Atlanta Braves: 3 possible under the radar starting pitcher trade targets

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HOUSTON, TEXAS – OCTOBER 10: Blake Snell #4 of the Tampa Bay Rays. October 10, 2019 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images) /

Blake Snell, Rays

LHP
Years of control: 4
Contract: nearly $50 million for next 4 years, plus bonuses for being among the Cy Young finalists.
Agents: Sosnick Cobbe & Karon
Age: 27 next week
Home: Seattle, WA

This would be a tough sell, no doubt (probably the toughest of these 3), but the Rays are one of those teams that clearly has to look at life and baseball with a different map from the one everyone else uses.

They’re already worse off for 2020 than they might have hoped as the Braves sniped Travis d’Arnaud from them… which certainly caused Blake Snell some angst.

The Rays don’t fit that form of a team that’s rebuilding… or even one that might be rebuilding. In truth, though, they’re actually constantly rebuilding, but with the attitude of the Little Engine That Could. You gotta love their attitude: ready to step up against the Big Boys and fight, no matter what the odds.

That kind of moxie has resulted in back-to-back 90 win seasons.

So they may not be ready to deal Snell: with six Top 100 prospects (four of them are pitchers), they might be quite happy with their positioning for 2020.

However, there’s at least one Rays beat writer out there who believes that his extension contract might actually have been done with the mindset of trading him at some point.

Also of note: Snell busted out a 1.89 ERA and a Cy Young award in 2018 over 180 innings, but was unable to follow that up in 2019 (4.29) thanks to a balky elbow that required the same kind of surgery that Freddie Freeman needed in October.

Yes – a pitcher getting an elbow worked on is not the same as a position player’s elbow. Could that be enough to scare the Rays into quietly making him available? On the flip side, would the Braves want to trust that they’d be getting the 2018 Snell and not a perennial 2019 version?

Given the Rays’ general reticence to spend money, they might be willing to listen – though admittedly, the timing for Snell’s departure could still be a couple of years away.

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