Atlanta Braves Are Overvaluing Prospects in Big Trade Opportunities

The Atlanta Braves missed out on an opportunity to land a much-needed piece because they are too afraid to trade their top prospects.

We’ve been saying for a while now that at some point Alex Anthopoulos and the Atlanta Braves will need to bite the bullet and make a big trade for a frontline starting pitcher.

Unfortunately, those opportunities don’t come around very often. Every team is in search of that top of the rotation pitcher, and those who have them will rightfully hold onto them as long as they can.

That’s why when you see someone like Mike Clevinger become available you have to get excited about the chance to simply trade for a frontline starter.

And anyone that doesn’t think Clevinger is a frontline guy, go check his stats.

Now, before I go any further, we don’t know exactly what the Cleveland Indians wanted from the Braves and don’t know what AA’s offer was.

We do know, according to Jon Morosi, that the Indians were asking for Drew Waters. We all assume that means he would have been the headliner in the deal, and just about every Braves fan would have been fine with that happening.

And then we heard from AA himself saying the price in terms of prospects was just too high.

Again, we don’t know the specifics of what the Indians asked for, but apparently it was more than Alex was willing to pay for a guy who has proven himself to be a frontline starter for three years straight and is under team control for two more seasons for cheap.

Unless the Indians were asking for Cristian Pache or Ian Anderson, I don’t know how AA doesn’t make this deal.

I wrote here that a similar package to what the Padres gave the Indians would have been Waters, Tucker Davidson, Braden Shewmake, Adam Duvall, and Alex Jackson.

Maybe the Indians still would have preferred the package from the Padres better than this one, but I think that’s a fair offer and one I could live with if the end result is getting a proven frontline starter that will be with the Braves during their window to win a World Series.

My guess is that AA and the Braves wouldn’t be as bold to even offer up a package like that — and I must stress, this is my assumption and I hate to bee too harsh without knowing how everything played out, and we’ll probably never know.

The point being, trades like that hurt. And a lot of Braves fans will point to the JD Drew and Mark Texiera trades as examples of what can happen when you make a big blockbuster and give up good prospects.

But at the same time, Tex and Drew were great with the Braves and we got exactly what we paid for and they helped us compete for a World Series.

You maybe get one or two chances a year to trade for a top of the rotation starter that has years of control. At some point the Braves are going to have to jump at that opportunity and be willing to part with some of their top prospects if they’re going to win that piece of metal again.