Did The Atlanta Braves Really Have a 'C' Offseason? The Athletic Thinks So

The Atlanta Braves, objectively, had one of the best offseasons that you could reasonably expect.

Despite winning over 100 games last season with one of the most dominant offenses in baseball history, president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos didn't just rest on his laurels and "run it back" with the same roster. He traded for Jarred Kelenic from the Seattle Mariners to be his everyday left fielder for the next five seasons, replacing the now departed Eddie Rosario, and acquired one of the game's preeminent strikeout artists in Chris Sale from the Boston Red Sox to fortify the starting rotation for the postseason.

And yet, that's somehow worthy of nothing more than a 'C' grade, at least, according to the ball-knowers of The Athletic.

The trio of Tim Britton, Grant Bisbee, and Aaron Gleeman wrote up the offseason grades for all 30 teams ($) and were unequivocal in their opinion that Atlanta didn't have a great offseason, merely an acceptable one, despite improving a roster that really only had room to get better on the margins.

In their write-up to explain their grade, it's obvious that they're not believers in either Sale's health or Kelenic's ability to perform from the back half of a significantly more talented lineup:

Alex Anthopoulos conducted his offseason as if eluding a tail, meandering down backstreets only to double back toward his ultimate destination. That’s how Atlanta ended up trading for and then trading away four different players in the same offseason, not to mention Matt Carpenter, whom they acquired and then released.
In a way, though, Atlanta is trying to elude a tail: those vexing Phillies. Less relevant than how many more regular-season wins it can squeeze out of the roster is how many more October victories it can generate. In that regard, there are a couple high-ceiling plays here. Maybe a former top prospect in Jarred Kelenic fully realizes his potential and becomes another part of Atlanta’s enviable position player core. And maybe Chris Sale is still Chris Sale, capable of being a lights-out left-handed starter when the lights are brightest. For a team whose starting depth has crumbled the past two autumns, pushing the chips in on Sale represents quite the gamble.

They gave Atlanta a "green check" for filling their setup needs, thanks to signing free agent Reynaldo López from the Chicago White Sox and bringing back Pierce Johnson and Joe Jiménez prior to free agency, but the Braves got incompletes for not filling their corner outfielder and front-end starting pitcher needs, according to the graders.

It's odd, though - those same Phillies mentioned above, who did practically nothing in the offseason except re-sign Aaron Nola and subsequently finished with four red X's from their five needs (front-end starting pitcher, closer, setup man, corner outfielder, and right-handed bat), got a 'B' from those same graders.

And as you'd expect, the holes on the roster apparently don't matter when you made a deep playoff run, with the trio of writers explaining that the Phillies can get a passing grade despite doing almost nothing because they're running back a roster that made two deep postseason runs.

Let’s see: The Phillies announced in early November that Bryce Harper would play first base permanently, and they re-signed Aaron Nola Nov. 19. Since then? Crickets, aside from the announcement they wouldn’t wear red jerseys anymore. (Huzzah?)
So how does a team with all those red marks and zero key additions get a B? Well, status quo isn’t inherently a bad thing, not when the team came a Game 7 away from repeating as National League champions. There wasn’t much the Phillies had to do this winter, and they checked off the biggest priority in retaining Nola. And while there are still spots here and there on this roster that could use supplementing (the bench and the bullpen, most notably), Philadelphia still lingers as a possible player for some of the bigger free agents who remain unsigned.

Either the needs are actual needs or they're not, you'd think, but what you did last postseason is apparently a lot more relevant to this year's success than what your roster actually looks like going into a new season.

Interestingly, the rest of the division doesn't grade out that well either, with an 'F' to the Miami Marlins, a 'C' to the New York Mets, and a 'C' to the Washington Nationals.

The only teams to get 'A' grades from The Athletic's trio were the Los Angeles Dodgers (who spent over a billion dollars on free agents) and the Baltimore Orioles, who finally gave up a prospect or two to acquire the frontline starter they really should have went out and gotten at the deadline last season.

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