Atlanta Braves John Coppolella: “These ARE the Droids (Players) You’re Looking For”
By Dan Horton
It’s time to start thinking trade deadline. With about 6 weeks until the deadline comes and goes, there’s things that I’d like to see happen before that 4:00 PM EDT deadline passes.
The Atlanta Braves are not going to contend for a postseason berth in 2017. This much is, for all intents and purposes, true. So, what trades need to be addressed? Who needs to come up to fill those voids? Will the usual suspects even be moved?
It’s hard to project really the who, what, when, why and how on potential trade deals before the deadline lapses. I have a few players in mind, some obvious, some not so obvious. I believe it’s time to let the kids play.
We saw it last year, and so far, this year through 60 games with Dansby Swanson. I’ve advocated for patience with him from the onset. We knew we weren’t going to be contenders for the playoffs this year.
Pitching
Having insurmountable patience with Swanson is not the same as having patience with R.A. Dickey or Bartolo Colon. Thus, my first two candidates for trade are Colon and Dickey (you could make an argument for Jaime Garcia here as well).
Bartolo Colon and R.A. Dickey were low risk signings. The money seemed a bit high for me at the time, and BOTH have had less than decent starts to the 2017 campaign.
Their trade value has sunk to almost an unrecoverable level, in my opinion. However, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t get something for them if packaged right. Especially when we really don’t need the MLB pieces to survive without them.
In AA Mississppi and AAA Gwinnett, there are more than capable arms to bring up to Atlanta and let them go through growing pains. I’d much rather have those growing pains now, than later, when we are expected to win.
Sean Newcomb is here and it doesn’t look like he’ll be leaving any time soon. Lucas Sims, Patrick Weigel, and possibly Mike Soroka are essentially ready.