Braves long-term deals could come back to bite them

This time last year, Alex Anthopoulos was being heralded for not only building a team that was on its way to its sixth straight NL East title, but also locking up his core group for the foreseeable future for what most people considered a bargain.

It was almost a running joke in the baseball community: how does Alex Anthopoulos keep getting away with these highway robberies?

But what fans fail to realize is the risk involved in any long-term deal. Most of these contracts bought out the arbitration years of young players, which were not going to pay them $20 million annually, in order to gain a few years on the back-end.

It’s a gamble by the organization that the player is going to continue to perform at an All-Star level and also stay healthy, while it acts as a safety net for the player, who is now guaranteed generational wealth no matter what happens in the immediate future.

These kinds of deals began when Ronald Acuna Jr. inked an eight-year, $100 million contract with the Braves, an incredible bargain for one of the bright young talents in the league. Many accused Anthopoulos of taking advantage of Acuna, but two ACL surgeries later things don’t quite look the same.

The Braves would still do that deal 100 times out of 100, and the same could be said for the seven-year, $35 million contract they handed Ozzie Albies soon after. But the rest of these they could come to regret.