Atlanta Braves Acquire First Baseman Matt Adams

The Atlanta Braves announced a trade no one expected this afternoon acquiring Matt Adams from the Cardinals for minor league infielder Juan Yepez.

I guess the Atlanta Braves were tired of showing Driven to start rain delays. When today’s game came back from commercial, Chip Caray and Joe Simpson told us that the Braves had just acquire Matt Adams and cash from the St Louis Cardinals for minor league infield Juan Yepez.

Atlanta Braves needed a first baseman St Louis had one to spare

According to

speaking from the Fox Sports South booth during the rain delay, the Braves had been in discussions with St Louis before the

came on board. The Loney deal was done on Friday so essentially as soon as they got confirmation

would be out for a prolonged period they contact the Cardinals.

Obviously the Cardinals assumed they had leverage. After all they had a power hitting first baseman they were  willing to move and the Braves badly needed one. Except the Braves refused to jump at the first ask. . .or the second, third. . Hart said the Cardinals went through a long list of  players they wanted but that the Braves would not discuss before agreeing on Yepez.

Even more interesting to me is that the Cardinals included cash.  Yepez is a good young player but he’s in A ball with a .275/.309/.387 line in 152 AB this year; they paid us to take Adams off their hands. The amounts haven’t been announced yet but Adams contract was only $2.8M contract this year and has about 1.85M still due. He’s also under control for 2018, his last arbitration year.

Why? Well they had no place to put him. Matheny decided in the spring to play Matt Carpenter at first base in order to keep Aledmys Diaz, Jedd Gyorko and or Jhonny Peralta in the lineup. They tried to make him a left fielder but for obvious reasons that didn’t work so they had an unhappy player on their bench. Still it’s surprising they are giving us any money.