ATLANTA — In 2016, between Ted Turner’s enthusiastic reign over the Atlanta Braves and the team’s resurrected fortunes on the field, the franchise’s owner told this city the truth.
The Braves were a baseball team, certainly, but they were also, as Liberty Media’s chairman, John Malone, said as a new stadium neared its opening, “a fairly major real estate business.” Now, a real estate mind-set appears to have boomeranged to the team’s front office, which looks to be building less a roster for any one season than a long-term portfolio of young players, potentially deeply discounted. Some starters are under contract into the 2030s.