Braves Prospects IMPRESSING In Spring Training; Thoughts on Upcoming CBA | Atlanta Braves Podcast

There are a handful of Braves prospects that have gotten a ton of run in spring training, and you can see from outing to outing how they're getting better. Let's talk about it. [music] [music] [music] Yes. Welcome on in to Braves Today, your daily source for news, notes, and updates on your Atlanta Braves. I'm your host, Lindseay Crosby, award-winning baseball writer and podcaster. You can follow me on social media at Crosby Baseball. You can find all my written work, bravestoday.com. That's the Bravestoday Substack, as this is both a podcast and a daily newsletter. We're proudly part of the Believe Podcast Network and presented to you by FanDuel. Download the FanDuel app or go to fanduel.com to get started. A little bit later in the show, I want to talk about the upcoming CBA negotiation. One of the big themes that I took from the podcast survey that we have now, links in the episode description, in the show notes if you haven't already taken it, and there's a free gift for you at the end, is you guys want to hear my take on the CBA. And I think I have a surprisingly nuanced take. Not everybody's going to agree with it, but I do think you'll learn something. So, we'll talk about that. and the league's proposed cap and floor that they floated out through John Haymon last week. But before we do that, let's talk some prospects because we've seen five or six guys with the Braves get some run in spring training. Some of them have gotten quite a bit of play. One of them has been in like two games, but we can see the development these guys are making and it's going to set them up well because this is the future core of the next great Atlanta Braves roster. And I I kind of divided them up. If you've read today's newsletter already, you've seen this. It'll be in more depth on the newsletter than it will be on the podcast because I want to save time for the CBA stuff. But I divided them up into up the middle and on the mound, right? couple pitching prospects, couple position players. So, again, little bit of a shorter thing here and then we'll turn around and we'll go more in depth on the newsletter if you want to go check that out. But up the middle, I want to start with John Heel because as of Thursday morning, he is leading the team in appearances with nine this spring. Now, they haven't all been in the starting lineup or even as a complete replacement. He's come in as a pinch runner or a pinch hitter before, but the big takeaways here, a couple things I think you need to know. The first one is it's been I've been impressed at how low he's kept the swing and miss. Okay, he's at a 20% whiff rate so far in spring. And the hard part here on a lot of this is the sample sizes are so small that you're really looking more at process over results. But 20% whiff rate and most of the guys who have gotten him to whiff are either MLB or MLB adjacent arms. Mick Ael of the Twins got him twice. Connor Prelip of the Twins got him once in the same game. And the other three whiffs were from higher level relievers. Most of those also weren't on fast balls. So, even when he's seen some good velocity on fast balls, he's done a pretty good job at handling that velocity [snorts] uh and being okay with it. He also does have two home runs. Both of them are out to left where he's been able to pull the ball in the air. That's been a big thing for me that I've wanted to see. We haven't seen him really open up on the base paths. He has one stolen base attempt. He was successful and he hasn't really had a lot of chances to play shortstop. I was a little bit concerned about this. You can see when you look at him like he's bulked up a little bit in the off season and some of that's just natural like he's, you know, still a teenager and so it's natural that he would kind of, you know, put on more size the more he becomes gets closer to being an adult. Uh but from what I've been told is he's not playing shortstop not because they don't believe he can play shortstop. It's because they want to evaluate other guys at shortstop and or it's guys who are closer to the majors. I guess that would be the same thing. It's either guys where they're not 100% sure if they can play shortstop or guys where they want to see how good they are at it because they're closer to the majors and they could have to do it at the major league level. Like Jim Jarvis is a guy I fully believe Jim Jarvis can be at least average at shortstop, but he's in AAA. They pro they they are prioritizing guys like him getting a chance to play shortstop because he may need to do it at the major league level if more injuries come up. He may need to be the primary backup at shortstop if Mauricio Dubon goes down before Hassan Kemp comes back. Right. Also too is they trust John Heale at third base more than a lot of the other guys who were in camp. So that's why he's played more third base than short. I was a little concerned when I kind of saw that hey he's bulked up. They're not letting him play shortstop a ton this spring. It's not anything about him, right? It's more about they want to check these other guys. [snorts] One of the issues he had last year was ground balls. Uh you can see he's trying to get the ball in the air. He's also still trying to pull. He has eight batted ball events. Four are fly balls, four are ground balls, three ground ball outs, and an infield error. And then he has two fly ball outs and two home runs. So you can see he's trying to get the ball in the air. He's making a concentrated effort and that hasn't completely translated, but he's getting better at it. So, feel okay with there. He's hit some good Max Voss. The uh 90th percentile exit velocity last year wasn't great, even when you adjust for age to level, but I still think that there's more in the tank there. Um, again, all of this stuff in more detail is on today's newsletter at braves.com. Alex Lois has gotten into seven games, but he only has eight official at bats. He's been used as a pinch hitter or pinch runner a couple times instead of just being a defensive substitute to go in. He still has the whiff problem. We talked about this about how in college and in his minor his minor league debut last year, he whiffed a lot. He still has some whiff issues, but four of his six whiffs this spring are from the first two games of spring training. Since then, he's gotten much better. He took a ninth inning atbat on Monday against Ricky Vanasco of the Tigers. And what Ricky kept doing was like he elevated a four seamer was a called strike and then sinkered down off the corner, fast ball up off the corner, fast ball in the zone that like he wasn't quite 100% on from a timing perspective and then putting a middle away fast ball in play. like he's not he got better at not chasing those off the plate sinkers and fast balls off the corners, but he also wasn't entirely on time on the inzone fast ball. So, like you could see he's trying to not chase as much and he's successful at that, but then sometimes he's still adjusting to some of this major league velocity. his last atbat on Wednesday. Um it it was a nine pitch atbat. He eventually did strike out, right? He took it he kind of took an elevated slider and I talked about this I think last fall about elevated breaking pitches are going to be more of a thing this year. He punched out on an elevated slider in the upper third of the zone, right? But he laid off of two fast balls up that in the past he would have chased at. He laid off a slider down that in the past he would have chased at like Alex Lodis getting better with the pitch recognition and getting used to seeing these major league caliber breaking balls. So really impressed with that. They're probably both going to start off at high A, which is really fascinating to me because how do you divide the play time? Does Lood do some short and some second and John Heale do some third and some short? Like how do you break that up? What happens with Cody Miller? Does he because that would typically Cody Miller would be a guy you would put into uh HA as well coming out of college. Does he play second base when Heels at third and Lodis is at short? Uh when Lodis is at second and Heels at short, where do you put Cody Miller? Really interesting conversation. I'm really curious to find out what they're going to do with these guys. The third guy, we've seen a little bit of him, not a lot, is Diego Torrrens, the uh 2025 international free agent. He was in the DSL last year at age 17. And he here's the hard part with international prospects. You guys may have noticed I don't talk about international prospects a ton. I really don't pay a lot of attention to them until they get to the major or until they get to the state side. And part of the reason for that is you can't watch them. It is so hard to get anything more than just like occasional clips, highlight style clips out of the DSL. Those games aren't televised. And typically there's like a high home camera setup on a stream that team sources have the ability to watch. Like in truest park in the offices, there's somebody who can watch the DSL games as they happen every day. But like those of us outside, we can't watch a lot of these things. And so because of that, I kind of just wait to see who comes out of the DSL and who comes state side. So I got some of my first live atbat looks at Diego Tors in the last week. He's had two or three at bats. He gotten into two different games. And I was really impressed on Wednesday in the exhibition against Colombia what Diego Torren did. his first at bat, he really kind of struggled with some change ups. Like he just was he was fooled by some change ups. Uh he ends up striking out on a change up that was I think if I remember right, it was close to being in the dirt. The the bottom of the seventh he's up against Ezekiel Zabaletta, a former prospect of I'm trying to remember who he was with. I want to say he was with the Mets system for a while and he made it all the way I think to TripleA after he was moved to Tampa Bay. But anyway, he forces a 10 pitch atbat. He does eventually strike out, but he forces a 10 pitch atbat. And like Zabaletta knew what he was doing. The previous atbat for Torrrens, he struggled with those change ups. So, what does Zabaleta do? Three straight change ups to open the atbat and then he throws a fast ball and then he starts alternating fast balls and change ups, but like Tor's not fooled. He gets to two strikes, he's protecting anything near the zone, but he's taking pitches out of the zone, right? He's taking change ups off the plate and things like that. and just he's not falling like he's not chasing these out of zone change ups and stuff that Zabaletta is throwing him now. He gets the strikeout chasing on a slider, right? Like Zabaletta does get him. He does win the battle on the 10th pitch. It's a slider. I think it's a slider down if I remember. Maybe down an in a little bit and he chases and strikes out. But seeing his improvement from the first atbat to the second atbat, like, hey, you got me once. Like, Colombia got me once on change ups, it's not going to happen again. And being much better at recognizing those out of the hand and laying off of them, that's a big deal to me. That rapid improvement like that, because that's not really something you can teach. That is innate hitting ability. And I commonly talk about in prospect development like the best hitters are just born, not made. You can take a pitcher and throw them in the lab and you can significantly improve a pitcher provided they have the base level of athleticism and skill to throw these pitches and all of that stuff. Hitters are a little harder to do that with. You can train like bat speed and stuff like that. you can essentially use like exposure therapy and get them used to seeing breaking balls and all of that, but to make improvements that quickly on on change ups and all, that's amazing. So, shout out to Diego Torrens for figuring that out and not getting got by it. Very impressive. I wouldn't be shocked if he is an extended spring, spends a little while in rookie ball, but makes it to Augusta sooner rather than later. I just don't feel like they're gonna think he's challenged in rookie ball. They're gonna want him to face some better pitching. He might be in in Augusta by June, which would be amazing for the Braves and a really great challenge for him. In just a minute, let's talk about some of the pitchers on the mound. J.R. Richie is getting a lot of attention. We've seen a couple other guys as well. We'll do all of that next right here on Braves Today. But first, today's episode's brought to you by our friends at IQ Bar. This is the Belief Podcast Network's new um snack, hydration, and coffee sponsor. They have IQ Bar protein bars, IQ Mix hydration mixes, and IQ Joe coffee. It's the delicious low sugar brain and body fuel you need to win your day. I've got the ultimate sampler pack here. Nine bars, eight hydration sticks, four coffee sticks. We I have already started going through some of these flavors. Peanut butter chip bar was really good. I had the blood orange hydration last night. Was a little dehydrated from not drinking enough water. Uh was just so mad about drugs and probar, right? But just lots of great stuff in here. All of these products clean label certified. They're free of gluten, dairy, soy, GMO, and artificial ingredients. Mint, chocolate chip protein bars, blueberry, pomegranate hydration mixes, vanilla spice coffee. Like the flavors are really fun and exciting, too. My wife is a big fan of some of those. So, right now, IQ Bar is offering Brave Today listeners, 20% off all IQ Bar products, including this ultimate sampler pack, plus free shipping. To get that 20% off, text MLB to 64,000. That's MLB to64,000. Again, MLB to 64,000. Power of threes. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Welcome back to Braves today. Lindsay Crosby. Let's talk about some of the pitchers, okay? Because again, J.R. Richie gets a lot of the attention and we'll probably start with him, but we've got a lot of thoughts on some of these other guys as well. But I would argue that J.R. Richie has been the most impressive prospect in camp. Like, yes, John Hill hitting two home runs was exciting and getting all the run that he's gotten, but Richie's been paired up with Chris Sale. like he's been paired up with the team's ace as either the piggyback or coming in and closing out that game that sale started and he's looked really impressive. He's induced 28 swings. He's given up one barrel. Um the change up particularly has been really good. 10 swings, six whiffs. And we've talked before it's not as bad as like Grant Holmes or something, but J.R. Richie does have a little bit of issues with his fastball shape. part of the reason he so quickly jumped into throwing all three fast balls, but he's topped out at 97.2 this spring with the forcing fast ball. Granted, it was a three I think it was a three inning outing, so it's not can he do that over a six inning start? No. But knowing that he can go back and get 97, I think is a big deal. He's also done a really good job, one at locating that forcing fast ball up in the zone and then playing the cutter and sinker as well, kind of mixing in in a fast ball count. Even if he's throwing a fast ball, you're not guaranteed to see a forcing fast ball. You may get the cutter, you may get the sinker. And then I've been really impressed with the curveball, how well the curveball has mixed with the fast ball. It's not quite the Max Freed curveball like just the straight 12 to six drop with the hump as it comes out. It's a little bit more of a two-lane break, but I remember watching him against Boston in that second outing and he looked much better from the first to the second. Again, making adjustments from one outing to another. I saw him get a strikeout looking on a curveball that he bent back into the and caught the the outside corner of the plate. Fantastic piece of pitching from J.R. for Richie was kind of going up, was going in with some stuff, and then throws what looks like a waste pitch off the plate and the curveball bends back and catches the corner. Just fantastic stuff. I honestly think that he is definitely going to debut this year and he can probably hold his own as a number four, number five. Now, if we continue to see that velocity get a little better and grow, he absolutely could settle into like a mid-rotation kind of guy. I with the Braves, we talked about the 27 rotation, how stacked it could be. Um, it's harder to be a mid-rotation guy in Atlanta than it is somewhere else, but I do think his skills and his talents, I could easily see this package becoming one where you would not be worried to have him start a postseason game. He wouldn't be your first choice. He wouldn't be game one, but like if you go into game three or four and you need a starter, I could see having J.R. Richie be that guy 20 as soon as 2027 maybe. I think that's a big deal because as we've talked about, you have a lot of backend options. That middle middle of the rotation stuff, the assumption is Ronaldo Lopez and Grant Holmes are going to be those guys for right now. But like, do you need more guys there? And you need more guys at the front of the rotation. And if everybody's healthy and can return to their previous pre-injjury performance, you could see Sale, Swollenbach, and Strider being those three guys, I think Hurst and Waldrip stuff was good enough to put him in there as well or to get him there. But if you can find another guy that you'd be comfortable throwing at least one time through the order in a postseason game, that's definitely helpful. I think J.R. Richie can be that. Owen Murphy. I think he's gonna start off at double A this year. And I do think he's kind of the opposite of Richie. The velocity isn't quite there yet for Murphy, but the shape of his fastball is fantastic. He's sitting in the low 90s. He's run it up to like almost 95. I think 94.6 was his spring max that we saw, but he's averaging 19.1 inches of induced vertical break on the four seam fast ball, which is clearly elite. Spencer Strider is trying to get back to like 17 18, right? He's trying to get back to 18. Owen Murphy's averaging 19. So even throwing in the low 90s, right? 92, 93 or whatever, and touching 95 if you round up, he's got exceptional fast ball shape. And so while I want guys to have all three fast balls as tools in certain situations, it's not as important that Murphy start throwing them right away as it was for somebody like Richie who doesn't have great shape or somebody like Grant Holmes who doesn't have great shape. Right? Owen Murphy's fast ball is elite [snorts] from a movement perspective and if the velocity gets to the same place, it's going to be one of the better fast balls in the system from a starter. Um, he's been kind of limited in what he's throwing. He's mostly doing fast ball slider to one-handedness, fast ball curve ball to the other. He occasionally pulls out a change up. I do want to see him get a little more comfortable with one the change up and two throwing both breaking balls to bothhandedness, right? Being willing to throw the slider and the curveball to lefties and the slider and the curveball to righties, but the forcing fast ball is good enough where that is his primary weapon right now. I think I'm a little uh outside of the norm. I have Richie as the better pitcher in the higher ceiling right now, but Murphy has the fast ball to pass him. Owen Murphy has a fast ball that is good enough to be a number two, number three if he can get more comfortable in his secondaries and he can get the velocity to go along with it. It's still a good fast ball now, but if he can sit mid 90s, I think Owen Murphy could be a breakout pitcher and it would be something where like J.R. Richie, if you had guys with options, I think Richie would be a legitimate rotation candidate this spring. I think Owen Murphy could be in that same position next spring where his stuff has gotten better. He's had that breakout and he's contending for a rotation spot out of camp in 27. He'll probably end up going back down and they'll call him up mid-season, right? In 27 like we're going to like we expect with Richie now. But I've been impressed with Owen Murphy. Garrett Bowman, he's had a little bit more trouble missing bats this spring. Like I haven't been as impressed with his ability to miss bats, but you can tell he's coming in the zone more and trying to attack hitters to get whips. He has five whiffs and 30 swings, but he's been throwing the fast ball close to 60% of the time in the zone. Like he's bringing his stuff into the zone to challenge hitters. And one of the issues you had with him last year, and we talked about this with Gorov a couple weeks ago is Garrett Bowman was too reliant on he wasn't throwing strikes with his breaking balls and stuff in the zone, trying to get guys to chase them. And when that didn't work, he either ended up having to walk them or come back into the zone later. And just it was an issue. He's been trying to throw more strikes this spring, be in the zone more. Hasn't always worked. The Orioles crushed several of those pitches. defenders got most of them. So, you know, you don't love the process, but you love the result there. But I love his process of trying to learn to trust his stuff in the zone against major league hitters. Fastball has been in the mid 90s, so I love the velocity base and the ability for it to grow a little more. He got Josh Bell to whiff on a perfectly executed slider down. It's fantastic. Cody Clemens struck out looking on a curveball. same thing kind of as as Murphy to the point of I wonder if this is a coaching point or not. He started it off as a ball and he brought it back to catch the corner of the plate. He back doored him on a on a curveball. Both of those guys I've seen them do that this spring to the point where I wonder if they were coached to do that or if that was just I mean it makes common sense if you have a two-player breaking curveball to try that but I wonder if that was intentional or not. Other thing here, Gideon Fuentes, we've not seen him get into a game. I've been told that his shoulder is healthy. He's a little delayed in his ramp up the work that he's doing to start like to be ready to pitch in a game. That's why he hasn't gotten into a spring training game yet, but he is working in camp and I've been told that he is healthy and he should be able to get into games sometime soon. They are working on him as a starter. he will go to Triple Awinet and be in that rotation when the season starts and hopefully is a candidate to come up for starts if they need a guy to make some starts this year. Just thought that was interesting. In just a minute, let's talk about the CBA because your boy has thoughts about the proposal the league leaked through John Haymon and I need you to understand why it was a non-starter because MLB is approaching this the wrong way. We'll do that next right here on Braves Today. But first, today's episode's brought to you by our friends at Grand Slam Getaways. This is the ultimate baseball buzz trip for Braves fans this summer. 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Uh, it's the absolute best way to catch some Braves games with fellow Braves fans this summer. Again, grandlam-getaways.com. Final segment of Braves today. Let's talk about the CBA because through John Haymon, the league leaked a proposal for a cap and a floor. And before we talk about that proposal, I think it's important we talk about the idea that we have to have a cap and a floor. And the obvious answer is the Dodgers, right? signing Kyle Tucker to the contract that they signed him to, paying him $60 million for this season and already being in the tax. So, paying an additional 110, I'm sorry, additional like 50 million in taxes for Kyle Tucker. He has the highest AAV on their entire team. His AAV is higher than Show because Show has massive deferrals, right? It's absurd. Um, but here's the thing. The league's proposal of a cap and a floor that they put out through John Haymon doesn't make a lot of sense. Okay? They propose a $260 to $280 million cap and a$140 to $160 million floor, which sounds good. And hear me out before you judge this. There are five teams that are above $280 million. The Dodgers, Mets, Yankees, Phillies, and Blue Jays. The Padres's are also above the 260. There are 11 teams below 140 and 13 below 160. But here's the thing, the math doesn't work out in the players favor. If you look at CBT payrolls, which I think are important in this case versus cash payrolls for a couple reasons. The first one is that it equalizes out weird money stuff. Like for instance, Kyle Tucker this year is making $33 million. He's making 87 in 2027 because of how signing bonuses and other things get put onto the deal. So, the AAV calculation smooths all that weird stuff out. A lot of guys are getting low firstear salaries with big signing bonuses. AAV kind of smooths some of that stuff out. Two, the CBT calculation isn't just your 26-man roster and your injured list. It's all the guys on your 40man roster. It's the additional benefits you're required to pay. Each team has around roughly $18 million in player benefits that they pay every year. There's also a payment you have to make into the pre-arbitration bonus pool. salaries for 40man players who are in the minor leagues. They do make more in that situation than a than a normal minor leager. Like you make a lot more if you're on the 40man roster in AAA than you make the standard AAA minimum salary. Incentives, escalators that have been earned that are being you're being charged for because you paid them on a separate year. Like all of that stuff's accounted for. So the CBT measure is a better measure of this than using the cash payroll. If you look at the CBT pay uh measure here, the players are losing money under this proposal. More teams have to come like the amount of money those top teams have to come down is more than the amount the bottom teams have to come up. So that's reason one that's kind of laughable. Reason two is that a 55% floor is a little bit ridiculous. Okay, everybody talks about when a one of the common selling points of a cap and floor is like, hey, the NBA has one, the NFL has one, NHL has one. All of them are significantly higher than what the league has proposed. The NHL's floor is the lowest compared to the cap and it's still like 74%. You know, and so like for the season they just played, the cap is $92.5 million, the floor is 70.6 and that's the lowest of the rest. The NBA, the NFL have a floor that is 90% of the cap. If you're like if you're paying if you're paying two if your cap is 200 million your floor is 180. So that's the big difference. The fact that you are the fact that you are in essence the league is trying to cap spending by the teams that are willing to spend without meaningfully forcing true spending by the rest is going to make it a non-starter to the players. The other reason why that specific thing is tough is the teams at the bottom are not going to go for a higher floor. The Pirates aren't going to want to spend $230 million a year to get within 90% of the cap. And when you bring down the spinning at the top, and I'm not saying that you don't need to do that. The Dodgers being able to outspend everybody is a big problem. When you bring down the spinning at the top, when you artificially constrain it like they want to do, that is less money the teams at the bottom have to spend. the additional revenue sharing money that they get comes from the luxury tax the teams at the top are paying. So if you severely cut the top teams and force them to come down, that is less money available for the teams at the bottom to spend on players. So what ends up happening here is the teams at the bottom are asked one to spend more than they want to spend and then two they have less resources given to them by the league to help them do that. And because of that it's a complete non-starter. Like the owner side isn't going to agree to that themselves. The way that this voting works, eight owners can block anything. Like you need to um it's like seven to eight owners can block anything. You need like 75% approval for anything major. And so the real issue here is not league versus players. It's high revenue teams versus lower revenue teams. They have to figure out a system that works. And until they do that, there's almost no way for the players to agree to do anything. And remember too, the owners are the one who are going to lock out the players. You don't have to do that. You can play under the old CBA while you negotiate the new one. The WNBA is in the second year of negotiations because the league just refuses to negotiate with them. But they're still playing under the old CBA. Nothing says you have to lock out the players. That's a negotiating tactic. They're saying we're going to do that to make them feel like they're going to lose the season if they don't agree with us. I do think there is some things you can do that can replicate a cap and floor without explicitly having a cap and floor. And some of it comes down to incentivizing behavior at the bottom. Some of it comes down to punishing behavior at the top. And I think at the top, the number one thing that needs to change, I think we'll all agree, is increased non-financial penalties for going over CBT tiers. Think about Atlanta. What's the thing we always talk about here? The Braves will not go over the third floor of the CBT because they don't want their draft pick move back 10 spots. Clearly, not everybody cares about that, but the Braves do. So, in essence, the third CBT tier becomes a hard cap for the Braves. Okay, imagine if when you go over the fourth tier, that d first round draft pick doesn't get moved back 10 spots. It gets taken away completely. You think the Dodgers are going to want to sacrifice a first round draft pick? Maybe, maybe they will. Maybe the Mets won't because the Mets say, "Hey, you know, we we still need these picks because we're trying to not have to pay free agent prices for every player on our team. What if when you go over a specific tier, third, fourth, whatever, you can't make any more waiver claims?" Like, I know that we think the Dodgers have a stacked roster. They make waiver claims and cycle through guys just like we do. It's I I think it's the NBA that's kind of like this where like if you're over certain aprons, you can't make trades, you can't do like w like there's so many things you just can't do that are standard course of running your team. So what if you just make it non-financial penalties on the draft pick thing? Let me put it this way. The MLB draft, you can spend as much money as you want. That's a common misconception with the MLB draft. You can spend whatever amount of money that you want to spend. You have a bonus pool figure. They calculate that for you based on the slots of all your picks in the first 10 rounds. And if you go over the bonus pool, you have a penalty. If you go over by five by 0 to 5%, you pay a tax, a 75% tax on the overage. But if you go over that 5%, you lose draft picks. Going over from 5 to 10% is the 75% tax and you lose a first rounder. Going over from 10 to 15% is a 100% tax and you lose a first and second rounder. Going over by 15% is two first rounders and 100% tax. Guess what? We've had 14 drafts under this system. No club has ever gone over 5%. Ever because they don't want to lose a draft pick. Make the penalties at the top harder. Make them non-monetary because if it's just a monetary penalty, that is the cost of doing business and the Dodgers can afford those costs. So, make the penalties non-monetary. Take away a first round pick. Take away a first and a second round pick. make it like the qualifying offer but worse because it's your highest pick. At a certain point, you can make that bad enough where they're not gonna want to do it. And at the same time, you can turn around and you can incentivize or force spending at the bottom. One of the first things you can do at the bottom, this is going to be more in the force than the incentivize, is right now the rules on revenue sharing are not that you have to spend that money on payroll. it's that you have to spend that money to improve the major league product. And teams have a lot of different ways that they can get out of having to give that money in a salary. They can say that like if you buy a trajec machine, you can say that that's improving the major league product. If you, you know, rebuild a facility at the um at the spring training site, right? You rebuild your academy at the Dominican, hiring certain player development. There's all kind of things you can do that are not giving the money to players that you can argue improve the major league product. And if a if the players feel like you're not using that revenue sharing money correctly, they can file a grievance. Guess what? There are multiple grievances open now that have been open for five years. There's no enforcement mechanism other than you file a grievance and it eventually gets heard. Part of the last CBA was agreeing to drop a couple grievances that were like four or five years old. That was part of the last CBA. Those grievances were almost immediately refiled and have been sitting open ever since. So make revenue sharing money. One, say it has to go into player salaries. If you receive $70 million in revenue sharing, your payroll has to be $70 million or higher. Must. Or even better, make it more than that. Say that your revenue, your salary has to be one and a half times whatever your revenue sharing amount was or twice revenue sharing, right? If you get $70 million, your payroll has to be $140 million because that's something that forces you to spend money. Now, you're only out $70 million, but your payroll is 140. Okay, that is kind of forcing, but you can incentivize spending, too. What if a team that is a revenue sharing team, if you resign a player under whatever these minimum requirements are, what if that player didn't count as a roster spot, right? So, what if you effectively could carry a 27man roster because that one player who you was designated a franchise player and you resigned him to a long-term deal did not count against your 26-man roster. Hey Pirates, Paul Skins qualifies to be your franchise player. You can resign Paul Skins to a long-term deal. Here are the minimum terms that a to qualify as a uh franchise deal. he does not count against your 26 men. Incentivize the teams at the bottom. What if teams at the bottom when they designate a franchise player, they receive some additional revenue sharing amount from the discretionary pool the commissioner has to help pay that player salary. Hey, if you sign Paul skins for $40 million a year, we'll cover 10 million of it. We'll cover 15 million of it. Whatever the amount is, there's ways you can incentivize spending at the bottom. The cap and the floor really on this CBA is kind of a non-starter. The main problem with it, and I should have said this when I did all the rest of the cabinet floor stuff, is the main problem with it is the difference in the difference in MLB and those other leagues that have one. Besides just the percentage of where the cap on the floor are the fact that they have pulled revenues, a majority of your revenue comes from the national level, the national TV deals and things like that. And so everybody's mostly working off the same revenue base with some teams making more from their game, some teams making less, but you're all working off of the same 65% share or whatever it is, right? That's one of the big differences. MLB, most of your money is local. Most of your money is your gate, your concessions, your sponsorships in the ballpark, all of that. And that's different, a different amount for every single team. If you really want a cap and floor, here's how it's going to happen. If you want to bookmark this for years from now, we can come back to it. You'll do you'll enhance the existing revenue sharing plan and luxury tax to rep more closely replicate a cap and floor after the 2028 season when all of the league's broadcast deals are up for renewal. And if the league does what Rob Manfred said he wants to do and takes all of those rights and negotiates one deal for the entire league for all of those rights where everybody's getting the same dollar amount from their TV deals, then the next CBA negotiation after that is the one where you can put in a cap and floor because the real difference in the NFL and MLB is where the money comes from. And until that gets remotely close to each other, whether through insane amounts of revenue sharing or pulling the rights nationally and selling them as a group, until those get relatively close, there is no way to do an actual realistic cap and floor that makes sense for both the teams at the top and the teams at the bottom. My hope is that the owners understand that because if the owners, who are the ones who want the salary cap, if they refuse to vote for any deal that does not have a salary cap, that is going to be what holds off baseball for a while because you're not going to get the cap without the floor. And you're not going to get a floor unless it's a meaningful floor that does not cost the players money. And right now, every proposal the league has had sounds good on theory until you think about it. I still maintain because that TV negotiation is coming up. This will not we will not miss games in 2027 because they know how important that negotiation is. You have to start the 2027 season on time and then you have to start the 2028 season on time, which no CBA negotiation. You should so that at the end of 2028, you have multiple years of great ratings, great baseball on the field, and a non-contentious, non-disruptive labor negotiation so that you can show stability for all of these companies as you go out to sell the league's collective rights after 2028. And if you're able to do that, then you can get a capp floor later. This has been Braves today for Thursday, March 5th. Went a little long here. Sorry about that. Do me a favor. If you're listening on audio, five star review. You're watching on YouTube. Subscribe to the channel. Hit the notification bell. Also, tell your friends. Bravestoday podcast. Bravestoday.com. Both of those are worth your time. Until next time, this has been Braves Today. >> [music]

Lindsay Crosby breaks down several Braves prospects drawing attention in spring training, highlighting John Gil's low swing-and-miss rate, two pull-side homers, and efforts to lift the ball, plus Alex Lodise's improving pitch recognition after early whiff issues and the roster-fit questions both create for High-A. He also discusses Diego Tornes’ rapid in-game adjustment to changeups in an exhibition vs. Colombia and what it suggests about his hitting instincts. On the pitching side, Crosby praises JR Ritchie’s strong spring results, improved pitch mix and velocity, and potential to debut this year, while noting Owen Murphy’s elite fastball shape and areas to develop, plus Garrett Baumann’s emphasis on throwing more strikes. He closes by analyzing MLB’s leaked cap-and-floor proposal, arguing the math and structure make it unworkable and outlining alternative deterrents and incentives tied to CBT and revenue sharing. (Take our NEW audience survey for 2026: https://forms.gle/5VPxJGQiuPqcpDDB6) 01:27 Up The Middle 15:13 On The Mound 26:13 CBA Cap & Floor Proposal Subscribe to Braves Today on audio wherever you get your podcasts Join our NEW Discord: https://discord.gg/wksQqVNEpX Follow the show on Twitter: @braves_today Follow Lindsay on Twitter: @CrosbyBaseball Read our written work: bravestoday.substack.com Send us questions: contact@bravestoday.com Get 10% off at Chinook Seedery with promo code "Braves" Get 20% off at NCase Cards with promo code "BravesToday" Rocker Chicks by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/