Can Atlanta Find Their Next Sneaky Win in the Non-Tender Pool?

Buying low here lets the Braves roll high if they want to add a real impact bat or arm.

A common talking point about this offseason, one I share some responsibility for advancing, is that despite a public commitment to (eventually) being a top-five payroll team¹, the Atlanta Braves can’t afford to fill every single roster hole in free agency.

Or at least, can’t do it by shopping at the top of the market.

But what if they set their sights a bit lower with one of the signings? Adding a complementary piece in the outfield or the bullpen could leave funds available for some more significant moves later this winter.

Let’s talk about it.

Outfield makes the most sense here

President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos has discussed how difficult it is to find high-quality backups because of the lack of available playing time on the roster.

This season should be different. Full-time designated hitter Marcell Ozuna is no longer with the team, having gone to free agency after an injury-impacted season that saw his bat take a significant step back from its MVP finalist heights of 2023 and 2024.

The outfield feels like a likely place to find a rotational piece, not only because of the ability to give rest to your two starting corner outfielders, both veterans with injury histories, but also the defensive issues with them at times.

And there were several notable names that can fulfill both requirements. Believe it or not, though, this is not a newsletter advocating for signing former Texas Rangers outfielder Adolis García.

Why García doesn’t fit

The Cuban slugger is a two-time All-Star who powered Texas to the 2023 World Series, hitting .323 that series and launching five homers while driving in 15 against the in-state Houston Astros, earning ALCS Most Valuable Player honors. Projected for a $12.1M contract in his final season before free agency, the Rangers decided to non-tender him, sending him to free agency.

The reason may be that he has not been the same player in the last two seasons, hitting just .225/.278/.397 with a 26.4% strikeout rate and a severely falling walk rate.

Diving into the advanced numbers via Statcast, the slugger’s seen a precipitous drop in his bat speed, going from a well-above-average 71st percentile mark of 73.6 mph in his 2023 season to merely average, sitting in the 49th percentile, last season. As someone who turned 41 this year, I don’t want to think this is related to hitting his early 30s because that’s not old (right?), but it’s still a concerning trend.

The counterpoint is that it is also an open question of whether or not this was intentional. He has always been a high-swing-and-miss, high-impact slugger, trading whiff for exit velocity. A possible explanation for his 2025 inputs could be that he deliberately shortened his swing. The actual swing length has gone from 7.9 feet to 7.6 feet, per Statcast, and he’s moved back in the box by a few inches (as measured relative to the front of home plate) - could this be because he wants a few more fractions of a second to recognize spin?

If so, it didn’t work - his performance against breaking balls dropped to a .214 batting average, the second-lowest mark of his career, while he cratered against offspeed pitches (going from .241 in 2024 to a .169 last year). While he did get better against fastballs, gaining both 46 points of batting average and 54 points of slug, it wasn’t enough to offset his performance declines in the other areas.

This is a long-winded way of saying that García is potentially fixable, and I expect several teams to attempt to sign him for that reason. His defense is still positive and he’s a good baserunner, so if his offense can return to even a fraction of 2023’s levels, he’s a valuable add to a roster.

But he doesn’t fit what the Braves like to do under Tim Hyers. Look at the names they’ve added in the last year - Jurickson Profar, Nick Allen, Alex Verdugo, Ha-Seong Kim. They’re all low whiff, high contact bats that specialize in putting the ball in play.

Does Hyers’ familiarity with García in Texas from 2022-2024 offset his slug-focused approach? Time will tell, but it doesn’t feel likely.

Who I would go after

If the Braves are looking for the same general offensive philosophy from their additions, there are two names that make some sense: Mike Tauchman and JJ Bleday.

Tauchman was non-tendered by the Chicago White Sox despite hitting .263/.356/.400 last season, possibly because billionaire team owner Jerry Reinsdorf can’t stomach the idea of paying a projected $3.4M arbitration salary to a part-time player in Tauchman.

Whatever the reason, it couldn’t have been for performance. Tauchman had one of his best offensive seasons since 2019 with the New York Yankees, finishing with a 115 wRC+. This season, he almost matched that production in platoon situations, hitting .272 with a 114 wRC+ against righties. Surprisingly, he didn’t severely struggle against lefties, putting up a .424 slug with one-third of his nine homers coming in only 71 plate appearances against southpaws (as compared to 314 against righties), good for a 121 wRC+.

No longer a centerfielder at this point in his career, the 33-year-old played exclusively in right field and graded out perfectly average, per Statcast, at a 48th percentile zero Fielding Run Value. He was surprisingly average in most components of outfield defense, coming in between the 46th and 49th percentile in range, arm strength, and overall arm value.

With Sean Murphy being a perfectly capable designated hitter against lefties, holding a 123 wRC+ last year and a 116 wRC+ for his career, adding Tauchman (or another righty-hitting bat like Mike Yastrzemski) would let Atlanta recreate a full-time DH in the aggregate.

JJ Bleday, a former #4 overall pick by the Miami Marlins who was traded to the Athletics, would be coming in under this scenario as a complete reclamation project. His 2024 campaign remains the best of his career, where the centerfielder delivered +8 Batting Run Value while exhibiting poor range but a great arm in centerfield, one that allowed him to finish slightly above average at +1 Fielding Run Value.

Last year was…not that. A significant drop-off in his ability to make quality contact led to cratering power performance, with a hard-hit rate that dropped 8% and a Sweet Spot percentage that collapsed from an 80th-percentile 37.1% to a 6th-percentile mark.²

While I don’t have anything to point to that will explain the defensive metrics falling off a cliff, it’s possible that Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park was just an unfamiliar setting for the youngster in what ended up being an unusual year full of struggles. Bleday was optioned to the minors multiple times, but potentially figured out something late. In his final 111 plate appearances, coming after being recalled on August 2nd, he hit .252/.309/.495 (115 wRC+) with six homers and seven doubles.

At worst, he’s a Florida native who attended nearby Vanderbilt, a demographic that has been kind to the Braves, and is due a change of scenery. The Athletics chose to non-tender him rather than potentially be on the hook for his $2.2M arbitration projection if they couldn’t find a trade partner, but the Braves could be the beneficiaries of their frugality.

Other potential names from Friday

There are a few other intriguing names that Atlanta could kick the tires on from Friday’s non-tenders, each of whom could fill their own niche for the Braves.

Outfield slugger

Alexander Canario, non-tendered by the Pittsburgh Pirates. Originally a top prospect of the Chicago Cubs, the 25-year-old from the Dominican Republic sports top-of-the-scale bat speed and massive raw power but whiffs too much to effectively utilize it in games. He’s limited to a corner defensively, but has good speed and a howitzer for a right arm. Someone will sign him with the hopes of bringing down the swing-and-miss to unlock a prototypical right field slugger in the Jorge Soler mold.

Outfield & emergency catcher

Give me MJ Melendez, non-tendered by the Kansas City Royals. The exceptionally athletic 2nd-round pick from 2017 converted to the outfield upon his 2022 debut in an attempt to get at-bats around stalwart backstop Salvador Perez. He could never really unlock the offensive promise his bat showed as a prospect, though, with a career .215/.297/.388 line across parts of four seasons.

This would definitely be a development signing, but one that has the potential to save a 3rd catcher bench spot if the Braves were to use Murphy and Drake Baldwin as the primary designated hitters and an injury were to strike.³

A hitter with no defensive position

If the Braves aren’t afraid to carry a bat without much of a defensive home, Christopher Morel was non-tendered by the Tampa Bay Rays, a team that values defense, because in addition to struggling at the plate, he couldn’t reliably field a baseball well enough to effectively utilize his massive arm.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen this before, but Morel’s played six different defensive positions in his four-year career and never graded out positively in any of them. Not in combined rating, either; at all, ever. The best he’s ever done in a single season, per Statcast, is to come in at exactly Outs Above Average at second base in 2022 (242 innings), centerfield in 2023 (80 innings), and right field in 2025 (12 innings). He’s accumulated -34 OAA in 2,651 defensive innings in his career, so he’s the anti-Mauricio Dubón.

If the Braves are comfortable letting him DH instead of either Profar or Acuña, they could try and rehabilitate his bat with time at designated hitter. He has two 20+ homer campaigns in his career and sports exceptional bat speed and exit velocity, provided he can make contact (a 2nd-percentile whiff of 37%).

A non-shortstop utilityman

That’d be Ramón Urías, non-tendered by the Houston Astros. Formerly a shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, he’s played mostly second and third in the last few years. With his bat cratering in Houston this year (a career-worst 87 wRC+) and no innings at shortstop since 2022, he’s likely not giving you anything that Nacho Alvarez Jr. couldn’t do for the league minimum.

A six-pitch reliever

Mark Leiter Jr. was traded to the New York Yankees at last year’s trade deadline and seemingly couldn’t handle playing under the ‘bright lights’ of New York. In just over a season of bullpen usage, with 70 innings across the one-plus seasons, Leiter pitched to a 4.89 ERA with a career-low 24.7% strikeout rate.

The 34-year-old was due $3M in arbitration this year, his final before free agency, and so New York declined to bring him back. As someone who uses all three fastballs (but predominantly a sinker) to hold opponents to a 47.2% ground ball rate, Braves pitching coach Jeremy Hefner would likely be interested. He also doesn’t give up much quality contact, holding a 94th-percentile 33.3% hard-hit rate and 88th percentile 5.6% barrel rate, thanks to his curveball and slider, while using a splitter to generate a 77th percentile whiff rate of 29.1%. Sign me up for the Mark Leiter experience.

1. Despite some, including MLB.com’s Mark Bowman, characterizing this as a commitment to be a top-five payroll in 2026, Atlanta Braves Holdings chairman Terry McGuirk never said “2026” or indicated that he meant this coming season in his remarks to investors on November 5th.

2. Hard-hit rate is the percentage of batted balls with an exit velocity of 95mph or greater, while Launch Angle Sweet Spot percentage is hitting a batted ball between 8 and 32 degrees. Combine those two things and you likely have a barrel, based on the specific measurements of both figures and how they interact.

3. Reminder, if your designated hitter has to leave that spot to go play the field, as one catcher would if the other were injured, you lose the DH for the game and need to either use pinch-hitters or let the pitcher hit when their turn comes up. Melendez, while not at all a good catcher, at least has some MLB experience back there and could finish a game for you if needed.