Everything You Need to Know About Atlanta's Winter Meetings

The baseball world will descend on Orlando, FL starting on Sunday for what could end up being a pretty consequential four days for the Atlanta Braves

I like to imagine it was this moment at the 2023 Winter Meetings that Craig Counsell knew he’d made the wrong decision to leave the Brewers for the Cubs.

The entire baseball world will descend on the Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, FL next week for MLB’s Winter Meetings. It’s one of the more underrated things to do for baseball media. For four days, almost everybody will be there - national and local media, all 30 MLB teams are in attendance with both their manager and President of Baseball Operations addressing the media during the week, vendors, TV and radio, and tons of job seekers. It’s a good time!

Here’s what Atlanta Braves fans should be looking out for next week.

Is this Murph’s year?

The National Baseball Hall of Fame will hold a press conference on Monday morning if the Era Committee elects any of the eight candidates they’re considering when they meet and vote on Sunday afternoon.

This year, the committee’s considering what they’re calling the “Contemporary Era”, so players who “primary contributions to the game” came after 1980. Candidates will need to receive 12 or more votes from the 16 electors to be inducted next summer in the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026.

There is a Braves-adjacent inclusion on this year’s ballot in outfielder Gary Sheffield, who hit .319 with 64 bombs across two seasons (2002 & 2003) with the Braves, but the main focus will be uber-deserving Atlanta legend Dale Murphy.

The tall center fielder and former catcher was one of the most dominant players of the 1980s, earning seven All-Star nods, five consecutive Gold Gloves, and four consecutive Silver Sluggers while also winning back-to-back MVP awards in 1982 & 1983 and the league’s Roberto Clemente Award in 1988. He has the 2nd-most homers of the decade and the most total bases, finishing with the 10th-highest bWAR among position players in the decade.¹

But he also suffered a rapid fall-off, caused by repeated knee injuries that eventually forced the 6’5 Murphy to have mid-career knee surgery, hitting just .234 in his final six seasons. Upon retirement in 1993, he had finished just two shy of the 400-homer threshold, once considered a good indicator of eventual Hall of Fame induction.

Is this the year? We‘ll find out at 7:30 PM ET on MLB Network as the voting results are announced live.

In addition to the Hall of Fame results, other awards will be given out. The Ford C. Frick Award is given out by the Baseball Hall of Fame for excellence in baseball broadcasting. Among the 10 finalists are former Braves broadcaster Skip Caray. The BBWAA will award one of their own the Career Excellence Award, going to a writer for “meritorious contributions” to the art. The winner will be honored next summer during the Hall of Fame’s Induction Weekend. Scout of the Year awards are given out, with multiple prizes for domestic scouts, an international scout of the year, and the Distinguished Woman in Baseball Award.

The draft lottery on Tuesday

All due respect to Dale Murphy (and trust me - I have a ton), this might be the most important thing to come out of the Winter Meetings this year. Atlanta is one of fifteen non-playoff teams to be in this year’s lottery; the Angels, Rockies, and Nationals are all ineligible to receive a lottery pick this year. The lottery will set the first six picks of the draft, with picks seven through seventeen being given out in reverse order of record before the playoff teams are seeded by postseason finish.

The Braves have the sixth-best odds of receiving the number one pick at 4.54%. They could win the whole thing and pick #1 overall, or they could fall as low as twelfth if all six of the top spots are won by teams behind them in the lottery odds.

The logistics here are that four ping-pong balls with numbers are drawn, and the various permutations (1001 combinations) are all coded to a specific team. This process is done in secret, with two media observers; Baseball America’s JJ Cooper is one of those two media observers and always writes up a great article on the specific details - subscription required to read about last year’s Draft Lottery.) The final results are unveiled on a televised program on Tuesday at 5:30 PM ET.

Atlanta’s PPI pick for Drake Baldwin’s Rookie of the Year win will grant them the #26 overall pick, one that had a slot value last year of $3.49M. Will it backstop #1 overall, which last year had a value of $11.08M? Or will they fall as low as #12, with ‘only’ $5.75M from that pick to work with? We’ll find out on Tuesday evening.

(I’m willing to bet that Wednesday’s newsletter is all about the draft lottery results, what Atlanta’s pool looks like after the lottery, and how they could use their (expected) three Top 50 picks to dominate the draft next summer.)

Managers & GMs address the media

All 30 managers and all 30 GMs/Presidents of Baseball Operations will address the media at some point on Tuesday or Wednesday. A schedule is provided on Sunday of the timing for the managers, who have specified time slots across the two days. The general managers, however, typically hold a gaggle with the team’s beat in attendance - at the last winter meetings I attended, all 30 GMs met with the media at the exact same time in the expansive media workroom late in the day on Tuesday, standing off in clusters around the perimeter of the room soon after the draft lottery had concluded.

For many managers, this is the first time they’ve addressed national media since their season or postseason ended. The team’s local beat usually gets the seats in front of that respective podium, with national media (and media of other teams who are curious or asking about former players/coaches filling in the sides) and several of these are carried live on MLB Network (who has a television set at the Meetings and will have over 20 hours of live coverage). I expect Walt Weiss to be asked about his new coaching staff, as none of them have yet to be made available to the media, as well as his thoughts on the addition of/plan for Mauricio Dubón, as well as what he’s planning on doing differently than predecessor Brian Snitker now that he’s in the ‘big chair’.

For Alex Anthopoulos, he’ll undoubtedly be asked about the team’s pursuit of a starter and a shortstop, two things that he said at the GM Meetings were higher priority than the bullpen at the moment. Are the Braves in on Japanese star pitcher Tatsuya Imai, who is stateside at the moment and will be conducting visits after the Winter Meetings? Were they ever in on Dylan Cease, or are they more averse to losing that PPI draft pick now that they know it’s inside the Top 30? Have they been in contact with agent Scott Boras regarding his clients Imai and shortstop Ha-Seong Kim?

(Boras conducts his own press conference at the meetings, as well, setting up a portable backdrop outside the media workroom and near the television sets every year…and yes, the puns just keep coming.)

The Rule 5 Draft wraps up the week

The final event of the Winter Meetings is the Rule 5 Draft. As we discussed two weeks ago, Atlanta didn’t protect any of their draft-eligible prospects and this will be when we find out if that was a smart decision or not.

Teams are required to have an open 40-man spot available to participate or their draft slot is automatically passed; as of Thursday night, only nine teams have a full 40-man and can’t participate (barring a transaction to make a spot). The Braves took two players in the major league portion last year, RHP Anderson Pilar and INF Christian Cairo, but both were returned to their respective organizations at the end of spring training. While it’s unlikely that Atlanta makes a selection this year, a big-stuff arm to throw in the bullpen (Griff McGarry of the Philadelphia Phillies, perhaps?) wouldn’t be the most shocking selection in the world. I’ll make sure to write up some of my favorite options to be picked between now and next Wednesday.

Is there anything specific you want to know about or want us to cover before the Winter Meetings? Let me know! I’m on socials @ CrosbyBaseball or you can email us at contact@bravestoday.com.

1. Everyone else in the top thirteen for the 1980s has already been inducted.