Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: A Rumor Squelched Hard

Sometimes rumors are important pieces of information as we try from afar to gauge the actions of our favorite team.  Last night might be instructive for a different reason.

Last night, FanRag’s Jon Heyman tweeted a juicy sounding rumor about interest around the league for 2B Brian Dozier of the Twins.  That list of teams included the Atlanta Braves.

Immediately, that made me sit up and go “really?”  This would be a surprising development on many fronts.  Granted, Heyman’s tweet suggested merely that the Braves ‘have kicked tires’, but the neurons were still firing wildly with the concept.

I mean, who wouldn’t like the idea of a second baseman that hit 42 homers last year?  Heck, he did that and put up 99 RBI for a bad team.  He was their version of Dan Uggla… with a respectable batting average, K-rate, and more.

But just as thoughts moved from there to just how much it might take to acquire Dozier – a lot – this came in from Heyman:

Now a squelched rumor isn’t unheard of.  But check this…

• The correction was spit out within 10 minutes of the initial rumor
• The initial tweet has been deleted.

Wow.

Normally, teams blow off random rumors.  There are simply too many of them around to deal with, 99% result in absolutely nothing, and sometimes they can actually provide a nice smokescreen for whatever the team is actually trying to accomplish.

Heck, when I suggested back in October that Justin Verlander might be a great target to go after – based on nothing but speculation, Tigers’ statements, and pitching staff needs – that ended up getting blown into a full-blown rumor for a while… yet the Braves remained silent even as they were getting started on deals with Collmenter (11/7), Colon (11/17), and Dickey (11/10).

But this one was different somehow.

This rumor needed to be stomped on… and quickly.

I Do Have To Wonder Why

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I would have to think that Coppy has something currently in negotiations – and fairly deep into it – for somebody to have called or DM’d Heyman and apparently asked him to retract and delete that information.

It could be that they’re telling Scott Boras that they only have X dollars to offer Matt Wieters… and didn’t want Boras to yell “Aha!” with news that the team might be interested in paying Dozier as well.

But whether it’s a trade or free agent negotiation… nobody knows, and we might never know if the deal falls apart.  But it would appear that introducing “interest” in a second baseman was deemed to be unhelpful to the process.

For the record:  the Nationals aren’t really in on Dozier, either:

Counting the Costs Anyway

Frankly, Dozier – as nice as that extra bat might be – would have been a luxury.  He’s under contract for 2 more seasons, but the Twins rightly want a mint for him.

Given that the Dodgers are willing to include #2 prospect Jose De Leon, but are now  stuck on including another significant prospect wanted by the Twins, Atlanta would be hard pressed to outbid anyone for Dozier anyway.

For our part, you’d have to think Minnesota would want start with asking for Ozzie Albies to replace Dozier and that’s not likely to happen at all.

So … we’ll wait.

Next: Here's Another Way ATL Isn't Sleeping

But there’s one thing for sure:  the Braves’ Front Office is paying very close attention… and they aren’t merely checking off calendar days until the season starts.