Atlanta Braves: The Pros and Cons of a Mike Trout Move
How the Atlanta Braves would look with Trout
For this exercise, we will use the exact deal presented in the article to determine the roster and examine the merits of pursuing Trout, not alter the deal to players we’d prefer to include or any such thing.
Before picking up any free agents, this would be the roster:
Lineup
C – Tyler Flowers
1B – Freddie Freeman
2B – Ozzie Albies
3B – Johan Camargo
SS – Dansby Swanson
LF – Adam Duvall
CF – Mike Trout
RF – Ronald Acuna
Rotation
RHP Kevin Gausman
RHP Mike Foltynewicz
RHP Julio Teheran
2 of RHP Mike Soroka, RHP Bryse Wilson, LHP Max Fried, LHP Luiz Gohara, LHP Kolby Allard
Bench
IF/OF Charlie Culberson
OF Lane Adams
OF Preston Tucker
IF Philip Gosselin
IF Rio Ruiz
OF Michael Reed
Bullpen
RHP Arodys Vizcaino
LHP A.J. Minter
RHP Dan Winkler
RHP Jose Ramirez
RHP Darren O’Day
LHP Jesse Biddle
LHP Jonny Venters
RHP Shane Carle
LHP Rex Brothers
LHP Sam Freeman
LHP Jacob Lindgren
RHP Chase Whitley
RHP Luke Jackson
That is a mess of mediocre at the bottom of the bullpen and a definite need for an additional catcher, but with Ender’s $5.7M turning into Trout’s $34M, a lot of the assumed room in the payroll would be eaten up, meaning likely the catcher situation would involve trading for a young backstop from another team that’s major league ready to pair with Flowers and reasonably cheap or sign a cheap veteran to pair with Flowers instead of pursuing one of the top guys.
It also would mean the bullpen and rotation are not going to get a big influx of salary via free agency or trade without shedding some salary.
While it doesn’t blow one out of the water, that roster is still one that could definitely compete in 2019, if not do much more than that.
So should the Atlanta Braves make this deal? What would be the pros and cons of the deal? Let’s start with the downside…