4 Players the Atlanta Braves Should Let Walk This Offseason

The final week of the regular season and the early days of October have already seen the Atlanta Braves make significant changes to their organization. They gave their general manager and several of his assistants their walking papers. Then they dismissed nearly half of the coaches on the Major League staff.

A couple of weeks from now, once the World Series trophy has been paraded through the streets of one lucky city, the Braves will turn their attention from making changes in the front office and the coaching staff to making changes to the players on the field.

There have already been hints from the new regime that there will be changes made to the product between the foul lines, possibly significant changes. In an effort to get those changes started, here are four players the Braves should get rid of or let walk this offseason.

B.J. Upton

David Goldman/Associated Press

This is a pretty obvious one, which is why he’s listed first. It’s clear now that signing B.J. Upton was a mistake, and it sounds like the team is determined to part ways with him this offseason.

Braves.com beat writer Mark Bowman even hinted that the team’s search for a new hitting coach could be predicated on the “assurance that the Braves will definitely part ways with B.J. Upton this winter.”

Trading Upton and the remaining $45 million left on his contract will be a herculean task for the yet-unnamed new Braves general manager.

I recently wrote that Atlanta will need to include Upton with another star player who has a lot of trade value in order to get a team to take him off their hands. Even then there might not be any teams willing to take on such a bad player with so large a contract. So a new GM may have to get creative.

Chris Johnson

John Bazemore/Associated Press

The Braves made some great moves by signing the young core of their team to long-term contracts in the early part of this year, but they went too far by giving third baseman Chris Johnson a guaranteed three-year deal for $23.5 million.

That deal actually begins in 2015 and runs through 2017; it also includes a team option for 2018. In the larger context of bloated baseball contracts this is actually a modest one, averaging just under $8 million a year.

With third basemen at a premium in baseball, that deal looked pretty good for a guy who was challenging for a batting title in 2013. But it now looks like a horrible deal for a guy who was among the NL leaders in strikeouts and posted a sub-.300 on-base percentage in 2014.

The contract given to Johnson was a huge mistake, and it will be just as hard for the Braves to trade him away as it will be for the team to part ways with B.J. Upton.

Yet Johnson needs to depart Atlanta this offseason. The Braves need to remove his high strikeout total from their lineup, and they need to remove his uncontrollable anger when he makes an out from their clubhouse.

Aaron Harang

Nick Wass/Associated Press

Is Aaron Harang’s terrific 2014 season to be believed? His 3.57 ERA was much lower than his career 4.24 ERA entering this season. It was the lowest ERA he’s posted in any season of his 13-year career. What are the odds he repeats that next year in his age-37 season?

I say they’re pretty low. Of course, some team might pony up a large contract for Harang. It just shouldn’t be the Braves.

For an Atlanta team that needs to rebuild, an aging Harang shouldn’t be in their plans.

All the Two-Time Tommys

Dave Tulis/Associated Press

The Braves started spring training relying on several pitchers recovering from Tommy John surgery. They should not repeat that mistake next year.

Brandon Beachy couldn’t make a comeback in 2013, but was suddenly being counted on to fill a rotation spot in 2014.

Gavin Floyd was also being counted on to slide into the rotation a few weeks into the season after he had completed his TJ rehab.

The team was hopeful that Jonny Venters would fill a bullpen spot by mid-May following his rehab from a second elbow surgery.

Kris Medlen went down in spring training and underwent his third Tommy John procedure.

It may sound nice to keep these homegrown players in the organization and have their comebacks be in a Braves uniform, but there’s too much risk involved with all of these pitchers returning from multiple elbow surgeries for them to be counted on in any meaningful way.

It’s better to let them all walk and let some other organization pay them to rehab.