Atlanta Braves Speculation: What Might It Take To Get Trout?

Hey, why not? It’s Christmas for Liberty Media Group and the Atlanta Braves too.  So let’s go shopping for some sushi… Trout.

For the last week, I’ve been thought-experimenting with what it might take to get Mike Trout in an Atlanta Braves uniform.

Leave aside that neither the Braves nor the Angels have any real reason to pursue this trade; the Halos have the best player in baseball (and would incite a revolt among their fans if they traded him for anything less the $1.50 on the dollar) and the Braves have the farm system in place to become contenders in the not-too-distant future (with tons of flexibility in the interim).

I don’t care. It’s Christmas, dagummit; practicality has no place in this consumer-driven market… and after this last week, common sense doesn’t either.

We’re playing under the assumption that John Coppolella is going after his man come hell or high water, that now he wants Mike Trout under the Christmas tree with a ‘To Liberty Media, Love John’ tag affixed and now we’re doing so with some context.  Chris Sale, a top-3 LHP, fetched a consensus top-3 in baseball prospect, another guy around the top-25, another guy in Boston’s top-10 and a bit piece.

Methinks Mike Trout is slightly more valuable than him.

I think it’s important to reiterate this point: This is not a call to cash out now and go all-in on the trade market; that leads to crazy stuff like top-rated prospects for 28-year old outfielders with zero All-Star appearances to their credit (looking at you, Washington).  It’s not even a call to make the trade; it’s an examination of what such a trade might look like and how the pieces might come together.

Teams always regret overpaying for stars, full-stop:  giving up too much for a very good, not-quite-marquee name that resides just outside the cream of the crop is a recipe for disaster and you can confirm that with Arizona (ask them about Richie Sexson or for that matter, Shelby Miller), Seattle (Erik Bedard), the Angels (hey there Vernon Wells) and scores of others.

But trading for a super-duperstar-slash-best-player-in-the-league-slash-immediate-marketing-surge… nobody regrets that. Trout is an in-his-prime superstar and it makes sense for the Angels to move him and reap the windfall, whether it comes from the Atlanta Braves or some other similarly loaded organization. If you’re living in a trailer and win the lottery, you don’t frame the ticket.

Let’s start with what the Angels have that they probably want to keep. A quick rundown of legitimate assets:

• CF Mike Trout.. duh
• SS Andrelton Simmons
• RHP Garrett Richards?
• RF Kole Calhoun?

And what they’re stuck with:

• 1B/DH Albert Pujols

And what’s on the horizon that could help in the next year or two (using MLB.com’s rankings and projected ETA, plus a couple other searches):

• C Taylor Ward (No. 3)
• LHP Nate Smith (No. 5)
• IF David Fletcher (No. 8)
• RHP Vicente Campos (No. 9)
• RHP Grayson Long (No. 10)
• RHP Alex Meyer (No. 11)
• RHP Brooks Pounders (No. 13)

(Note: None of these guys are listed among any top-100 prospect list I found, FYI. So to say they’re top prospects is a very relative term.)

So if absolutely everything broke right, by 2018 the Angels would have two-thirds of a starting lineup and six pitchers and they still wouldn’t really have a lot of disposable cash to go get a game-changer. I don’t think that’s a playoff team, Ma. Call me crazy.