The Braves may not have a true “untouchable” prospect, but they do have a few young players who would be awfully hard to pry away.
That’s the line Alex Anthopoulos drew when asked about the trade deadline and whether Atlanta has anyone it absolutely would not move. His answer left the door open, but only a crack.
“Off Limits? No,” Anthopoulos said.
“We actually had a meeting today talking about that exact scenario. It depends, right?
Most times at the deadline the rentals are the guys that are available in trades, meaning guys on expiring contracts… But look, there might be some surprising controllable guys, meaning guys with more than one year of club control that we kind of went around the room and said is there anybody - because we know we’re going to get asked this - there’s probably one guy that we’d have a hard time with.
“But do we have a slam dunk, like somebody we think is a Hall of Famer right now, no. We have some guys we think are really good.
I think the tricky part for us is we always want to win in the current year, but we’re trying to keep this sustainable. We have a core, we have a very good core, but that core is aging… If you want to not have a rebuild, you need some young guys to replenish.”
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel doesn’t expect Atlanta to get aggressive with its best prospects, either. McDaniel pointed to the Braves’ track record of holding onto their top system talent and developing it internally, which is why he thinks Cam Caminiti, Eric Hartman and Tate Southisene are unlikely to be moved.
“The Braves don’t tend to deal from the top of their system, as they’ve had a lot of success holding and developing those players, and then putting them in the rotation or the lineup,” McDaniel writes. “As such, I think it’s unlikely they will deal any of Southisene, Hartman or Caminiti, and they can’t deal any of the recent draftees.”
If Atlanta were to even entertain moving one of that trio, it would probably take a frontline starter with multiple years of control to get the conversation going.
Caminiti brings the upside of a top-of-the-rotation arm. Hartman is in the middle of a historic run in High-A Rome and has looked like a true five-tool player. Southisene, meanwhile, has been just as impressive in his first full pro season, climbing to High-A Rome at 19 and carrying an OPS well above .800.
Even if those three stay put, the Braves still have plenty of young talent to dangle. AJ Smith-Shawver, JR Ritchie, Hurston Waldrep - if his injury isn’t serious - and Owen Murphy all figure to draw interest. And farther down the ladder, John Gil, Briggs McKenzie and Alex Lodise give Atlanta more options to work with if the right deal comes along.
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