NORTH PORT, Fla. — Adam Duvall is not happy with the state of baseball free agency. Specifically, he thinks MLB teams no longer value experience and past performance as much as analytical projections that are heavily influenced by a player’s age with no regard for his character.
But despite the process and a stressful offseason, Duvall is pleased with the ultimate outcome. He’s glad to be back with the Atlanta Braves, who signed the 35-year-old outfielder to a relatively modest one-year, $3 million deal Thursday, exactly two weeks before their March 28 season opener at Philadelphia.
The Atlanta #Braves today signed OF Adam Duvall to a one-year major league contract worth $3 million for the 2024 season.
— Atlanta Braves (@Braves) March 14, 2024
“We’re happy being a Brave, so we’re excited to be back,” Duvall said Saturday, when he worked out at the team’s North Port camp and saw a lot of his friends and former teammates for the first time since signing. “I mean, walking in there, it was very nostalgic. It was a lot of memories that came back, and that’s good. That’s fun to experience.
“It’s fun to have those feelings come rushing back, when you’re seeing all the guys again. And hopefully that’s a sign of things to come.”
Duvall was part of the Braves’ 2021 World Series championship team, highly respected and universally popular in the clubhouse and among fans in two stints with Atlanta.
“That’s a steal,” said Braves reliever A.J. Minter, another member of the 2021 team. “Just to be able to pick him up and have him on the roster, with what he’s meant (to the Braves), being on the World Series team, and just having a huge impact to this organization. And him being comfortable here, I think, helps a lot. He’s gonna help us out moving forward. I’m sure he’s going to get to play a lot.”
The Braves plan to use Duvall in a left-field platoon with left-handed hitting newcomer Jared Kelenic, 24, who has struggled at the plate in spring training, though the team has seen improvement in recent at-bats and praised Kelenic’s attitude and strong defense.
Duvall has 54 home runs in 272 games (927 plate appearances) with the Braves over parts of five seasons from 2018 through 2022.
“The free-agency process — this offseason, it was stressful,” said Duvall, who signed a deal for less than half of the $7 million he made in 2023 with the Boston Red Sox, when he had 21 homers, an .834 OPS and a 119 OPS+ in 92 games, overcoming an early wrist injury that halted his fast start and put him on the injured list for two months before the All-Star break.
“The ebbs and flow of that process can be daunting at times,” he said of free agency. “Especially in kind of the landscape where we’re at now. It’s not necessarily in a great place, as far as free agency. And that’s something that we had to deal with. Like I said, it was a lot on my family, a lot on me. But we’re happy now.”
A right-handed hitter, Duvall actually hit better against right-handed pitchers than against lefties a year ago. Over his 10-year career, he has identical .232 averages against lefties and righties, with a negligible difference in OPS (.760 vs. righties, .770 vs. lefties).
But this move by the Braves had less to do with getting an ideal platoon partner for Kelenic than taking advantage of what they saw as a bargain price for a quality player they know and like a lot.
Duvall can play all three outfield positions, and the Braves would be comfortable with him taking over for an extended stretch if any of their outfielders gets hurt, something they couldn’t say with as much confidence about others who had been competing for the fourth-outfielder job.
“I remember texting him when he got hurt” last season, Braves manager Brian Snitker said, referring to the April wrist injury that landed Duvall on the IL after he’d hit .455 with 10 extra-base hits (four homers) and 14 RBIs in his first eight games for…
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