There are a few very unfortunate consequences to the Atlanta Braves being sellers at the trade deadline.
The obvious one is that that means the team is already bad and will likely get worse after they send pending free agents (at least) to other teams and try to limp through the final couple months of the season. A consequence that is arguably worse than that is that Braves fans have to watch bitter rivals like the Phillies get better.
The Phillies are an annoyingly good baseball team, but Braves fans could take some solace in the fact that they are definitely getting long in the tooth. Their best players are mostly starting to regress from their primes and unless Philly takes some drastic action, their competitive window is going to close relatively soon with a lot of bad money on their books beyond that point.
Unfortunately, the Phillies just took a significant step towards securing their long-term viability after striking a blockbuster trade with the Twins for a new closer in Jhoan Duran.
New Phillies closer Jhoan Duran is probably going to terrorize the Braves for a long time
There was a time when Duran looked like a trade target the Braves should have made a push for.
Unfortunately, Duran’s market was extremely robust and between the price tag and Atlanta’s place in the standings, the logic behind making such a move which would inevitably cost the Braves most of their prospect depth was lacking.
Instead, the Phillies of all teams end up with Duran and they now have a bullpen everyone should fear for this year and beyond. In addition to adding the flamethrowing closer who is arbitration eligible through the 2027, the Phillies already signed David Robertson a little over a week ago.
The good news, at least, is that the trade was at least reasonably painful for Philly.
They had to give up their #6 prospect in Mick Abel who has been pitching well for them in the big leagues as well as their fourth ranked prospect in catcher Eduardo Tait who is a project at 18 years old, but who should grow into big time raw power as he matures.
