Atlanta Braves: 3 Observations on Wednesday’s Trade
3. Could the Archer Pursuit Be Dead?
This was more-or-less a 3-way trade made yesterday. Mallex Smith was traded roughly 6,000 miles in the space of 90 minutes or so.
The Tampa Bay Rays wanted Smith. And so you may fairly surmise that he was a key name involved in Coppy’s discussions with them about Chris Archer.
But they got him without giving up Archer in the process. Mallex is a Ray now. And the Braves don’t have that particular trade chip any more.
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Yes, Atlanta has Gohara now, but having a new guy is not the same as having someone that another team wants, and the Rays wanted Smith… that much seems clear.
Moreover, the Rays also traded away Drew Smyly to Seattle. That reduces their rotation by one and makes it more difficult for others to go begging for Archer for reasons of simply keeping a team together. The Rays’ original statement at the top of the off-season was that they’d prefer to trade just one of their starters… and now they have done so.
So there’s two new roadblocks in the path to acquire Archer: the loss of one rotation arm and the elimination of one name that team was interested in.
For Coppy to get his Christmas wish now will require him finding someone different – or someone he didn’t previously want to deal away – that the Rays would be interested in.
For me, that moves the focus of trade efforts to Jose Quintana.
Wouldn’t you really like to have bugged Coppy’s new office at some point during its construction? Just for things like this?