At a minimum, it’s probably unprofessional to hope for bad things, but the Atlanta Braves might be monitoring Cincinnati closely.
In this most unusual trade deadline season, the Atlanta Braves have to be thinking about every possible angle from which to acquire talent for this abbreviated stretch run.
Given that any quick hot streak can put virtually anyone back in the race, it’s difficult to find teams that are truly out of the running.
In fact, right now, only 1 National League team is more than 5 games behind the last Wild Card position: the Pirates. But there’s another one that seems poised to leap over that mile marker shortly.
It’s the Cincinnati Reds.
This was not a club expected to tank. In fact, many — including this writer — picked them to win the NL Central. They’ve got pitching (to a point). They’ve got hitting. They’ve even got decent defense.
Which is all why it’s odd that they are on such a tailspin right now. The Reds have lost 4 in a row and 9 of their last 13 games.
This is a team that started out 7-4. But between some injuries and some COVID interruptions, it’s like their momentum was sapped, and now they are having trouble buying a win… even in this weakened pair of Central divisions.
It’s not going to get a lot easier for them, either: after two more games against the resurgent Brewers, they have 4 with the Cubs and 3 with the Cardinals.
Aside from seeing the Pirates twice, their schedule isn’t a picnic for the rest of the year, either (MIL, STL, CHC again, plus the Twins and White Sox).
In short, they’re in trouble.
So what should the Reds be offering to other clubs like the Atlanta Braves right now?
Reds Pitching
The most obvious choice is Trevor Bauer. There aren’t many pitchers throwing better than Max Fried right now, but he’s one of them. We’ll talk about him at more length in another post, but he’s clearly the price picking piece from Cincy right now.
Among the other options that they have, these come with varying levels of availability:
- Sonny Gray. Not likely available. He’s pitching great, but also still on the second year of a 4 year (+option) deal. It would be bad form to deal him and the Reds must keep him to build around for their future.
- Luis Castillo. Threw well last year for 190.2 innings (3.40 ERA). Not doing as well in 2020 (3.90 ERA with a high WHIP). He’s also pre-arbitration, so has 3 years of control left, so regardless of his performance, that’s going to be a difficult ‘get’ for anybody.
Reds Hitting
This section is going to be.. underwhelming.
A couple of years ago, Eugenio Suarez was the guy everybody would have wanted: third baseman with power, hitting for average, and in his prime.
So far, he’s been… bad. .158 average and 62 OPS+… it’s been ugly.
At the same time, he’s on a cheap 7-year deal with the Reds, so if you have any designs on getting him… forget it. He’ll be better, though he’s just not showing that now.
Likewise: Mike Moustakas and Nick Castellanos are both on (new) long-term deals, so they are not on the block.
Finally, OF/DH Jesse Winker would be attractive to the Braves since he’s hitting lefty… and he’s hitting a ton lately (164 OPS+). Unfortunately, he’s another pre-arb guy with 3 years of team control.
So what does it look like for the Reds? It could really be ‘Bauer or Bust’ for all suitors. You might be able to pry Castillo away, but you’d also have to have a plan to “fix” him… and heaven knows this team already has a lot of correction work going on at Gwinnett right now.
This writeup started out as an idea that the Reds might actually have multiple options for Atlanta to go after, should their week convince management that there’s little point in holding onto valuable assets this year.
Unfortunately, it’s become fairly clear that there’s only one true option… and there will be a lot of teams in line for Bauer’s services.