{"id":590647,"date":"2026-02-24T18:29:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/590647\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T18:29:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T18:29:21","slug":"a-new-era-for-the-braves-could-mean-new-rules-for-future-contract-extensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/590647\/","title":{"rendered":"A new era for the Braves could mean new \u201crules\u201d for future contract extensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

What a week, and it\u2019s only Tuesday! This Tuesday morning was a momentous one within Braves Country as the team made back-to-back huge announcements. The first was that the long-rumored Braves TV network is real and figures to be spectacular. BravesVision<\/a> will, in fact, be ready to go for the 2026 regular season and beyond.<\/p>\n

On top of that huge news, the Braves proceeded to announce that they\u2019d come to an agreement with Chris Sale on a contract extension<\/a> that guarantees that he\u2019ll be around here for 2027 along with a club option for 2028. Sale will now be getting paid $27 million for 2027 and then potentially $30 million for the season after that if all goes well.<\/p>\n

Between the fact that the Braves are now once again masters of their own domain when it coms to TV and streaming and also the fact that they just made Chris Sale the highest-paid player on the team for 2027 (and very likely for 2028 if all goes well over the next two seasons), it\u2019s pretty clear that we\u2019ve entered into a new era when it comes to the Atlanta Braves and their position in baseball. The Battery has clearly worked out very well for this ballclub, and now they\u2019ll have a self-owned and operated TV product to sell to distributors.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty clear that finances won\u2019t be a major issue for this franchise going forward. Now granted, it won\u2019t be like they\u2019re the Dodgers or the Mets where they can just hand out a blank check to anybody they want. If that was the case then we would\u2019ve seen either Chris Bassitt or Lucas Giolito wearing a Braves uniform by this time during spring training. However, it does mean that if they want to go after someone in free agency and it makes even a moderate amount of sense, it\u2019s totally feasible that this team could go out and make some splashes in free agency.<\/p>\n

With that being said, it also means that their resources for keeping any of their core players via contract extensions should be expanded going forward. I think y\u2019all know where I\u2019m going with this.<\/p>\n

\"NORTH<\/a><\/p>\n

NORTH PORT, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 20: Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. #13 of the Atlanta Braves poses for a photo during Spring Training photo day at CoolToday Park on February 20, 2026 in North Port, Florida. (Photo by Chris Graythen\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Braves still have some time left between now and the season where they\u2019ll ultimately have to make sure this gets done, as they have a club option on Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr.\u2018s contract for both 2027 and 2028. With that being said, I do feel like any time before that 2028 season would be a great time to strike while the iron is hot and make sure that this guy stays here for as long as both parties deem it possible. I also know that this would be a very tricky undertaking, what with Acu\u00f1a\u2019s injury concerns and also the fact that he\u2019ll be in position to try to maximize his earnings after taking the extremely team-friendly contract extension that he\u2019s currently on. It\u2019s not going to be as simple as \u201cHe\u2019ll give the Braves a hometown discount\u201d or \u201cThe Braves\u2019ll just give him what he wants\u201d and that\u2019s something that needs to be acknowledged in any speculation that\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n

With that being said, the (well-earned) contract extension for Chris Sale raised an eyebrow from me for one reason and one reason alone (well, aside from the fact that Sale will be knocking directly on the door of Age-40 once 2028 rolls around): They\u2019re going to be paying him $27 million for 2027 and potentially $30 million for 2028. As our friends over at Braves Today<\/a> pointed out, the Braves have usually used $22 million as a sort of ceiling when it comes to their contract dealings. That number didn\u2019t come out of nowhere, either \u2014 the one thing that Matt Olson, Austin Riley and Spencer Strider all have in common is that they\u2019ll be getting paid $22 million for 2027 and 2028.<\/p>\n

So, the fact that the Braves have broken that ceiling by $5 million for 2027 and $8 million by 2028 seems to indicate that that \u201cceiling\u201d may no longer exist. Between that and the fact that the team only has $59 million committed to payroll<\/a> (outside of team options) for the 2029 season, it feels like they could be eying that year as the one where they could potentially start Acu\u00f1a\u2019s contract extension and begin paying him what should\/would be a substantial pay raise from what he\u2019s currently bringing in. So really, 2028 could be the actual make-or-break year when it comes to either making sure Acu\u00f1a stays around for a long, long time or if they\u2019ll have to wave farewell to him like the handful of other former Braves stars who made their name here and made their real money elsewhere.<\/p>\n

While those decisions in the past were painful, they were understandable in their own ways. Well, maybe the Freddie Freeman situation was the only one where it was truly a debacle but every other decision ultimately came down to dollars and cents. Again, this is purely speculation on my end but I do feel like the timing of the Chris Sale contract extension announcement immediately after the BravesVision announcement felt like a statement of intent from the franchise.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re still a bit away from when this needs to be a super pressing issue for both the Braves and Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. but for now at least, I feel like there\u2019s more hope of both parties being able to make some serious headway on any potential contract extension now than there was before. It also feels like something that\u2019s actually tangible especially if the TV network takes off like the Braves figure it could. If they\u2019re essentially printing money from The Battery and any TV distribution deals then the money should be there. It all comes down to whether both parties want it to happen.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see what happens down the road \u2014 things could certainly get complicated if Acu\u00f1a suffers another serious injury between now and serious contract talks or he has another monster season that causes tomorrow\u2019s price to no longer be yesterday\u2019s price. There\u2019s no telling what the future holds but at least for now, Atlanta\u2019s future with Acu\u00f1a may not have as many financial hurdles as previously anticipated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What a week, and it\u2019s only Tuesday! This Tuesday morning was a momentous one within Braves Country as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,73272,4166,5,192,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-590647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-braves","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-atlanta-braves-analysis","11":"tag-atlantabraves","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-braves","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116127030974664223","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}