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The Atlanta Braves have been very busy thus far in the off-season as they have already added three starting pitchers to their rotation, signing Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey in November and then yesterday they sent three prospects to the St. Louis Cardinals for Jaime Garcia.
However, they are still actively looking for elite starting pitcher per a report from Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.
The #Braves still have interest in Chris Sale and Chris Archer, even after adding Colon, Dickey and Garcia. They prefer Sale over Archer.
— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) December 2, 2016
With the winter meetings just a few days away, rumors involving Chris Archer will not go away as most teams are likely to be interested in adding the Rays young ace. He is still under team control through the 2021 seasons with him receiving an AAV for a bargain around $8 million per season. He’ll make just under $5 million during the 2017 season.
Archer, who turned 28 in September, has already spent parts of five seasons in the majors and has a career ERA of 3.51 and a FIP of 3.48 while Baseball Prospectus has him pegged with 16.2 WARP over 128 games (126 starts).
In 2016, Archer had a DRA — Deserved Run Average — of 2.92 which was among the lowest for starting pitchers in the majors.
The winter meetings will kickoff on Sunday and conclude Thursday with the Rule 5 draft, and with the Rays having available starting pitching in a depleted market, expect for the rumor mill to continue to churn.