Shocker of the century: Dansby Swanson signs with the Chicago Cubs, parting ways with his hometown team Atlanta Braves
Before we get to Swanson, I just wanted to take this opportunity to lol very heartily at the breaking news that Carlos Correa failed his physical with the Giants but then was immediately swooped up by the Mets for comparable money (12 years, $315M), and it doesn’t help the narrative that nobody wants to play for the Giants which tickles me pink.
As the subject states, anyone who thought that the Atlanta Braves had any chance at all at retaining hometown boy, Dansby Swanson, simply doesn’t know the Atlanta Braves at all. It was such a foregone conclusion when the Braves either didn’t try hard enough or just didn’t try at all and didn’t extend him when they had the chance, that he was gone as soon as he hit free agency.
Honestly though, I’m not the least bit mad about it. Sure, it puts the Braves in a pretty big hole of losing an above-average caliber shortstop, and on paper they’re weaker than they were the year prior when they won the division in exciting fashion. Not to mention it doesn’t help that the Phillies and Mets have both dropped massive money on upgrading at the shortstop position, and on paper, should both be surpassing the Braves in 2023.
Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m still in the fan hangover of the 2021 World Series champion Braves that shields a number of years afterward from abject criticism. Maybe it’s because I’m just such a fan removed from the minutiae of the team that it doesn’t bother me. Maybe it’s because I knew there was a 0% chance that he was going to come back and I like being proven right. Or maybe it’s because baseball is a bigger crapshoot than any other sport, and the Braves will plug someone in at the six, catch lightning in a bottle and still remain competitive in a suddenly white-hot NL East on paper. Or maybe it’s a combination or bits and pieces of all of the above, but I just don’t really care that Swanson isn’t coming back, regardless of how much of a competitive disadvantage it puts the Braves at to not have him.
Dansby Swanson has nothing left to prove staying on the Braves, and the Braves don’t really gain much benefit in dumping a ton of money into keeping him. He’s the hometown kid from Kennesaw, Georgia who contributed towards the franchise’s first World Series in 27 years, all while making team-controlled money. As far as Braves Corporate goes, this was the best-case scenario that they could have asked for, and now the real financial commitment to him belongs to the Cubs and not them.
Furthermore, I just didn’t get the impression that Dansby Swanson even really cared about the whole hometown kid narrative, and that playing for the Atlanta Braves wasn’t so much important to him as chicken soup for his soul as much as it was just a convenient business arrangement. There was little evidence that I ever saw that playing in Atlanta was at all important to him, from the day the Braves traded for him, throughout his entire tenure with the team. And that’s his choice, but the impression I got was that the fans in Georgia gave more shits about him and his life than he cared about winning for them.
All the same, him leaving is about as surprising as finding out about the baked potato’s tax returns are full of horrifically negative numbers. Dansby Swanson wanted to get paid his market value, and the Braves didn’t want to pay him his market value, so he left.
And since it’s impossible for me to not criticize the team I love, the sad thing is that the Braves kind of shit the bed on allowing a fairly beneficial opportunity slip, considering what Swanson ended up signing for with the Cubs. At 7-years and $177 million, Swanson is making the $25M~ a year he was looking for, but in comparison to what others marquee shortstops signed for, I feel like actually both Dansby and the Braves both kind of shit the bed.
Going back to Correa, he went from a 13/$355M with the Giants to a 12/$315M with the Mets, which still equates to $26.25M a year. He’s also 28-years old with reported back issues and more, which caused him to fail his physical with the Giants, and by the time he’s at the end of this contract with the Mets, the fans will be bemoaning the mammoth burden to the payroll he’ll be then.
Xander Bogaerts, opted out of his existing deal with the Boston Red Sox to test free agency, and the gamble paid off, with him signing for 11-years and $280 million with the San Diego Padres, which breaks down to roughly $25.45M per year. At 29-years old, he’ll also be 40 when his contract comes to a close, and whether he’s on the Padres or they’re able to unload him to some schmuck to clog up a roster spot, he too will be a massive burden on someone’s payroll.
Trea Turner signed with the Phillies for 11-years and $300 million, which at $27.27M average per year is the highest of the shortstop class, but at 30 years old at signing, doesn’t help the narrative that the Phillies are good at overpaying for talent that will inevitably age poorly, because Turner’s game is mostly his speed, and speed ages faster than any other skill in athletics.
Do the math, and Dansby Swanson’s 7/$177M breaks down to a $25.28M average, which is easy for us pleebs to not care any less about, but to ballplayers, means the world to. It’s worth mentioning that Swanson is also 28, the same age as Correa, a younger than Bogaerts, and two years younger than Turner. And in the world of baseball, those 1-2 years, especially at that peak range of 27-32 are massively critical and have proven time and time again to make and break free agent deals, every single year.
It’s also worth mentioning that notwithstanding Correa’s bait-and-switch to the Mets, Dansby Swanson was also the last shortstop on the market which put him at the most advantageous position as far as getting a team to over-commit to him as far as contract length and contract dollars. With Correa (at the time), Turner and Bogaerts all off the board, any team that wanted a new shortstop would’ve been at Swanson’s mercy as far as negotiating leverage went; including the Braves.
But the Braves being the Braves, don’t pay for anything, and most definitely don’t overpay for anything. If the Braves were a man, and Dansby Swanson was their child, and the devil himself demanded $119 dollars to save their son from a brutal slaughtering and eternal damnation, the Braves would ask if he’d take $107, and when the devil declines, the Braves would turn to their wife and say, “we can make another one.”
To the credit of the Braves, they are consistent in their operations, and in two years, they’ve let the face of the franchise in Freddie Freeman walk, as well the hometown star who could’ve been the face of the franchise in Dansby Swanson walk too.
Back to trying to get to the point though, Dansby Swasnon shit the bed because he didn’t leverage his negotiating advantage to get more years and more money. The point of free agent negotiating is to get into a position like Correa, Bogaerts and Turner succeeded in doing – one big mega fuck you deal that secures you for the rest of your career which secures you for the rest of your life financially, to where you won’t give two fucks about playing like shit when you’re 40 and your legs are gone and your bat speed results in dropping to a lighter bat in order to hit .227 off the bench.
Swanson left probably 3-5 years and probably around $100M on the table for signing what he signed for with the Cubs, which is a decent win for the Cubs who will get his big contract off their books eons before the Mets, Phillies and Padres will get their free agents off of theirs. And whether Swanson was aware of his leverage, or is taking a gamble on himself that he’ll still be good, valuable and enough of a commodity when he’s 35, that’s not a bet that I would be willing to take if I were in baseball management.
So I’d call that shitting the bed for Dansby.
And of course, the Braves shit the bed too, because they missed out on the opportunity to secure a talent like Dansby Swanson for just seven years and not the 11+ years the others committed to their new shortstops. As important as that annual value is to a team’s ledgers, the length of it is as valuable, which is why 1-2 year deals are so coveted by teams as much as they are avoided by players. In an era of baseball where hot young talent is expecting to sign for 8, 10, 12 year deals, a 7-year contract seems like a blip in the radar in comparison.
If the Braves secured Swanson for this relatively reasonable by today’s standards deal, they’d have had a nucleus of 4/5ths of their all-star caliber infield completely locked up for a length that would be completely competent to go to war with the Mets and Phillies for years, regardless of their new signings and massive payrolls.
So I’d call that shitting the bed for the Braves too. But that’s what the Braves do best, regardless of 2021. That was baby luck anyway.
God damn did I not expect to write this much on this topic, you’d think I actually still liked baseball to have written out nearly 1,700 words on this topic.
