Atlanta Braves will have difficult trade deadline calls to make

How to improve the 2019 Atlanta Braves without derailing the future Atlanta Braves?  That’s the big question facing the Front Office this July.

As much grief as Atlanta Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos has received – including a lot from here – for his handling of team-building issues, one thing is certain:  no one should envy the task he has in front of him over the next 4 weeks.

If the off-season’s lessons are any guide, early trades of any kind will be difficult to obtain, particularly as rival GM’s sort through Atlanta’s catalog of prospects.

Anthopoulos’ philosophy appears to include turning over every rock – no matter how big – in the process of doing his job to improve the Braves.

During the Winter, Atlanta was connected to numerous free agents and trade options – some of which made sense and some that didn’t.

During July, we can expect to hear much more of this… and yes, much of it will be either pure speculation or outright nonsense.

There are a few principles, though, that we think we have learned along the way that may help guide us all through the process (taken from various sources throughout the first half of the season):

• Avoid Dead Money
• Don’t give up premium talent for a ‘rental’
• Think Longer Term
• There is most likely some money to spend

So does any of that suggest ‘taking on a bad contract’ or ‘give up a couple of great prospects for a pitcher you’ll have only for 2 months’?

That’s why I am now cringing every time I’m hearing things like this – from Ken Rosenthal, of all places:

"To repeat the obvious: Giants left-hander Madison Bumgarner, a native of Hickory, N.C., would be a perfect fit."

That came on Monday via his column in The Athletic.  A subscription is needed to read the whole thing, but I’ll hit the highlight in just a bit… for I believe we may have enough information to figure out the plan for this July.

From His Own Words

Sweeny Murti and Jon Heyman recently interviewed Alex Anthopoulos on their ‘Big Time Baseball‘ podcast.  His segment starts at roughly the 16 minute mark and lasts just over 15 minutes.

The main theme for our purposes:  the Rotation Needs to Improve.

Anthopoulos said virtually the same thing here that Rosenthal noted in his column:  that the Braves have concern about their rotation and will be about the process of evaluating several possible internal options available to improve their starters’ ERA.

This includes (stated) names like Foltynewicz, Gausman, Wilson, Wright, and even Kolby Allard.  There are other names that were not mentioned – Newcomb… Toussaint… possibly even a AA arm or two.

The belief is that the Braves have just about as much talent available within the organization as could be obtained on the trade market.

That statement sounds a bit glib, particularly since most of that talent is (clearly) still raw and inexperienced.  Yet when you think about it, the Braves need only 1… maybe 2… guys to step up and start delivering some consistent, quality innings (particularly given the offense supporting them).

The big message:  the Braves will take as much time as they have to make a decision about whether somebody will step up and be ‘that guy’ or whether they have to go outside the organization.

So don’t hold your breath waiting for trades to be made… barring something unforeseen, Atlanta will be in no hurry to do anything.

Any Sign of Relief?

Also of note:  there was no mention of the bullpen by Anthopoulos in this interview.  That may not mean much, but clearly it’s the rotation that has his attention, first and foremost.

Perhaps this news is one reason for that:

Well that’s good news indeed.

If this indeed is the case, it’s probably the best possible outcome for both the Braves and for Anthony Swarzak.  My own concern was that his shoulder injury would linger quite a bit longer.

We’ll see in a couple of weeks if this predicted result verifies.

What to Expect?

In 3 words:  Late Bargain Hunting.

Anthopoulos is clearly not going to be leading the charge into the trade market this July.  If you buy into his optimism about starting pitching, he may not need to.

There are some “selling” teams that will find themselves in a difficult position.  Once July 28th or 29th rolls around, they will have some pending free agents on their roster that they will want to get some value for.

Some, like the aformentioned Madison Bumgarner, may be a candidate for a Qualifying Offer (QO).  If so, the Giants might end up with a compensatory draft pick once they lose him to free agency this Winter.

But that scenario may not be a slam dunk… given their payroll situation, the Giants might be more afraid that he’d accept the big-money offer QO and thus would prefer to trade him.

More available would be relief pitchers:  these are the kinds of players who are at a price point where teams would lose them as free agents without any compensation… thus they are essentially “must trade” candidates.

You can probably expect a feeding frenzy for these players over the last couple of days several hours of July, since the sellers lose all leverage once that 4pm July 31 deadline hits.

Future Scoping

More from Tomahawk Take

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• Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
• Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves

It’s fun to guess what the Atlanta Braves might ultimately do with their own pending free agents – primarily Dallas Keuchel and Josh Donaldson. But don’t think that this topic isn’t also part of the calculus under consideration… along with everything else going on.

The chance that Atlanta might have to replace one or both this Winter should be coloring some of the thoughts and plans that are already being bandied about in the Front Office today.

Selling off multiple prospects now might ultimately be necessary if the starting rotation doesn’t come around, but it’s very likely that Anthopoulos would much prefer to have those kinds of conversations this Winter.

So it’s definitely a complex tapestry that has been woven here.  Moves do need to be made, though internal moves might count.

That’s the early word here in early July, but again:  don’t hold your breath waiting for immediately action.