Friday’s trade moves are starting to shake out and shape up some things that we’ve been waiting on, though there are mixed opinions on what they all mean. One thing that seems certain – the Braves are still lurking.
As predicted, you are seeing a lot of transactions this week… and yet the Atlanta Braves have made none of them thus far.
Be patient.
Let me give you a list of names to review:
- Kolby Allard
- Mike Foltynewicz
- Max Fried
- Kevin Gausman
- Luiz Gohara
- Sean Newcomb
- Mike Soroka
- Julio Teheran
- Touki Toussaint
- Bryse Wilson
- Kyle Wright
If push came to shove, the Braves have 11 major-league ready starting pitchers that they could roll out, right now. Eleven.
Sure, there’s AAA Gwinnett is the near future for many of these and there would be varying degrees of success… but that’s partly because there is simply no room for half of these pitchers on the major league club… with more still on the way.
So yes, in the absence of any other ideas, Atlanta would take half of this crew and roll them into Lawrenceville to begin the 2019 season. But that would be a waste – and a risk.
The Braves know this too, which is why I am all but certain that 1 or 2 of these pitchers will be twirling their craft for another organization this Spring. It is simply a better use of resources to turn them into a stud position player via trade instead of toiling at AAA while waiting on somebody to get hurt.
The beauty of this situation for the Braves, of course, is that there are still bona fide trade targets available to seek after… and at this point, I have to believe that Alex Anthopoulos is still casting his line and waiting for the time at which the Big Fish strikes his bait.
The question is… which fish will strike first?
So with that as the backdrop, here’s how things changed on Friday. We’ll start with the Big Deal…