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

Hey, why not? It’s Christmas for Liberty Media Group and the Atlanta Braves too.  So let’s go shopping for some sushi… Trout.

For the last week, I’ve been thought-experimenting with what it might take to get Mike Trout in an Atlanta Braves uniform.

Leave aside that neither the Braves nor the Angels have any real reason to pursue this trade; the Halos have the best player in baseball (and would incite a revolt among their fans if they traded him for anything less the $1.50 on the dollar) and the Braves have the farm system in place to become contenders in the not-too-distant future (with tons of flexibility in the interim).

I don’t care. It’s Christmas, dagummit; practicality has no place in this consumer-driven market… and after this last week, common sense doesn’t either.

We’re playing under the assumption that John Coppolella is going after his man come hell or high water, that now he wants Mike Trout under the Christmas tree with a ‘To Liberty Media, Love John’ tag affixed and now we’re doing so with some context.  Chris Sale, a top-3 LHP, fetched a consensus top-3 in baseball prospect, another guy around the top-25, another guy in Boston’s top-10 and a bit piece.

Methinks Mike Trout is slightly more valuable than him.

I think it’s important to reiterate this point: This is not a call to cash out now and go all-in on the trade market; that leads to crazy stuff like top-rated prospects for 28-year old outfielders with zero All-Star appearances to their credit (looking at you, Washington).  It’s not even a call to make the trade; it’s an examination of what such a trade might look like and how the pieces might come together.

Teams always regret overpaying for stars, full-stop: giving up too much for a very good, not-quite-marquee name that resides just outside the cream of the crop is a recipe for disaster and you can confirm that with Arizona (ask them about Richie Sexson or for that matter, Shelby Miller), Seattle (Erik Bedard), the Angels (hey there Vernon Wells) and scores of others.

But trading for a super-duperstar-slash-best-player-in-the-league-slash-immediate-marketing-surge… nobody regrets that. Trout is an in-his-prime superstar and it makes sense for the Angels to move him and reap the windfall, whether it comes from the Atlanta Braves or some other similarly loaded organization. If you’re living in a trailer and win the lottery, you don’t frame the ticket.

Let’s start with what the Angels have that they probably want to keep. A quick rundown of legitimate assets:

• CF Mike Trout.. duh
• SS Andrelton Simmons
• RHP Garrett Richards?
• RF Kole Calhoun?

And what they’re stuck with:

• 1B/DH Albert Pujols

And what’s on the horizon that could help in the next year or two (using MLB.com’s rankings and projected ETA, plus a couple other searches):

• C Taylor Ward (No. 3)
• LHP Nate Smith (No. 5)
• IF David Fletcher (No. 8)
• RHP Vicente Campos (No. 9)
• RHP Grayson Long (No. 10)
• RHP Alex Meyer (No. 11)
• RHP Brooks Pounders (No. 13)

(Note: None of these guys are listed among any top-100 prospect list I found, FYI. So to say they’re top prospects is a very relative term.)

So if absolutely everything broke right, by 2018 the Angels would have two-thirds of a starting lineup and six pitchers and they still wouldn’t really have a lot of disposable cash to go get a game-changer. I don’t think that’s a playoff team, Ma. Call me crazy.

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!