Alex Anthopoulos has been very busy talking to the media ahead of the Trade Deadline on August 3. That makes a lot of sense considering it’s getting closer and closer with each passing day and the Braves have some pretty clear spots that need to be addressed ahead of the deadline.
We’ll talk more about it, ourselves, as we get closer to the deadline but I just had to discuss one of the weirdest things that I’ve heard AA talk about since becoming a general manager. DJourn posted it over on The Feed
yesterday but I had to give my two cents on it because it was just absolutely wild to think about.
Back in 2021 when AA pulled off a series of under-the-radar moves that all ended up being crucial when it came to helping the Braves load up for what turned out to be an improbable and incredible run to a World Series title, apparently there was one big move that the Braves were close to pulling off but didn’t get over the finish line.
According to Alex Anthopoulos, current Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber nearly became a member of the Atlanta Braves. AA dropped the bomb on the Chuck and Chernoff Show over on 680 The Fan and Chernoff’s face matched mine when I heard him discuss it at around the 17:50 mark of the video.
Over at FanGraphs, they have a category of articles called “We Tried” where it’s simply a way to keep track of all the times when General Managers or other baseball personalities have revealed to the public that they nearly acquired some big name free agent or trade acquisition. I’m not going to say that this is the biggest “We Tried” in Braves history (Atlanta was linked to both Barry Bonds in the ‘90s and late-career Ken Griffey Jr.) but it’s still insane to think about a scenario where a guy who has a four-homer game to his name against the Braves potentially could’ve been swatting balls into the Chop House for fun as a member of the home team.
Of course, Schwarber could’ve ended up being a rental for the Braves just like he was a rental for the Red Sox and maybe his destination all along was going to be Philadelphia. Also, the Braves did end up winning the World Series in 2021 so this didn’t exactly turn out to be a situation where the Braves were lamenting Schwarber as potentially being “the missing piece” to the puzzle. It is just fun to think about it, though.
It’s also another sign that there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that we aren’t privy to — even a lot of the “insiders” are ultimately just chasing shadows at times. Anything can happen in the world of baseball trade rumors — even if it takes us five years to eventually learn the truth. We’ll see what happens at this year’s deadline.
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