Braves given bad news by Astros general manager on top trade target originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Currently the best team in Major League Baseball by three games, the Atlanta Braves have to feel great about how the year has gone.
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Sitting at 45-21 with a run differential of +116, it doesn’t seem like Atlanta is going to slow down anytime soon. If anything is going to stop this team, it will be the injuries they’ve dealt with over the past few months, and even some that have been problems for years.
Winning the National League will be no easy task, however, and adding at the trade deadline seems to be what the Braves need to do. No matter how that happens, Atlanta needs to get better, and one player in particular that many think could help them do that is Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros.
Alvarez figures to be the best player traded if he gets dealt, though there are plenty of questions about whether it will actually happen. Speaking to reporters about whether the team is going to sell, Astros general manager Dana Brown poured cold water on the idea of Alvarez or anyone else being dealt.
“I just don’t see us being sellers right now,” Brown said, per the Houston Chronicle.
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“To be sellers, for me, it would be like we failed. So I don’t think this team is a team that’s going to be sellers at the deadline. I think we’re good enough. I think the division is wide-open. We’ve gone through some injuries; I think other teams are starting to experience some injuries as well. The division is wide open, the postseason is wide open. So, I don’t foresee us being sellers.”
I don’t want to say this is bad news for the Braves because, in a sense, there was no guarantee they were going to get Alvarez.
Some were connecting the dots about what the Braves needed and what he could bring to the team, though there wasn’t any deal in place. At the same time, this is far from ideal for Atlanta if it wanted him, as he would have been a ridiculous addition to what’s already one of the better offenses in baseball.
