M, the additional surcharge jumps from 12% to 42.5% (levied on top of the existing 30%). 

And it's not just a money issue if you exceed the third CBT threshold: There are MLB draft-related penalties, as well. 

Exceeding that third threshold means the highest MLB Draft selection in the next applicable draft (so 2025 for any overages this season) is moved back 10 spots. 

For an organization that invests heavily in pitching prospects in the draft because they're one of the best at developing pitching, a drop of ten spots when you're already picking late in the draft means a loss of millions of dollars in potential bonus pool space and a potential MLB starting pitcher. 

Atlanta likes to save space for in-season moves

With a current CBT figure, per FanGraphs, of $270,363,334, Atlanta's currently looking at less than $7M of space for any sort of trade deadline addition on the current roster. 

There is a way around this, of course - the Braves could lower the current CBT figure by attaching a prospect to the deal of David Fletcher ($7M AAV in 2024, $14M overall owed) to clear some space, but that feels like something that the team would rather not do. 

And so, it's increasingly unlikely that Atlanta goes out and signs a free-agent outfielder on the open market unless that player is coming for nearly the veteran minimum...and if that's the case, are they significantly better than your incumbent options that are already in the organization? 

This isn't to say that the Braves won't make a move - we don't really know what to expect until we get reports from later today on the status of Acuña's right knee. 

But from where we stand, it feels like, barring a long-term absence from Acuña, the team could get by for a few weeks with a Jordan Luplow, Forrest Wall, or JP Martinez holding down the fort.