Welcome one and all to the hammer Territory Podcast.

My name is Sean Coleman.

Hope wherever you are and wherever you are listening, you enjoyed our spirited debate over Remember the Titans last night.

We will have part two.

I'm kidding, we ain't gonna talk about that anymore.

Welcome to the Hamit Territory Podcast.

The first big day of decisions for the Braves is in the books, and we'll break it all down.

Those decisions that directly impacted the Braves today and also decisions across baseball that could potentially play into the Braves plans as the off season progresses.

And as always one of the best in the business when it comes to covering the and breaking it all down, my podcast partner Stephen Tolbert is here with us.

Steven, how are you, sir?

While you give your initial thoughts of the day, I'm gonna add the tea to your name.

Go ahead, sir, Steven Tober.

Yeah, So what's up, buddy.

It's good to talk to you again.

It's it's obviously you know, it's been a while.

It's been a whole twenty four hours since we've done one of these deja all over again.

But yeah, we knew this was gonna be a day.

I mean, we've been we've marked this day on the calendar for the last three weeks, basically ever since we kind of saw the end of the World Series coming.

You could mark this day down it.

It's just one of those built into the schedule, guaranteed busy days in baseballs, like the trade deadline, arbitration deadline.

You know, this is the first day of free agency, and with that comes a lot of stuff.

All the team options have to be picked up, all the player options have to be decided, all the sixty day al guys have to be put back on the forty So there's a ton of forty man roster moves all over baseball.

There's just a lot going on today.

And so you know, we had the Braves made a number of moves, some of them surprising, some of them not.

So we're gonna start with the kind of the big ones, the ones that were you know, really affecting the twenty six man roster, which we had a couple, and then we'll work our way down to the smaller ones.

But yeah, we knew, you know, we've known for a while this was going to be a busy day.

We planned to do this show tonight, you know, weeks ago, we just we knew this was coming.

Yeah, so we're let's get it go in order.

You know, we'll talk about the you know, the club option decisions.

That's the major news of the day, you know, the roster moves, the the the removal of players from the roster, and a couple of notable waiver transactions as well.

Will get all gett into all that in the first segment.

But of course, you know, the Braves came into this offseason, we have five options, four club options.

They were going to have to decide on when player option with Hasan Kim and of course when given when it came to David Fletcher, who, of course his option was declined on Monday.

Hasan Kim on Monday declined his player option.

That was kind of expected.

Braves picked up Ozzie Albi's and Chris Sales options earlier this week.

Those were givens.

So we go into today, we talked about it yesterday.

We go with to today kind of thinking that okay, the Braves were likely going to pick up the option for Tyler Kinley as well as Piers Johnson, but that was not to be the case.

The seven million dollar option for Piers Johnson the five and a half million dollar option for Tyler Kinley both declined today.

And the first thing that comes to mind, Stephen when I see that is pause.

And the reason that I say that is because we saw this exact same thing a year ago.

Some surprising decisions when it comes to declining options for players that you kind of assumed would make sense to keep for the next year.

But that's not the case with the Braves.

You certainly hope that it's free enough money or free enough money to maybe reallocate to more talented sources.

But after last offseason, you're also like, okay, when we talk of deja vu, hope we're not seeing last offseason start all over again this time around.

Yeah, So obviously today the Braves declined the option, the seven million dollar option on Pierce Johnson and the five and a half million dollar option on Tyler Kinley.

And listen, we talked on this show several times about how neither one of those were locks.

You know, Scott was the first one I saw bringing up a few weeks ago, probably a couple months ago at this point about how like seven million dollars for Pierce Johnson is a is a discussion, Like it's not just it shouldn't just be a no brainer.

And then Tyler Kinley, of course, nobody knew what they were gonna do, because he came over at the trade deadline.

You know, he pitched really well, like five million dollars seemed like a pretty reasonable number for him or five and a half million, and they just decided to go a different way.

They just decided to decline it.

You're one hundred percent correct.

The first thing everybody thought of is this reminds me of Travis Darnault last year, where we weren't expecting them to decline the option.

They declined the option.

We were thinking at the time, well, they're clearing the deck to make some more moves.

We of course now know that they were gonna cut payroll.

We didn't know that then, and so everybody today he kind of had the same reaction, Well, like, are they clearing the deck to reallocate this money elsewhere on the roster or are they pinching pennies again?

And listen, I'm not gonna preach at people who are a little bit gun shy right now, because after how last offseason went.

I get it.

I get why you would be gun shy.

We don't know that the Bridgs are gonna reallocate these funds now.

I do think they're gonna have an aggressive offseason.

I certainly think they're gonna be more aggressive than last offseason.

But you know, I think Brad.

I think Brad said it on Twitter today.

I can't remember exactly what he said, but he basically said, you know, actions over works like yes, term of work went on and said like, yeah, we want to be a top five payroll, but Alex went on last year and said they were gonna raise payroll and then payroll went down.

So actions over words like yeah, I want to see them reallocate these fun The actual moves themselves of declining Pierce Johnson and Tyler Kinley in a vacuum can be explained like there's a baseball reason to do that.

There's a baseball reason to reallocate those funds somewhere else on the roster.

One hundred percent.

I can make that argument.

That's why we made the argument so many times over the last few weeks about like this should be a debate.

What I can't be on board with.

What I will not in any way agree with is them just pocketing the money and not having you know, bullpen weapons when you could have, because that's what they did last year.

They lost a couple of relievers, they didn't add anybody notable back, and we had Hector Nas pitching a high leverage in the first game of the season.

So you know, the moves themselves are understandable.

But reallocate the funds somewhere else on.

The roster, yeah, absolutely, And we'll talk a bit more about the bullpen in a moment.

And the other thing to note is this is that, you know, even though the Braves declined, you know, the option for Tyler Kenley and Pis Johnson, that doesn't limit them for being able to bring those guys back on you know, new deals if it makes sense.

You know, we we we've seen the Braves restructure deals, not necessarily decline options then bring guys back.

But that always could be a possibility.

But yes, you know, coming off last year, you know it just you know, the Braves, you know, and I know we're not at the tender deadline yet, but the Braves made you know, some some pretty notable decisions.

You know, they did declined Travis Darno, they did mixtend the contract to Ramon Loriano, and you know you saw kind of how that worked out.

You just don't want to see more subtractions when there already is plenty of questions this saw season not be addressed.

So those are the big moves, Those are the notable moves of the day that we're a bit surprising.

The other thing that we've been talking about this week is that we've been talking about the Braves clearing some forty man roster spots, and then that occurred today through out riding several players Steven.

When it comes to some of the names that the Braves outrighted from the forty men roster, no one really notable.

But the big thing is, of course clearing these roster spots for people off the sixty man roster and also starting to get some open roster spots for potential additions in the near future.

Yeah.

So, and we talked about this last night.

The Braves had to clear one at least one forty man spot today because they had one too many sixty day il guys being added.

Back then, they had spots available, so they had to clear one spot.

Well, they obviously cleared two spots when they declined the options for Pierce Johnson and Tyler Kinley.

Both are now free agents.

But the Braves didn't stop there.

They also cleared an additional one, two, three, four five spots.

They outrighted Joel piam Stay, outrighted Austin Cox, they outrighted Carlos Rondriguez, and Chuckie Robinson onere of the the guys that they outrighted.

They had also outrighted Jake Fraley, but he got picked up on waivers by the Tampa Bay Rays, I think, is what I saw.

So he's off the roster as well.

He's completely in a new organization now.

And then the last forty men move they made today was actually adding Michael Ciani from the Cardinals.

So all told, that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, seven or eight forty man roster moves they made today.

They're forty man's.

It's at thirty five right now if you subtract all the guys and then add the one guy back.

So they got plenty of forty men spots available right now for whatever they want to do, you know, just looking up and down the forty.

I kind of did a full reset tonight of what the forty looks like.

You know, they've cleaned a lot of it up.

There's really not as much dead weight as there used to be.

Obviously, all the sixty they got sixty IL guys are back on it.

So they're in a good spot right now in the forty.

They've got spots available.

They've got a couple more spots they can clear if they need.

But yeah, it was a busy day and they were obviously gearing up to start their offseason.

There's gonna have to be guys that are added to the forty if they want to protect them for the Rule five draft.

And obviously you add guys to the forty any time you sign a free agent or make a trade.

So but the Braves have done that.

They've got spots open, they got money available.

They've kind of set the deck, you know, set the table for what hopefully is a busy offseason.

Yeah, and with Sianni, you know, don't want to spend too much time because it's more than likely he's a roster spot basically, see Warmer.

You know we've seen Alex and top Let's do this a few times in early in the offseason, he'll claim a guy on a roster spot, and the Braves are one of three or four teams that guy goes through in the off season.

Sianni is a tremendous fielder, tremendous base runner, but he's a left handed Nick Allen at the plate.

That's the best way to describe him.

So there's not much upside with him, you know, especially with the Braves already having a Gold Glove caliber centerfielder in Michael Harris.

So you know, losing Freyley, I'm not gonna be gonna be honest, I was kind of excited about the idea of maybe having someone with the upside or track record or Freeley as a fourth or fifth outfielder.

But you can also probably find that guy pretty cheap in free agency as you get further into the off season.

And sorry, I'll add one more thing, because they because Frehley was claimed and Piamps was outrighted, that reduces the number of arbitration eligible players they have from nine to seven.

So now they're down to seven and Piams and Freila were two of the highest projected guys in terms of total money.

So, like I think the highest guy they have now is Alex Manoa.

Alex Manoa at like two point two million, that's the highest projection they have of any of their arb guys.

So they cleared kind of the big money out of their arbitration pool as well.

So you know, they they opened up a lot of potential funds today and again to bring this first half, you know, first part of the show full circle.

It's now how they reallocate those funds that is going to be under a very very very strong microscope by everybody on this podcast, by the fan base at large, because of what happened last offseason.

We'll give them a bit of for the doubt, but we'll see what they do.

Yeah, No and I agree completely, and there's even more reason for them to do it this offseason than previously.

But of course, with the more significant moves of the day, the one aspect of the team that's really been impacted is the bullpen.

In a moment, Steven and I are going to discuss that a bit further, but also with the funds that are now freed up, why Alex and Thoppolis could potentially once again do it.

He did so well in the past and really helped Bolston the Braves bullpen for twenty twenty six and perhaps beyond.

So.

Stephen.

Of course, as we discussed, the big news of the day for the Braves is that they moved on from Tyler Kinley as well as Pierce Johnson, freeing up about twelve and a half twelve million dollars in the process.

Of course, they could bring those guys back, but the big story from all that is this is that the Braves bullpen, which we know Alex and Thopolis puts a heavy emphasis on right now, it's basically a skeleton crew.

You've got Aaron Bummer, You've got Dylan Lee, and you've got Joe Jimenez coming back from this in a full year due to a knee injury.

Those are really your only reliable guys that you've got in the bullpen.

Now you've got some intriguing options, some some intriguing options to a very limited experience like John Callers, Laura, you know, dasbel Hernandez others.

That's fine, but this bullpen needs a lot more reliability.

Now.

With that being said, with these funds being allocated, as we start to look around baseball moves that were done today.

Another move I don't necessarily know.

I surprising, but certainly intriguing is that the Rays declined in eleven million dollar option on Peter Fairbanks.

So you now have Peter Fairbanks, Devin Williams, Rycell Iglesias, as well as Edwin Diaz and Roger Swarez, all pretty accomplished a high level closers that are out there in free agency.

Steven, I know that it may be a bit surprising that we moved on from Kenley and Paris Johnson, but the Braves do now have some significant money they teacherly can go out in free agency and get some quality arms.

Yeah, and listen, the amount of money that you allocate to your bullpen is always a fascinating number to me because it is a very important part of the team.

But you have to be very careful with how much money you allocate there, and the Braves have been on the high end the last few years.

And listen, before they declined these options on Kinley and Pierce Johnson, they had you know, they were gonna have twelve million dollars tied up in those two guys, another ten million to Bummer, nine million to Jimenez's thirty million bucks right there, and you still don't have a closer, and so it was getting high, and I think they needed to reset that.

It's why I'm not overly upset about them, you know, declining these options today, because I understand there again, there's a baseball there's logic behind that, as long as you do something else with the money, of course, and you know, obviously Iglesias is a free agent, so his sixteen million dollars off the payroll as well, so they have a chance to kind of rebuild this bullpen and at the same time rebuild the payroll that is associated with a bullpen.

And you know, especially if they can clear Aaron Bummers like ten million bucks.

I would love if I, you know, we woke up tomorrow, we saw trade, even if it's just a salary dump, just to clear the money, and then you could really reset where Jmenez is like your only high paid guy right now.

You could really be strategic and how you spent the money.

I do think they're going to spend money on a closer.

There's, like you just said, there's plenty of options.

Peter Fairbanks would would make a ton of sense.

But so we're just bringing back a Glacias.

But then you can be a little bit more strategic in how you spend in the bullpen after that, which I think is called for.

So we'll see.

I know Brad and Scott are going to do a full show on Sunday, really dive it into some of these free agent options contracts.

A bunch of the sites came out with their projections and predictions today that Scott and Brad are going to talk about.

So but as we sit here right now, yeah, the bullpen is bear.

I mean, they don't have a lot, they don't have a lot of proven.

They've got some young guys, but they don't have a lot proven.

And even Jmenez, who is technically one of their proven guys, was he missed all last year.

So and I again, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Aaron Bummer got traded at some point.

So there's a world where like it might just be Dylan Lee for a minute.

So they've got work to do.

But I do want them to be more mindful of how much, what percentage of the payroll they're allocating to the bullpen.

I just think that number has been kind of high, and I think there's a more strategic way to handle that if they can clear some of this other other money.

And of course there's a couple of wild card options on the roster as well right now, Rinaldo Lopez as well as Oms.

You know, you've got Chris Sale, You've got Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach, Hirst and Waldrop and Alex and Thoppliss.

You know, I believe went on six eighty the Game earlier this week and he talked about, you know how Holmes as well as a Lopez.

We're being viewed as starters right now.

So that's six starters going in the next year.

But we also know that and Thoughtless wants to add one.

So I just find it hard to believe that with the bullpen now having you know, as much need as it does, you know, Lopez and Holmes could be two quality pieces added to the bullpen.

So I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens there.

I do feel that Alex is going to make a significant free agent move for one of these closers.

We know that last year he was in the he was he had talked with Jeff Hoppin, talked to Tannor Scott, both those guys went for pretty sizable contracts obviously, so I think Alex is prepared.

If it's maybe even Iglesias and another bullpen arm that we mentioned.

I also do think that, you know, depending on watching what we do with Lopez and Holmes, I also think that we potentially are in line for one of Alex and Thopolis's trades where he goes out and identifies an arm that may have struggled in the recent past in a location, but that he really likes, someone that's, you know, got some good breaking balls stuff, what have you Like he found in Pierce Johnson, Key Folman Kinley.

I think that you're going to see multiple two to three moves to add to this bullpen, and maybe internal with Homes and Lopez.

But I think you're gonna see a significant signing in a notable trade, and that's kind of going to be the way they're gonna go through a lot, go into a lot of different buckets to fill this bullpen up as the offseason progresses.

Yeah.

No, I would not be surprised at all if like Ronaldo Lopez is like the eighth inning guy next year.

He was a really damn I mean, it was a fantastic reliever through like one hundred and one as a reliever.

It would not surprise me at all if that happened, if you know, and then maybe he moved to the closer spot if they do a one year deal and a closer for the last year of his contract, any of that stuff.

Like they that's how they should use the flexibility they have on the roster with Holmes and Lopez.

They should use that to their advantage by adding another starter and using the fact that these other guys can pitch out of the bullpen to build depth on the roster.

And that's that's what they You know, as hard a time as they have keeping pictures healthy, they need one way to combat that is more depth.

Like the Dodgers didn't keep any pictures healthy last year, but they had so much damn depth it didn't matter and they were able to rest them all until October and then they were all healthy in October.

So, like, you build enough depth, you're not just ultra dependent on keeping everybody healthy for six months.

And I think that's something the Bridge really need to look into.

And one way to do it is use the flexibility you already have on your roster by having guys who can pitch out of the bullpen, you know, I mean Todder Gostell pitched out of the bullpen in October.

Like, let's use this flexibility to our advantage to build some depth to protect against you know, crippling injuries.

So names also that could be out there to watch, is you know, going back through Jeremy Hefner's time with the Mets and seeing all the different names that he managed in the bullpen.

Perhaps there's a name out there that he likes that he would like to bring into the fold with Atlanta that he feels he can maximize their contribution.

So quite a bit of different ways that the Braise can go about it.

The thing though, is to remember two things, in my opinion, is that Alexanthopolis really knows how to put together a bullpen, signing guys, trading for guys, things like that.

When I talked about him being a move on the margins, to bullpen has been one of the clearest ways that he's found so much success doing that.

And the second thing is is that the Braves at their best have a dominant bullpen.

So you know that alexan tooplss wants that to once again be a calling card of this Braves roster, so it'll be interesting to see how he goes about reconstructing the bullpen.

But we talk about how the bullpen needs to be a focus.

There are many though, who do think that one of the right moves for the Braves of this offseason is really going to land a big fish.

But when it comes to the best free agents out there, one thing that you have to keep in mind are they tied to a qualifying offer.

We found out exactly who in this offseason is going to have a qualifying offer tied to them.

Could any of the these guys make sense with the Braves.

We'll discuss that in just a moment.

So, Stephen, we talked about how it's a big decision day for every team across baseball, you know, deciding on club options, you know, getting a sixty man roster spot or freeing up roster spots for guys on the sixtydil, but also qualifying offers teams adding draft pick compensation to the top free agent so if they signed elsewhere, the teams that they came from don't go empty handed.

And so thirteen players were given qualifying offers and they were some of the biggest names that you would think that thirteen players are Kyle Tucker, Kyle Schwarber, Boba Shitt, Fran Burvaldez, Dylan Cees from Burvaldez, Dylan Ceese, Rander Swarez, Edwin Diaz, Zach got Zach, Gallen, Shota Amonga, Michael King, Trent Gresham, Labor Torres, as well as Brandon Woodro Remind me when it comes to one of us reading off a list of names to go to you next time, Steven.

But the point that I'm getting at is that I do feel, I do feel that if the braves are going shopping with the dream that they want to turn into a reality, a few of those names Dylan sees Michael King perhaps make sense.

What are your thoughts?

Do you feel that any of these names that you feel would have been big fish for the brains to go after?

Do you kind of get turned away now from going after them with this draft picked compensation?

Stephen?

Yeah, So if you don't know, the qualifying offerings is effectively a one year deal.

It's and the way they calculate the money is based on like the top one hundred earners in baseball and a percentage, and this year it's twenty two million dollars.

It's a one year, twenty two million dollars contract.

If the player is offered a qualifying offer and accepts it, he's essentially accepting a one year, twenty two million dollar deal, and some of these players will accept it because the crappy thing about these qualifying offers is that now they have draft pick compensation tied to their signing, which means means that the team that signs them not only has to give them a free agent contract, and usually a pretty large free agent contract, they have to give up draft picks as well, which, of course is just the absolute dumbest system ever can try.

I just the dumbest system in the world.

This needs to go away by the next CBA, but unfortunately it's still here.

So if you want to sign one of the best free agents in baseball, you got to give up draft picks to do it.

And for some of these guys, like the Kyle Tuckers of the world, and probably even like the Dylan Ceas and Rangersjarez is probably not gonna affect their market too much.

Usually at the very top of the market, it doesn't affect guys Bobaschet probably isn't gonna be overly affected by this.

It's the guys that are like on the fringe, like Brandon Woodruff got a qualify though, that's going to just destroy his market, Like people are not gonna want to give up a draft pick to sign Brandon Woodruf.

No disrespect to him, He's just not the same level was a few years ago.

Clabor Torres, that's a killer for him.

I mean, he's he's just gonna get a lot less money than he would have otherwise.

A lot of times, what these guys will do was is either a they'll accept the qualifying offer and just do a one year deal with that team and go back on the free agent market next year free from that because you can only be given the qualifying offer one time in your career.

Or they will accept a one year deal somewhere else for the same purpose.

And so we'll see what happens.

I'm guessing I think it was what was it thirteen guys total.

I'm guessing like two or three will end up accepting and then the top line guys won't, you know.

From the Braves point of view, I think Dylan Cees Dylan season Rangers, Waz are probably the two closest I would say that are clearly worth it.

I don't think they're gonna be on on Kyle Tucker, even though I could make the argument they should be.

I don't think they're gonna be on Boba Schett, even though I could make an argument that they should be.

But I think Suarez and Dylan Season, maybe even Michael King the picture.

I mean, obviously the starting pitching is probably where I could see the best argument for being for justifying it.

I don't know.

I'm cious what you think.

If any of these guys are just clearly worth giving up the money and the pick for that are a big enough need for the Braves, I'm not I could probably be talked in and out of a number of these guys.

UH ask me in five days.

Because this leads to what's going to occur on November tenth, which is this coming up Monday.

That's the announcement of the NL Rookie of the Year, and as we know, that will be when Drake Baldwin it's announced whether or not he is in a Rookie of the Year, and then if he is, the Braves give up a draft pick.

But as we discussed previously.

I believe, Again it's really hard to guarantee, but I believe that if the Braves were to sign one of these free agents, one of these free agents were qualifying offers, the draft pick they would lose would be the one that they gained from Drake Baldwin winning Rookie of the Year.

But they may have incentive to do that now because it's basically an extra pick for them to play with.

And that's what I'm kind of getting that in a grand scale here is that you know, we just talked about the bullpen.

There'll be multiple moves that are needed there.

Resigning hasan Kim, maybe adding another bat of some sort.

But Alex and Thoppless, it really seems as if he's going to land a big fish, it's going to be a picture of some sort.

Getting that extra pick with Drake Baldwin is what really plays into the increased likelihood that the Braves will feel comfortable going after that big fish, either trading away extra prospect capital for that level of a picture or being a willing to give up that extra pick to go sign that level of a pitcher.

So that's why I think it's so important to watch out for Monday, and if Drake Baldwin does win in a Rookie of the Year, I think there's just as much chance, maybe even more, that the Brave don't even use that pickture draft player, but they use it as extra ammunition to go out and get a quality win now contributor to add to this roster.

Yeah, and we've seen the Braves sign qualifying free agents before, it's not necessarily a deal breaker for them.

I remember this was twenty twenty one, the year they signed Will Smith.

He was the I think the number one reliever on the market that year.

Anyway, he'd gotten a qualifying offer from the Giants.

I don't know why I remember this, but he gotten a qualifying offer for the Giants.

Well the day he was supposed to decide whether or not he was going to accept or not, his agent actually used the threat of him signing and accepting the qualifying offer as a bargaining chip to get somebody to give him a three year deal.

And the Braves gave him the three year deal, and the Braves just paid the draft pick penalty to do it.

So I guess he signed both Ozuna and Will Smith with the qualifying offer before that twenty twenty season, because I think that Azuna had been offered by the Cardinals and Heed to klinb That's why the Braves wouldn't have offered him a qualifying offer this offseason.

I think, Yeah, I don't remember that part.

I definitely remember the part about Will Smith because I remember reading about how his agent used the deadline as leverage because the Braves signed him on the day that they were supposed to accept the qualifying offer.

So yeah, like the Braves, they'll do it if they feel like it's worth it, and so it's not.

And again it's relative to the player and the talent that you're getting.

When you're when you're talking about one of these marginal guys that's like right on the edge, it really it's really tough for them.

It really kills their market.

Nick Pavel last year just got wrecked by this thing.

Happens every year.

There's a guy or two that just get absolutely wrecked by the qualifying offer.

But again, if the guy's good enough, and like you said, they have an extra draft pick to play with anyway, if they If Drake Baldwin wins the Rookie of the Year, I don't think it's going to be I think it's going to exclude them from being in any of these guys markets.

I don't think it's that detrimental.

I think they would do it for the right guy, and I think there are more than a few on the list that I would qualify as the right guy.

Agree completely, and so again it'll be interesting to see what occurs.

So a lot happening for the Braves and around baseball today, and you know, the best way to enjoy a full course Mial seven is to first set the table.

And that's what the Braves did today.

They made sure that when it came to their roster, it's set for them to take the best advantage that they can to add the quality pieces to really be able to contend going into twenty twenty six.

Hey, at least my analogy this time didn't include Lord of the Rings.

That'll come up here in the near future.

Again, So as we go through these shows, as we go through this early off season, I think it's really important to continue setting the stage.

What's the next really important day?

That's this upcoming Monday.

It's the start of Awards week.

It's us, really, it's us hopefully seeing Drake Baldwin earn what he rightfully deserves, which is Rookie of the Year, and the Braves getting that extra draft pick to potentially play with.

Before that, Scott and Brad will be back with you on Sunday talking about some free agent predictions, you know what could make sense as we're seeing many different outlets give ideas of what free agents could be earning this offseason.

Steven, anything else from you as we wrap up this edition on the Hammer Territory Podcast.

No, I I'll add like I think the qualifying offered decisions come in like ten days.

I think they tiplake Tumber eighteenth.

Okay, so they give them twelve days this year.

So again that can be a big day as well.

That could be a day there's a lot of movement because again teams and players can use that day as a negotiating tactic, and we'll also learn exactly who's gonna accept who's gonna still be on the market.

But yeah, there's now that we're into the offseason and free agents can sign with any team.

Of course, this is baseball, so absolutely nothing happens, you know, in basketball as soon as free agency starts, there's like fifty signings yes, same in the NFL and baseball.

You know, free agency starts and there's just a you know, it's just a wet fart noise, just nothing, just nothing for weeks.

So you know, this is Scott.

This is where Scott gets so mad, and I'm with him.

It pisses me off to no end.

But we're just gonna you know, it's kind of hurry up and wait.

It's like the offseason has started and everybody, you know, chill out for two weeks until something happens.

So but technically anything can happen at any point.

Now, anybody can sign with anybody.

The Braves can sign any free agent they want at any time.

And at least now we know that's a possibility.

And you know, an emergency podcast could literally happen anymore.

So that's at least better than before where we knew nothing could happen.

So free agency has started.

We will be here to cover it all, of course, every roster move, every payroll add anything of significance, oftentimes things of zero significance, which we talk a lot about on this show.

Yeah, we're here to cover it all absolutely.

And again, you know the big thing about it is is that as soon as news breaks, we're gonna be here with you discussing it all.

You can find Steven Tilbert at b Underscore Outliers.

Just ignore the the opinions when it comes to movies, stick with his opinions when it comes to baseball.

Of course.

You can find me at stats sac on Twitter, slash x.

Hammer Territory across all forms of social media, part of the Foul Territory family of podcasts.

Until next time, Go braves.

We'll talk to you again soon here on the Hammer Territory podcast