Just when you thought it was safe to etch a team’s 25-man roster in stone, along come the Atlanta Braves and San Diego Padres to make us start the process all over.
The two rebuilding clubs—one far more along in the process than the other—hooked up for their second blockbuster trade in four months, with the Braves sending All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel and embattled outfielder Melvin Upton to the Padres for a package of talent, including top pitching prospect Matt Wisler.
It serves as a reminder that while major early-season trades aren’t common, they can still happen—and that contrary to popular opinion, the rumor mill doesn’t always know what’s going on behind closed doors. Nobody saw this deal coming.
That said, the rumor mill always provides us with food for thought and potential scenarios to endlessly debate.
While there are a handful of players who are known to be available—a list that includes Atlanta’s Carlos Quentin (acquired in the Kimbrel trade), Arizona’s Aaron Hill and New York’s Dillon Gee—there’s no real interest in their services at the moment, as noted by The Atlanta Journal Constitution‘s David O’Brien, Fox Sports’ Jon Morosi and the New York Post‘s Mike Puma.
Nor is there any interest in reading about the middling returns that their respective clubs could potentially receive in exchange. Nobody wants to read an article on speculative trade scenarios that features one-for-one deals where it’s an established veteran being traded away for a non-prospect (a player to be named later).
Instead, we’ll focus on a pair of National League clubs—one that’s kind of, sort of rebuilding and another that might have to re-tool on the fly in the months ahead—that have seen rumors fly around some of their players throughout the offseason but that have been reintroduced to the rumor mill in recent days.
Keep in mind that these aren’t deals that would be made today—this is more forward looking than anything—and they are pure speculation. Unless otherwise noted, there’s no indication that any of them have actually been discussed.