Reaction to the Atlanta Braves trade deadline inaction
After taking a day to breathe after the trade deadline, it’s time to grade the Atlanta Braves’ actions.
Officially, the Atlanta Braves declared that they did not wish to pay the price — ‘mortgaging their future’ — for the players that were available at the yesterday’s deadline.
"“There were a lot of players moved,” Anthopoulos said. “But we had to ultimately decide: How good are these players? How much will they be an upgrade over what we already have?”"
The Braves were definitely “in” on many discussions — that much has been leaked despite Alex Anthopoulos’ notoriously tight-lipped front office. In terms of starting pitching, they looked at Mike Clevinger (traded from Cleveland to San Diego), Lance Lynn (not traded by Texas), and were linked to Joe Musgrove (not traded by the Pirates)… as a minimum.
As we now know, of course, the Atlanta Braves made no deals after the Tommy Milone trade.
Other reports (primarily from MLB Network Radio) have suggested the following about the state of things around the league:
- Seattle (Jerry DiPoto): few-to-no hits on third baseman Kyle Seager; many more on their young assets (read that as ‘Marco Gonzalez’), but they are content to hold onto those guys to build around.
- Yankees (Brian Cashman): found the marketplace ‘risky’ and thus they weren’t willing to engage in much activity.
In the meantime, San Diego GM A.J. Preller acted like his job was on the line — it probably is — by upgrading his catchers, bullpen, and starting pitching. All of that in a flurry of deals within the last 24 hours before Monday’s deadline.
So with that, it was as if everybody arrived at the party only to find that Preller had eaten all of the best snacks before others even got hungry… and there was definitely a food shortage.
Suffice it to say this, then: the Braves aren’t hungry enough.
"“We’re going to do the best we can with the guys we have here,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said."
That’s the bottom line, but there’s much more to say about that line.