Twas the night of the trade deadline, and the Braves were in the middle of the pack. The Phillies have the division, and Atlanta’s grip on Wild Card #1 has been slippery as of late. Max Fried is on the DL, joining Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II, while Ronald Acuña, Jr. and Spencer Strider are done for the year. Reynaldo Lopez has tightness in his forearm.
Those not injured, are not performing, save for Marcell Ozuna and a resurgent Jarred Kelenic, but Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Adam Duvall and Orlando Arcia definitely are about as reliable as a Dodge Caliber this season. Aside from Chris Sale, the pitching staff is in shambles due to the loss of Strider and Fried, as Father Time has clearly caught up to Charlie Morton, and the revolving door of Bryce Elder, Spencer Schwellenbach and whomever was scheduled to pitch in Double-A or Triple-A has been less than effective.
Weeks leading up to the trade deadline, there was all sorts of buzz about what the Atlanta Braves should do, to patch their weaknesses, reinforce their offense and build for the playoffs that they are no guarantee to even make. Braves fans in Facebook communities, blogs and websites all throwing out ideas, mostly putrid, but occasional logical ones, about the things the teams should do in order to accomplish all of the above mentioned.
And whenever this time of the baseball season comes up, there are always these types of fans:
- Trade everything for [Mike Trout] and [Shohei Ohtani] – fans who don’t really know much about baseball economics and think that in real sport, you can make trades like an EA game and trade Derek Harper for Penny Hardaway straight up
- Trade absolutely nothing at all because there’s no chance the return on investment will be worth the cost of assets being given up – internet bean-counters who know way too much about baseball economics and have this intrinsic belief that absolutely every baseball transaction possible much be “a win,” that every trade partner must “lose” the trade, and if such conditions don’t seem likely, don’t make it, regardless of how many moving parts there are and the unpredictability of player performance
- And then there are people like me, crabby old fucks who have been following sports for a very long time, have recognized patterns and tendencies for the teams they follow, are mostly cynical and nihilistic about the likely realities about to befall their preferred teams, and the degrees and willingness to opine their opinions may vary
I used to not engage with rando-communities, but probably a combination of boredom, and that The Algorithm is spoon-feeding me content that pops enough synapses in my brain to drop random comments on various accounts, most of them being Braves communities where I occasionally wish to voice my displeasure with AJ Minter, Bryce Elder, and how the team would be best suited to sign the still-available Trevor Bauer, if he didn’t have this freakishly obviously collusion to blacklist him from the entire league over his head.
I don’t pay much concern over the reactions my words get, and I definitely don’t interact with other users beyond a laughing emoji at the response that are actually decent, but it’s really nothing different from any online community anywhere on the internet: people making wild trade scenarios, trade everything fans bickering with trade nothing fans, and so forth.
More recently, I decided to chime in to a few Braves communities, and I opined that the Braves aren’t doing to make any moves at all beyond a fourth outfielder-type and a relief pitcher; I figured the remark were just enough snarky without me having to blather on about how The Braves Way™ is that of crippling risk-aversion and hand-cuffing cheapness, which it totally is by the way.
And when the trade deadline lapsed, and the evening crossed midnight, where transactions that begun before the deadline needed to be finalized by, and all the smoke of the day’s activities had cleared up, the Atlanta Braves had made only one transaction-trading injured relief pitcher Tyler Matzek and minor league infielder Sabin Ceballos for:
Jorge Soler, outfielder
Luke Jackson, relief pitcher
At this point, all I could really do is shrug like Michael Jordan in the 1992 NBA Finals, after he drowned the Portland Trailblazers in a barrage of three-pointers as if to say, that was easy. I’ve been following the Braves for a pretty long time now, and I’ve seen this song and dance before. Save for a few exceptions throughout the years, the majority of the years, the Braves always seem convinced that the only things they ever need at the trade deadline is another outfielder and another relief pitcher, and that all other needs can be filled internally (cheaply) – That’s The Braves Way™!
In this season’s case, they’re not wrong that they needed some help on both accounts, but the fact of the matter is that the starting rotation has two gaping holes in it, and the team has been incapable of scoring runs the vast majority of the season.
All around the league were decent talents from teams who were out of playoff contention and thrown in the towel, trying to improve their futures at the price of said decent talents available for trade. And as the days ticked down to the trade deadline, they would come off the board, one by one, with the Phillies picking up Carlos Estevez from the Angels, the Yankees getting Jazz Chisholm, Jr. from the Marlins, the Dodgers getting Jack Flaherty from the Tigers, to name a few examples of front-running contenders actively trying to get even better for the stretch run.
And once again, the Braves sit on their hands all trade season long, and do nothing but pick up a fourth outfielder and a relief pitcher. I’ve seen this rerun, many, many times in my life now.
For those keeping score, in spite of all the Braves’ many needs, the only outside acquisitions they’ve really made this season, was picking up Soler and Jackson, as well as a few weeks ago, picking up Eddie Rosario from the Washington Nationals’ literal trash after they had designated him for assignment. Obviously, all of these guys were notable contributors to the 2021 World Series winnings squad, and it’s evident that the Braves’ front office is trying to challenge the intelligence of fans and supporters of the team by bringing back these nostalgia acts, as if they’re miraculously going to turn the team’s fortune around, three years later, older and used.
It goes without saying that the Braves have thrown in the towel on the year themselves, by their sheer lack of willingness to invest and improve. Of course they will never admit it, but it seems pretty evident that they’re phoning in the roster on account of all the injuries that have decimated the roster, and probably thinking, we’ll just try again next season; regardless of the fact that Max Fried is probably gone, as probably is Marcell Ozuna who is playing his ass off in a walk year, two of the most competent players on the current roster.
They’ll assume Chris Sale will reward their investment into his bounceback, Spencer Strider will recover to 110%. That this season was not a fluke for Reynaldo Lopez, and that between Elder, Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep,* they can go back to the glory days of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz.
*could these names get any whiter?
They’ll also assume Acuña and Harris will recover fully, Albies will get back to his All-Star form and Olson and Riley will bounce back. Arcia might be the only guy on the hot seat, but I’m under the impression that Braves Corporate is already envisioning a fresh start in 2025 with all of their current assets in place, and that 2024 is already a lost cause, and any success to come from it would be considered a bonus.
At this point, it’s actually a bad thing for the Braves front office if the team does well enough to have a little playoff run, and then get bounced in the NLDS again. Because then there will be all sorts of hindsight fire, criticism and accusations that the organization didn’t do enough to improve the team to where they might have pushed across the finish line for more success, instead of sputtering to another early playoff exit.
But if and when it happens, it’s not like it’s something that most older Braves fans haven’t seen before. Such is, the curse of having knowledge sometimes.
