This winter, there is a widespread belief among Atlanta Braves fans, particularly on social media, that the team and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos is being “cheap” by not paying top-tier free agents.

Aaron Nola was the first to sign, returning to the Philadelphia Phillies on a seven-year, $172 million contract. (Atlanta apparently outbid Philly for Nola’s services, but he elected to stay at home.) Sonny Gray was the next to sign, agreeing to a three-year deal with the St. Louis Cardinals for $75 million.

Then there was the Shohei Ohtani transaction. Ten years, $700 million, with an amazing $680 million deferred, reducing the luxury tax computation to $46 million each year.

(It’s worth mentioning that all of those free agents were offered qualifying contracts and would have required the Braves to give up their second and fifth-highest draft picks in the 2024 MLB Draft if they signed with Atlanta.)

Many third- and fourth-tier pitchers have signed, including Seth Lugo, Eduardo Rodriguez, Michael Wacha, Kenta Maeda, Tyler Mahle, and Jack Flaherty.

When you look across the ecosystem of Braves fans and where they congregate online (mostly on Twitter and Facebook groups, but occasionally on Reddit as well), there’s a lot of angst that Atlanta is being “cheap” by not outbidding other teams for these starters who are entering their early 30s (or, in the case of Sonny Gray, already 33 when signing).

In actuality, the Braves have been extremely busy this offseason and have committed huge sums of money in comparison to the rest of baseball.

Atlanta signed three players for a total of $70.25 million, including relievers Pierce Johnson and Joe Jiménez and pitcher Reynaldo López, for a total of $32 million guaranteed.

According to Spotrac’s payroll projections, Atlanta has the third highest cash payroll of $208.4 million and the highest CBT payroll of $242 million for 2024.

The offseason isn’t over yet, and there are still plenty of high-priced free agents to sign, like Matt Chapman, Cody Bellinger, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but it’s worth repeating:

The Atlanta Braves currently have baseball’s third-highest cash payroll and THE HIGHEST luxury tax payroll.

Atlanta has also been active in the trade market, bringing in nine players and shipping out twelve (several of those nine incoming players, notably Marco Gonzales, Evan White, and Max Stassi, were almost immediately moved back out). They’ve taken on multi-million dollar deals, some of which they’ve been able to shed.

Just because you acquired money through trade rather than free agency does not mean you did not spend money.

As of now, Atlanta has secured five years of outfielder Jarenic and two years of David Fletcher for just slightly more than the club option for one year of Eddie Rosario and two years of arbitration-eligible Nicky Lopez, as well as the multi-year additions of several relievers (such as Aaron Bummer and Ray Kerr).

Whether we like it or not, the squad is better. The bullpen is deeper, and the outfield has a greater ceiling with Kelenic (as well as a good enough offense to withstand any offensive issues he may have while he adjusts).

Why does everyone ignore the Braves large cash payroll amount?

I believe it is due to a combination of factors: To begin, there is speculation that the Braves underpay anyone who has signed a long-term contract. While there is some truth to that from the perspective of Atlanta holding very team-friendly contracts on Ronald Acua Jr (8 years, $100 million) and Ozzie Albies (7 years, $35 million), several of the Braves long-term deals rise into the $20M+/year range as those players enter bought-out arbitration and free agent years.

Matt Olson, Austin Riley, and Spencer Strider will all make $22 million before his contracts expire, with Acua collecting $17 million, Sean Murphy receiving $15 million, and even newly-signed reliever Reynaldo López receiving $11 million in each of 2025 and 2026.

In terms of remaining money on long-term, guaranteed contracts, the Braves have the sixth-highest remaining salary commitment in 2026, with over $463M still to be paid on existing contracts (and two of the teams above Atlanta are in their division, with the Mets at $482M and Philadelphia at $534M).