The Winter Meetings have (un)officially kicked off, as all of baseball’s top players and celebrities have descended on Orlando, Florida for a week to wrap up off-season business. While we’re all looking forward to fireworks, Alex Anthopoulos is just trying to get a job done, even if that means starting it at the Winter Meetings and finishing it sometime later this season. He spoke to the press on Sunday night and gave a quick debrief on what to expect and how things have been going so far during this particular offseason.
“The meets are definitely an off-season focus, but it’s just a continuation, right,” AA explains. “For us, there is no difference between today, tomorrow and the day after. It’s obviously great for the industry and the game to see everyone coming together, but for us things haven’t changed.” That said, Anthopoulos is still focused on doing what he can to strengthen the squad in the future. “Things don’t change because the Meetings officially start tomorrow. The focus is the same,” Anthopoulos said. “We want to get better and at this time of year there are obviously two ways to do that: trade and free agency.”
“During the off-season you have to work with what is available – similar to the Trade Deadline,” AA continued. “There are ways to make your team better, whether it’s on the mound or on the position player side. You’re looking for deals that you think make sense. As much as you want to fill certain spots or do certain things, if an opportunity comes along that doesn’t quite fit but is a good deal, you’re probably still going to take that opportunity.”
So while Alex Anthopoulos is focused on making the team better, he’s not exactly pointing a laser straight at his target — or at least not in public. He is a GM after all. “I wouldn’t say we’re focused on the ‘one thing we need to do’ – if you miss the Postseason and finish below .500, there are a lot of areas you can improve in,” AA explained.
“We’re looking for opportunities. The parts of the roster are pretty clear that we can add to, but you know, there may be things that we do that might not be so obvious, but we think it makes the team better. Those are the types of opportunities that will ultimately become available this winter,” AA said. One of those “pretty obvious” areas is the starting pitcher, and while AA hasn’t closed the door on this being a priority for improvement going forward, he publicly stated that the Braves aren’t exactly panicking when it comes to their rotation.
“We have more information about our roster now that we’re in December than we did at the start of the offseason,” AA revealed as he further specified how he currently feels about the rotation. “On the mound specifically, we’ve had some really, really encouraging reports of all those starters getting hurt. Guys like [Spencer] Schellenbach, [Spencer] Strider, [Reynaldo] López, [Grant] Holmes. Everyone looks good and feels good throwing.”
Even with a reported clean bill of health, Alex Anthopoulos still didn’t close the door on adding a starter if the right opportunity presented itself. “We still want that [improve our starting pitching]” AA confirmed. He went on to explain that the improving health of the internal options has played a factor in their offseason transactions. He added, “There was a lot more uncertainty at the start of the offseason and even during the GM Meetings. [in November]. We just didn’t know it, but as we’ve gone along we’ve had winters where at this time of year we report a player to the training staff and say, ‘Look, I’m a little sore, I’ve been throwing […] This year it has been the exact opposite, where everyone is doing well. There are guys who come to the ballpark day in and day out and catch and throw.”
Yet AA maintained that even with the fluid situation, they would still want to strengthen their rotation to ensure the depth is there.” “However, I don’t think there is anything that changes that we would like to add. I think it’s always good to have depth,” AA reiterated. He went on to share the information he learned from Grant Holmes while dealing with a serious injury during the doomed 2025 campaign.
“At the beginning of the offseason I talked to Grant Holmes and I said […] “Look: I’m not counting on you in any way shape or form. You’re out of options. We’ll get you out last and see how it goes,” AA said. “I talked to him maybe a week ago and I kept saying, ‘Look, I keep getting these incredible reports, I want to hear from you.’ He says, ‘Look, my stuff is better now than when I was healthy.’ So I said, ‘So this is a completely normal offseason for you, no changes?’ and he said ‘Yes.’ […] He’s done a lot and thrown a lot. It’s a normal offseason for him. That’s a significant change there.” AA later went on to clarify that Holmes is in fact being treated as “completely sane” at this point, so there’s that.
AA also went into detail about the rest of the rotation. “Reynaldo López, same thing. You won’t know until you come later in the winter,” AA said. “Schwellenbach continues to build up, but he is completely pain-free. I saw him maybe a week or two ago, he is feeling very good too.”
“If you start to look at it on paper now, we’re in pretty good shape with what I think will be our top four in Reynaldo, Strider, [Chris] Sale and Schwellenbach,” AA said when asked how he felt about the current status of the rotation.
He had a lot more to say about the tail end of the rotation. “Then you have those guys in fifth place: [Hurston] Walrdep has clearly done a phenomenal job and he still has options. [Bryce] Elder is out of options, but the month of September was phenomenal [for Bryce]. The pace was up and overall I’d say he had a nice year for us, but he looked really good in September. We saw what Grant did when he was fully healthy. We like having guys like that and having those options. For what it’s worth, Elder put up a 3.13 ERA (74 ERA-) and a 3.14 FIP (78 FIP-) and while that’s a pretty short sample size, it was clearly enough to catch the attention of the president/GM of this particular ball club.
AA wasn’t finished discussing internal rotation options and moved on. “Obviously there are other guys like Joey Wentz who have done a good job and [José] Suarez made a spotty start. Those guys are out of options. That doesn’t mean if we can add something that we think is an impact starter that we wouldn’t,” AA said as he continued to reiterate that the Braves are keeping their options open when it comes to the rotation. “We’ve been on the right track in some of those conversations. Obviously we haven’t done anything yet, but we’ve had conversations, so we can’t rule it out. On paper it’s a pretty good group, but we’re trying to make sure we can plan from a health perspective.”
The last bit of information on Braves pitchers came in the form of an update on AJ Smith-Shawver from Alex Anthopoulos. “[AJ Smith-Shawver] things are going well. He is busy recovering. I think the 12 month mark will be mid-June, right around there. I think these injuries last 12 to 13 months,” AA said. “You don’t see many guys coming back past 12 months at the moment. I think the All-Star Break will be a good kind of barometer of where you can see how he’s doing. We are still a long way off, but he has done well, no problems at all.
Speaking of injury reports (and hoo boy, there was plenty to talk about, both during the 2025 regular season and beyond), AA also provided updates on Sean Murphy and Austin Riley. Both updates were positive, so there’s that.”[When it comes to] Sean Murphy, really, the four-month mark [on from his injury] will be when we really get a grip. That will be mid-January,” AA said when asked about his starting catcher. “He’s doing well […] Even the doctors had told us that there will be times when you feel good and ready to go, but you want to make sure everything heals properly. After four months we will have a much better idea by mid to late January.”
AA didn’t have much to say about Austin Riley’s progress, but the news was positive enough that Anthopoulos was able to cut to the chase and be done with it. “Austin Riley is doing well. He will be ready for the spring, so don’t worry,” AA confirmed.
So while you could probably include “shortstop” and other areas of concern in the “lots of areas we need to improve” category, there hasn’t been much talk about that position or any other position outside of starting pitching, so that could very well be where the Braves feel like they have the best chance to improve the roster for now. For now, all we can do is wait and see what happens, as hopefully we’ll continue to see AA and Atlanta’s front office continue to improve the roster as this busy part of the offseason gets underway.
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