Atlanta Braves might have a familiar trade option for the outfield
That Outfielder Market
Let’s take stock of what we’ve seen so far… and remind ourselves that ideally the Braves would prefer a bigger bat player that defends well and hits from the left side to balance out Donaldson, Acuna, and Flowers.
In recent weeks, we’ve looked at all of these options:
- Michael Brantley (signed with Houston)
- Andrew McCutchen (signed with Philly)
- Nick Castellanos (still with Detroit thanks to a nutty price tag despite only 1 year of control)
- Mitch Haniger (not likely to be moved)
- Domingo Santana (oh wait – that didn’t get posted since Jerry DiPoto is faster than we are)
- A.J. Pollock (said to be seeking a 6-year deal)
- Yasiel Puig (traded to Cincy as noted)
- David Peralta (Arizona doesn’t seem inclined to move him)
- Bryce Harper (yeah…)
- Nick Markakis (still out there…. lingering)
[update: Curtis Granderson has been mentioned… at age 38, I can’t believe he’d be a serious candidate for Atlanta… may as well stay with Adam Duvall if he’s the remaining choice.]
That’s a market getting pretty thin, pretty quickly. Atlanta still needs to get somebody – without overpaying – and that’s why the tweet above makes at least a bit of sense.
Cubs Interest
The Cubs need an upgrade. They were inquiring on Harper, but at the moment, he’s both out of reach and without an obvious spot on the diamond to fill.
But here’s the latest news:
"Recent reports have surfaced claiming that Theo Epstein has requested that Harper delays his decision to give time for the Cubs to dump some salary."
That report also appeared in BleacherNation.com. More backup:
According to The Athletic, the Chicago Cubs have held high-level discussions about a Bryce Harper pursuit. Cubs have maintained a dialogue with agent Scott Boras.
— Daniel Greenberg (@ChiSportUpdates) December 23, 2018
From the Cubs’ perspective, the price for Harper would not be all that prohibitive – provided that they could move Heyward.
Now they might be thinking ‘$30-35 million for Harper minus $20 million for Heyward… that’s only $10-15 million extra per year’, but it wouldn’t quite work like that.
For the Cubs to jettison Heyward, they would have to give up a lot more… extra cash and/or a significant player or prospect to get anybody interested.
But what would you get in Jason Heyward these days?