Atlanta Braves Speculation: What Might It Take To Get Trout?

This is a lot of people

So let’s say John Coppolella woke up tomorrow and decided he wanted to get Liberty Media Group the best baseball player in the world for Christmas. How could he help Anaheim fill that void to the level of satisfaction that would make the Angels fork over Trout?

1. Replace Trout (insomuch as one player can)

There’s no way he could get away with this without sacrificing Ender Inciarte. And although we’re big fans of Ender* around these parts, he goes bye-bye in this scenario.

(* — Before you immediately diss this, recognize what Adam Eaton just brought for the White Sox.  Ender and he have nearly the same amount of team control and Inciarte can actually play CF)

1. Big Prospect(s)

I don’t like this, but the Atlanta Braves would have to sacrifice Ozzie Albies. I think moving Dansby Swanson* is a non-starter, but Travis Demeritte is just tantalizing enough that Albies can be considered somewhat expendable in the pursuit of Trout. And he wouldn’t be alone… the cream of the prospect crop has to relocate (see below).

(* — if I’m Coppy, only two names make me immediately hang up the phone if people call with trade offers: Swanson and Kevin Maitan. Everybody else can be yours if the price is right. In any case, they already have Andrelton, so…)

1. Bolster the arms

And I mean BOLSTER.  Sean Newcomb goes back to his original organization. Ian Anderson, we hardly knew ye. Max Fried, thanks for the memories. Lucas Sims, we’ll always have that brief time when the farm system was terrible and you were the Braves best prospect by default.

1. Fill the holes

The corners (first-third base) and left field seem a little… undefined… in La-La Land. The Atlanta Braves would need to provide potential answers for at least two of these. Braxton Davidson and Rio Ruiz aren’t the flashiest names but they are top-30ish prospects from one of the deepest farm systems in baseball. Ruiz gets the nod here for being closer to big-league ready than Austin Riley*.

(*–in this scenario, tie goes to whichever prospect is more big-league ready. Arte Moreno is 70 years old; he’s not signing off on trading for a bunch of players who may not be big-league ready until after he’s dead.)

1. Sweetener

This is where Coppy goes over the top to get his man. Anaheim has a lot of money committed to people who aren’t particularly good at baseball anymore ($9 million to Huston Street, $8 million to Ricky Nolasco) but that’s chump change in baseball terms, and particularly for Arte Moreno.

The one that hurts is Josh Hamilton.

The Angels are paying Hamilton $26,410,000 to basically go fly kites next season; it’s more money than they have committed to any single player on their roster.

So the Braves pay the balance. That’s a better pill to swallow, but the Atlanta Braves (as we’ve been told repeatedly) have money this offseason and no tremendous free-agent targets to spend it on. Think of it as spending $46.5 million for Mike Trout this season—that’s the price for Trout’s salary and Hamilton’s base hit combined, give or take.

From a strictly financial sense, it’s a no-brainer; I’d pay $46.5 million for a year of Mike Trout. So would you if you had any sense; if 1.0 WAR is worth roughly $7 million (might be a low figure at this point), Trout is worth… well, I don’t number well but… more than $46.5 million.

Hey, it’s only about $43.5 million when you don’t have to pay Ender this year!