Not sure how I feel about trading for a guy who will miss a season for shoulder surgery.

That's an awesome trade if he recovers. Maybe the injury is worse than normal. It's not clear to me what the Braves are doing here. Their 40 man is now down to 30 players

Shoulder injuries don't need to be "worse than normal" to derail a career. They are not at all like TJS situations. But there's nearly no risk for KC here. I don't know what arb salaries are like for a guy in Wright's situation but I assume the Royeal will just pay him $1-2 M this year to rehab then go from there. Plus Kowar has a terrible track record in both MLB and AAA and is a reliever now and turning 27.

Nick Anderson for cash is another good gamble. He missed most of 2021-22 and the 2nd half of 2023 so don't expect much. But when he's taken the mound in the past and the first half of thise year, he's done well. Given the injury history he'll be cheap -- he barely made more than the minimum this year despite nearly 4 years service time. So another $1 M and maybe they get a solid reliever (that they might deal at the deadline).

As to the Braves ... no inside info but presumably they either have a lot of potential rule 5 guys they want to hold onto or maybe they're clearing some cash to go after a SP or (I'd give it a go) give Acuna a monster extension that will pay him more over the next few years as part of the enticement. Anyway, the guys they've cleared off are hurt or flops so they weren't going to be useful parts of the 40-man anyway. They're not giving up anything for 2024 really, possibly they'll regret not having Wright around for 2025-26.

The Braves had 23 guys declared FA the other day. Apparently they had half of the "oh yeah that guy" guys in the game stowed away somewhere in the org at the end of 2023.