Just a heads up, this is going to be a long post. Well, that sucked, but I'm even more excited for the Braves future now. We pushed the juggernaut Dodgers to 7 games with basically 3 rookie starters and a rookie CF who only played 2 games the whole year. The Braves have to make some moves this offseason, but I feel like what they did this postseason is going to be the start of another 90s run. My perfect offseason for the Braves looks like this:
1) Extend Freeman and Swanson. Give Freeman something pretty much like his first extension, 8/180. I think Swanson would take 5/45 or 6/66. And re-sign Melancon and Greene to 2 year deals.
2) Sign a veteran starter who can eat innings. I would love to see the Braves sign Bauer and I've heard they are going to go after him very strongly. Bauer will probably get something like 6/175. But, I'm not going to get my hopes up here so I would really like to get Tanaka or maybe Taijuan Walker. Also wouldn't mind bringing back King Felix for depth.
3) Bring in a lefty OF bat. I love Markakis, but he looked to be about done this year. I want to see us get somebody like Joc Pederson who provides pop and can play all 3 positions. We could then platoon him in LF with Duvall.
4) Re-sign Ozuna. I put this last because I only want them to do this if the NL goes to the DH permanently. I love his game and the way he mentored the younger guys, but he is such a liability in LF and we saw what outstanding defense does with the entire Dodgers OF.
My wildcard in all of this is George Springer. If we have the chance to sign him, I would absolutely pull the trigger. We would have 3 CF in the outfield and our depth there would be ridiculous.
So in my ideal world, the Braves go into next season with a rotation of Soroka, Fried, Anderson, Tanaka, and Wright/Wilson/Folty. The pen would be Ynoa, Newk, Matzek, Smith, Webb, Melancon, Martin, and Greene with Dayton, Davidson, and Touissant being options.
In the field, we would have D'Arnaud and Contreras/Jackson at C. An infield of Freddie, Ozzie, Dansby, and Riley. An OF of Duvall/Pederson, Pache, and Acuna. Then Ozuna would be DH. On the bench we would have Culberson, Contreras/Jackson, Pederson/Duvall, and Camargo. This team wins a World Series and I know it's basically the same team, but the additions of Sorka being and healthy and a veteran like Tanaka gets us over the hump imo.