The Braves Are Taking Calculated Risks With Their Roster This Winter

Alex Anthopoulos is trying to preserve maximum flexibility with his roster spots

One of the surprising developments to open the offseason after 2024 was the Braves moving on from several players with additional team control, whether it was a very quick trade of designated hitter Jorge Soler or declining the club option for catcher Travis d’Arnaud.

The understood reasoning at the time was to create “financial flexibility” - Atlanta wanted to have additional funds available for the offseason, although they tried (and failed) to use them on a significant addition¹ before Jurickson Profar signed in January.

This winter’s theme appears to be “roster flexibility” - we publicly fretted back in mid-September that the team had too many players for the 40-man roster once everyone was returned off the 40-man injured list, with the team projected to need 49 spots to retain everyone.

They took care of that problem and then continued to trim even more in the last week. But why? Let’s talk about it.

They cleared fourteen roster spots

The side effect of the “quantity over quality” approach to fixing the bullpen last winter and the continuous waiver claims in-season was that the Braves had quite a few roster spots they were able to create after the season ended.

Atlanta waived five guys immediately after the regular season ended and outrighted them all to Gwinnett when they cleared waivers; all five elected free agency, including two different pitchers, two outfielders, and a veteran catcher. After watching four more veterans (including three more arms) officially become free agents due to their contracts expiring after the World Series, the Braves then moved on from six more players (including two more relievers) prior to reinstating their injured battalion on the 60-day injured list.

But Atlanta wasn’t done, creating two more spots by declining the club options on relievers Tyler Kinley and Pierce Johnson. Despite claiming outfielder Michael Siani and relievers Josh Walker and Carson Ragsdale off of waivers, the Braves created twelve spots on the 40-man roster, which sat at just 37 entering Tuesday’s Rule 5 protection deadline. The distribution of talent hints at where the Braves plan to focus their energy this winter:

Starters: 12
Relievers: 11
Catchers: 2
Infielders: 7
Outfielders: 5

(For simplicity's sake, I put Carson Ragsdale and Joey Wentz as starters, but left José Suarez and Jhancarlos Lara as relievers despite both working as starters for Triple-A Gwinnett)

The Braves have a lot of infielders because they’re not happy with their options at shortstop, while Atlanta has a lot of starters because they lost a lot to injury last year (six on the IL, five of those on the 60-day).

And believe it or not, the Braves essentially punted the Rule 5 deadline to preserve even more roster space, declining to protect any of their draft-eligible prospects by giving them a 40-man roster spot.

Why didn’t they protect Burkhalter?

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Blake Burkhalter. A product of Auburn University, I covered him in college and was the one who broke the news of his Tommy John surgery in March of 2023.

So it was initially shocking, to say the least, when Atlanta declined to protect him at the deadline on Tuesday.

But after sitting on it longer, I think this is a calculated risk, one designed to preserve as many 40-man roster spots as possible. The reason here is that he’s not likely to get taken this December in the Rule 5 draft.

Baseball America recently dove into all modern Rule 5 picks to find their commonalities, and he’s outside the archetype of who is taken. To summarize the paywalled article, it’s usually right-handed pitchers (check) with upper-minors experience (check) who are either injured (he’s not) or have the following characteristics:

• A strikeout rate above 26%

  • 79% of players taken in the last four years hit this mark, with 40% striking out 30% or more of opposing batters faced

• A walk rate below 10%

  • 66% were below this, and all but one pitcher with a walk rate above that had a strikeout rate above 26%. As BA put it, “if a pitcher had control issues, they could miss bats.”

• A groundball rate over 40%

  • 76% of players had a groundball rate above that mark, with all but one that were below possessing a better than MLB average strikeout rate

And I think the calculated risk here for Atlanta is that for all of Burkhalter’s promise, he doesn’t necessarily fit in with these metrics.

In the minors last season:

• Strikeout rate = 20.1%

• Walk rate = 10.3%

• GB rate = 40.6%

And if you isolate to just his Triple-A numbers, where he was working in relief to manage his innings, it was even further away from those targets:

• Strikeout rate = 17.6%

• Walk rate = 12.2%

• GB rate = 39.1%

Put simply, Burkhalter doesn’t fit the profile of a prospect that’s taken in the Rule 5 draft. Even if he is one of the outliers that is taken, he’s not likely to stick on another team’s MLB roster for the entirety of the 2026 season.

I think he’s a fantastic player, and I’m excited to watch him debut in the majors, likely as soon as the 2nd half of 2026. But will another team sign up to have him on their roster on Opening Day? The Braves are betting they won’t.

So, what are they saving these roster spots for?

That’s the big question, and I have some theories.

The first is that they’re prepared to spend some legitimate money this winter in other areas and know that they may be left ‘piecing it together’ in the bullpen. This aligns with Alex Anthopoulos’ comments from the General Manager meetings last week, where he declared the team’s active priorities right now were shortstop and starting pitcher, with bullpen being something they’d tackle later in winter. “I would say starting pitcher and shortstop are what we’re spending the most time on right now.”

In a scenario where they need to come out of pocket for both, say, Ha-Seong Kim (2/$30M) and a starting pitcher like Chris Bassitt (2/$38M), having cash to throw at the bullpen may not be an issue, but it’s a different story if the Braves end up popping a qualifying offer for Dylan Cease (7/$189M) or Bo Bichette (8/$208M) or end up making a trade for a large contract like Sonny Gray (1/$35M) or Mitch Keller (3/$55.7M). It’s hard to take on a large contract (or two) and then sign one of the top-of-the-market closers. They may need to grab two setup types and go with a closer-by-committee approach until someone emerges as the go-to 9th-inning option.

The second possibility is that Atlanta’s planning on going after recently-waived/DFA’d players using their available roster spots. One of the reasons that the Braves were successful in signing Carlos Rodriguez last winter was that they were the only team of the 20 or so suitors for the outfielder that was willing and able to give him a 40-man roster spot at the time. While he ultimately wasn’t promoted to the majors and was not a factor in the 2025 season, he did receive additional pay by virtue of being on the 40-man roster and a bit more job security than if he were on a strict minor league deal.

Just perusing a list of veterans that lost 40-man spots today, there are options (albeit not very great ones) at several different positions:

Outfield: JJ Bleday (Athletics), Jake Fraley (Rays), Joey Wiemer (Marlins), Alexander Canario (Pirates), Christopher Morel (Rays)
Infield: Michael Toglia (Rockies), Luis Vásquez (Orioles), Ramón Urias (Astros)
Pitchers: Nic Enright (Guardians; having Tommy John surgery), Tommy Henry (Diamondbacks), Carson Spiers (Reds), Jason Foley & Tanner Rainey (Tigers), Taylor Saucedo (Mariners)

It’s possible the Braves look to grab one or two options in the coming days to evaluate whether or not they’re of use to the 2026 roster. Vásquez is a shortstop, while Bleday is a former first-round pick and Fraley was a Brave as recently as a few weeks ago. Canario was a former top prospect for the Cubs, while Weimer was in the Futures Game as recently as three seasons ago.

While Spiers wasn’t a very productive Major Leaguer, he’s a college teammate of Spencer Strider’s at Clemson who was a former top prospect of the Reds. He throws six pitches, including all three fastballs, and has a lot of the traits that new pitching coach Jeremy Hefner looks for in his arms.

Time will tell what Atlanta’s plan this winter is, but it’s clear that they have both the money and roster spots to do virtually whatever they want.

1. They were confirmed to be in on reliever Jeff Hoffman, who they were going to convert to the rotation, but backed out of the deal (as did Baltimore) over medical concerns with his shoulder. They were also rumored to be in on starter Justin Verlander and closer Tanner Scott.