Philly Front Office

Welcome to the flea market Atlanta, you will be given a PRIME location to feature your arm and bats for the rest of the baseball world to peruse in hopes of supplementing a long playoff run. We are very sorry to hear about the (frankly absurdly unlucky) injuries to Chris Sale and Spencer Schwellenbach, but by joining your fellow sellers Colorado, Chicago, Not-Oakland, Washington, Baltimore, Miami, and Pittsburgh, we hope you will convince some others who are on the fence to set up shop. Th league needs inventory! Let your fall from grace be a wakeup call to Kansas City, Cleveland, Minnesota, and Boston to hopefully join your ranks. We’ll get to them another day.

The Braves Might Get Even Worse

Before we get started, it is important to know that the Braves have a few near MLB ready prospects but otherwise a bottom tier farm system. Nacho Alvarez is probably a 3rd baseman, but with Austin Riley embedded at the hot corner they are playing him at short and will get a chance to play there next season. Hurston Waldrep is struggling bad in the high minors but might still be part of next year’s big club. All in all, the Atlanta talent pipeline seems to have dried up. With the promotion of Schwellenbach last year and Drake Baldwin this year, that seems to be the end of the Braves days of being able to just plug and play whoever.

The Braves are primed to sell with several interesting relievers and expiring contracts. Now, let’s take a look at the merchandise…

Ronald Acuna – OF

It was brought to my attention by Matt Dargan that the Braves could look to trade Ronald Acuna. At first, I had to back up off of it and sit my cup down because that would be a true blockbuster. It isn’t crazy though. Acuna might have the most team friendly second contract in pro sports and he would get an absolute Santa Clause bag size haul in prospects. We aren’t talking the Red Sox fumbling the Mookie Betts trade sort of thing, we are talking at least 2 elite MLB ready prospects and much more. If it were the Phillies, Atlanta would ask for Andrew Painter, Aiden Miller, and probably someone like Cristopher Sanchez too. I’m not saying we should do that, but that is the kind of haul they would probably get.

I still don’t think it happens, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility either. If he goes, then Matt Olson and Austin Riley might go too. Then all of a sudden we have a full tear down happening in Atlanta. Again though, they are barren when it comes to minor league talent, so this would be a way to jump to the top of the list if that’s what they wanted to do.

Marcell Ozuna – DH

Ozuna is in the final year of his contract ($16m) and is a virtual lock to get moved as long as an acquiring team doesn’t care about A-holes with DUIs who strangle their wife. This is baseball though so he should still have a robust market despite that and being limited to DH only duty. He was awful in June (like hitting .188/.263/.287 awful) but is traditionally a strong hitter with a good eye. Despite the dreadful month, he still sports a .370 OBP which would somehow be 2nd on the Phillies.

The SF Giants seem like a good landing spot. They are always starved for offense and currently feature Wilmer Flores at 1st with Rafael Devers at DH. Devers offers them some positional versatility even though he was against it in Boston (for other reasons in which I defended). Adding Ozuna to the mix gives them a pretty solid heart of the lineup with Matt Chapman and Devers.

Sean Murphy – C

After Ozuna, Murphy is the most likely position player to go. There are not many quality catchers out there, but the Braves happen to have two and they are not trading rookie Drake Baldwin. Atlanta is always looking to shed superfluous payroll and would love to get rid of the remaining 3/$45m on his deal. To be honest, that’s not a bad contract for a solid catcher that offers decent pop (12 HRs).

The Phillies just saw the Padres come to town and offer basically nothing offensively at the catcher position. Granted their ownership situation is a bit murky and their payroll is high, but this is the type of swing you could see from their GM. Their lineup falls off a cliff after the top 5 and Murphy would be a huge upgrade.

Raisel Iglesias – RP

The 35-year-old righty is in the final year of his deal making $16m. He’s been bad but has closer experience. He was much better in June than he was in April and May, giving up runs only twice in 11 appearances. In a tight market and if they eat the remainder of his salary, they could pry away a top 10 organizational prospect from someone for him.

Pierce Johnson – RP

Johnson is a 34 year old righty making $7m this year with a team option for $7m next season. He has been solid all season sporting a 1.16 WHIP and a 3.06 ERA. In 9 appearances since the start of June he has only given up runs once. Opponents may get hits off of him, but he keeps them to singles with opponents slugging only .364 against him.

Aaron Bummer – RP

The lefty has brought himself out of an early season hole to bring his ERA down to 2.86. In his last 18 appearances he has only given up earned runs 3 times. Throw in his cheap salary this year of $3.5m (and ignoring his $9.5m balloon payment next year) and he should join Ozuna as another lock to be out the door.

Rafael Montero – RP

The Braves acquired Montero early in the season in a trade with the Astros. Houston’s pen is that loaded that it could afford to trade the righty (though they did eat most of his contract). Well, he will probably be on the move again because he is still pretty solid. His only blemish in his last 13 appearances was a 3-run homer to Corbin Carroll in his second inning of work. The salary obligation is a minimal pro-rated $3m because Houston paid off most of his $11.5m salary.

Enyel de los Santos – RP

The former Phillie is enjoying one of his finest seasons as a pro. In his last 24 appearances he has only given up earned runs 3 times. His ERA would be much better than 3.74 had he not been tattooed by Colorado for 4 runs while recording no outs back in June. He is a righty making only $1.4m and has another year of control after this one. I can’t imagine him sticking around.

The Braves are currently 6.5 games out of the wildcard with 5 teams to jump to make the playoffs. It is not insurmountable, but the pitching injuries have just decimated this team and lineup stalwarts like Ozzie Albies, Michael Harris, and Ozuna are not pulling the weight they once did. Add to that, their left field and shortstop situations have been atrocious. They would need a miracle run to get back in the race and they are running out of time. The trade deadline is almost here: