What If: Remember When The Atlanta Braves Almost Traded For Javier Baez?
By Jeff Schafer
Braves Close To Dealing For Baez
Two months from today, it will be a year that Chicago Sun-Times Chicago Cubs beat writer, Gordon Wittenmyer tweeted out that the Cubs and the Braves are close to finalizing a deal. The Cubs were interested in a young pitcher who had just come off a terrific season in Atlanta and the Braves had their eye on a young slugging infielder.
The 25-year-old was enjoying a nice off-season after having a 6-17 season with a 3.02 ERA in his 33 starts. The record doesn’t reflect on the season that Shelby Miller had.
Miller had been one of the most discussed trade candidates in the winter of 2015. Supposedly 20 teams were rumored to be checking in on what the Braves wanted for Miller. Teams were after him and the Braves were willing to deal him.
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When the Cubs called, the Braves had a few names in mind. Two that kept popping up were Jorge Soler and Javier Baez.
Soler, 24-years-old, played mostly left field for the Cubs in 2016 (53 games). He had a slash line of .238/.333/.436 in 2016 with the Cubs. Not the most impressive season.
Baez, 23-years-old, blasted onto the scene and was a huge asset for the Cubs and Manager Joe Madden. Baez played third, short, second, first and left field. He’s mostly short, second and third baseman. He had a slash line of .273/.314/.423 in 2016.
Oh yeah, I guess while I’m on Baez…did you see last night’s Cubs vs Giants game? If not, here you go…
Yeah, that would have been nice to have in our lineup.
What if?
Man, what if…this season could have been so different. And not necessarily for the good or anything like that, but just different.
After so many calls by other teams, the Braves were blown away when the Arizona Diamondbacks and (former) General Manager Dave Stewart called. They offered MLB outfielder Ender Inciarte, one of their top pitching prospects Aaron Blair and the 2015 first draft pick Dansby Swanson. All that for Shelby Miller and minor league relief pitcher Gabe Speier.
Kinda sounds like a robbery and that’s before the season we all saw Miller have in Arizona.
2016 If We Got Baez
Looking back, if the Braves traded with the Cubs instead of the Diamondbacks we would have seen an extremely opposite lineup.
At this point, the Braves had already traded superstar shortstop Andrelton Simmons to the Angels for Erick Aybar, Sean Newcomb and Chris Ellis. So Aybar would have been granted his spot at short.
We had confidence in Adonis Garcia at third heading into the season, so he’d probably be given that spot.
At second base, we had the biggest question mark. I think Baez would have fit into this spot, and quit nicely.
Guessing on our opening day 2016 lineup IF the Braves finalized the deal with the Cubs? That’s tough, but let’s try.
- Baez 2B
- Aybar SS
- Freddie Freeman 1B
- Adonis Garcia 3B
- Nick Markakis RF
- Hector Olivera (ugh) LF
- A.J. Pierzynski C
- Drew Stubbs?? Maybe they would give Mallex Smith the keys out of ST?? Or maybe they would have tried to sign someone else
- Julio Teheran
One more side note, Ozzie Albies would probably still be playing shortstop and could have made him MLB debut in 2016 instead of Swanson.
Next: Ozzie Albies Answer to Braves In 2017
The What If game is always there in anything you do, but since the huge bomb last night from Baez, I thought this was appropriate for a Saturday morning.