The trade deadline is less than a week away, and the Braves are expected to be busy as Alex Anthopoulos tries to inject some damn life into this team.
The Braves are amid a critical series against the Mets, dropping the first of four in extra innings in one of the most frustrating games I’ve watched in a long time. By the end of the weekend, the Braves could find themselves on the outside looking in of the Wild Card race, forget about the NL East.
The trade deadline cannot get here fast enough, but one potential Braves trade target is already off the market. Thursday night, the Mariners and Rays agreed to a trade centered around Randy Arozarena. Seattle sent two mid-level prospects and a prospect to be named later in exchange for the veteran outfielder.
There were several factors in a potential Randy Arozarena trade that made sense for the Braves. He is in the midst of a bad season, batting .211/.318/.394 with 15 home runs and 16 stolen bases in his first 100 games.
However, he’s under team control for multiple years, possesses a similar clubhouse presence that Joc Pederson brought in 2021, and has a stellar track record in the postseason.
In 33 career postseason games, he’s slugging .690 with 11 home runs. That’s incredibly enticing for a team like the Mariners and Braves. As far as Atlanta and the multiple years of team control, the Braves may be counting on Ronald Acuna Jr. to return in 2025, but I don’t know how wise that is for a guy who tore his second ACL in three years.
It seems Alex Anthopoulos may prefer quantity over quality, and he might not be wrong. The Braves have more holes than prospects to trade for players to fill them, so even acquisitions of slightly below league average players would be a massive improvement.
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Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire
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