The Braves added slightly more than $6 million to their 2021 payroll with a flurry of moves at the trade deadline Friday, spending some of the money they saved by reducing the player payroll last winter.
Four separate trades brought relief pitcher Richard Rodriguez and outfielders Adam Duvall, Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler to the Braves from Pittsburgh, Miami, Cleveland and Kansas City, respectively.
The Braves will be responsible for those players’ salaries over the final two months of the season, totaling about $6.05 million after adjusting for offsets in the Rosario deal. In addition, there’s a $3 million buyout in Duvall’s contract for 2022 if a mutual option isn’t exercised.
Here’s a financial breakdown of the trades:
-- The Braves will pay Rodriguez about $600,000 for the remainder of the season, the amount remaining on his one-year, $1.7 million contract. Significantly, the Braves also will have contractual control of Rodriguez for the next two seasons as he will be arbitration-eligible.
-- The Braves will owe Duvall about $700,000 for the rest of the season, the amount remaining on his $2 million salary for 2021. But his contract also includes a mutual $7 million option for 2022, with the $3 million buyout if the option isn’t exercised.
-- Rosario signed a one-year, $8 million contract with Cleveland as a free agent before this season, of which about $2.8 million remains for the rest of the season. But the Braves’ cost effectively will be reduced to about $1.95 million because of cash received from the Indians in the trade ($500,000, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer) and the remaining portion of Pablo Sandoval’s contract that the Indians assumed (about $350,000). Cleveland accepted Sandoval from the Braves as a salary offset in the trade, then immediately released him. Rosario is eligible for free agency again after this season.
-- Soler had a one-year, $8.05 million contract with the Royals, of which the Braves will owe him about $2.8 million. He’s eligible for free agency after the season.
The Braves opened this season with a major-league payroll of $130.1 million, down $21.9 million – or 14.4% -- from what would have been a $152 million payroll if a full season had been played in 2020. The payroll was reduced last winter amid uncertainty about when Truist Park would return to full-capacity attendance. That happened in early May, as it turned out.
Friday’s trades -- along with acquisitions earlier in July of outfielder Joc Pederson and catcher Stephen Vogt -- increased the Braves’ player payroll to slightly more than $140 million. That includes players on the injured list but not players in the minor leagues (unless on rehab assignments).
