The Blue Jays, Brewers, Cubs and Indians are the four teams on Justin Upton’s revised no-trade list, FOX Sports’ Jon Paul Morosi reports (via Twitter). Upton’s contract allows him to block deals to four teams per year, and since his deal is up after the 2015 season, there have been whispers that Atlanta could explore trading Upton this winter. One team notable by its absence on this year’s list is the Mariners; when Upton was with the Diamondbacks, he vetoed a deal that would’ve sent him to Seattle in January 2013. Here’s some more from the Braves camp…
- President of baseball operations John Hart denied a Joel Sherman report that the Braves were shopping Evan Gattis, calling it “absolutely inaccurate.” Hart told the media (including David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution) that “we are coming in with the idea that we don’t have to trade anybody. We have not made a call (to see if a team is interested in any player). We have received calls on people; we haven’t had any conversations yet.”
- Hart said the Braves will look to add starting pitching this winter, though they’ll look at the “B tier and down” rather than any of the big names on the free agent market. If Atlanta did acquire a higher-caliber, it would likely be in a trade. “Money could be freed up; there’s a lot of different dynamics there,” Hart said. “But from where we sit today, that would be the sort of level that we would be looking at.”
- The Braves could be interested in re-signing Aaron Harang, though Hart said the team will wait to see how Harang’s market develops. In a Free Agent Profile of Harang, MLBTR’s Zach Links predicted the veteran righty would find a two-year, $14MM deal this winter.
In other words, we have listened and the deal isn’t right YET! We know they will keep calling and eventually offer enough to make a deal happen.
I expect Gattis, J.Upton, BJ Upton traded by the end of these meetings. Braves are going to have to throw someone in for a team to take on BJ.
Sad thing is I don’t know if any deal can be made to get BJ out. I think the best possibility is with his brother.
Who’s going to pay almost $30M for the pair?? No one, because that’s a ridiculous amount of salary to take on just to get Justin Upton for a single year. And there’s the $33M BJ bonus in 2016-17.
You trade Justin to maximize the value you get from him. Period. If you can trade BJ in a bad contract swap, so be it. If you can’t do that, try to get a few million in salary relief or just keep him and hope there’s a turnaround.
But you don’t ruin the good by serving it with the bad, because no one is interested at that price and you get absolutely nothing in return.
-C
Dodgers took on Carl Crawford’s Contract. that was a pretty awful one too.
There’s no cap, so the Braves will either keep BJ and eat all of his salary, or dump him and eat most of it anyway. The Braves can easily afford some dead money and not go bankrupt. Unless someone gets Gattis or Justin with BJ, the Braves won’t get anything for BJ Upton. Additionally, it will actually be hurting the return if they package BJ with Gattis or Justin.
in order to trade BJ every call John Hart makes has to start with “We failed as a organization, can you please take this albatross off our hands?”
jays? never saw that coming.
Rios might be the only guy over the last 10 years to have the Jays on a team he’s willing to be traded to. Could be that he’s not American, or more likely lived here and found out it’s a great country to live in…
Can teams put Upton on their no-trade list? “Yeah, we’d LOVE to trade for his declining production, but he’s on our updated no-trade list this season.”
Declining production? His career average OPS+ is 121 he had a 124 OPS+ in 2013 and 132 in 2014. Seems like he’s doing ok.
Oops… apologies. I was thinking of brother BJ. Justin’s OK, I guess…
Brewers have ZERO need for him. Thanks for updating your list.
as a Cubs fan can i just say ‘good, we feel the same way Justin’?
cincy-j.cueto or matt latos
for
atlanta-j.upton
If the Braves trade Justin it will be to get multiple young high upside players/prospects.
yell cueto was only runner up in the cy young award and pitching in cincinatti a hitters ball park. justin is probably worth alot more than cueto. talking about over valuing your players. lol
When you give up someone like Cueto/Upton, you want to get back multiple young pieces that could be future stalwarts. Cueto would be great, but ATL is not seriously looking at contending. They need more than just moving Upton, and it wouldn’t make sense for a 1 year’s rental of Cueto – unless they could re-sign him – knowing that there could be some other teams that might offer high upside prospects that could help ATL’s shallow farm depth, which is one main reason Schuerholz let Wren go.
I would offer Harang 2 yrs and 10 million max. Justin Upton to the Mariners makes sense.
The way I look at it, is the Mariners are looking for a right handed power bat to protect Robinson Cano, they could deal Kyle Seager their allstar 3B for Justin Upton who kills right handed pitching. Mariners would get Justin and don’t need to outbid the market for the 35 year old Victor Martinez, and they can focus on Chase Headley that would require significantly less money and no draft pick compensation.
Braves can move Gattis to LF, and Seager will start everyday instead of Chris Johnson(with a healthy amount of days off vs strong left handed pitching) and they save money to get a quality pitcher or 3.
J Up to the Mariners would require D J Peterson plus a pitching prospect.
You can keep upton then, there is no way he is worth kyle seager or dj peterson for one year of upto. its shows that you guys are not mariner fans
I think your over valuing DJ Peterson a bit being he hasn’t proven anything at the MLB level yet.
Who else are you sending along with Upton to the Mariners?
Possibly Gattis but then M’s might have kick something back. Maybe a a expendable leadoff type outfielder? Regardless It would take more than a 1 for 1 swap to make things fair.
James Jones?
Way too much money for Aaron Harang. No way he repeats what he did last year. I would offer 1 year/5M at the MOST.
You are overstating Justin’s worth. He only has one year left on his contract and Seager is one of the young stars of the Mariners. No chance that trade gets done.
Gattis cannot play LF. He had -10 defensive runs saved in only 48 games in 2013. He is a DH and back-up catcher/1B only.
The Orioles have Bud Norris who is pretty good and would be even better in the NL. What do you have to offer Braves?
Chris Johnson.
Listen, I get what you’re saying, in terms of value production/$ Seager has more value. But for your team Justin Upton is the perfect fit to balance the lineup and at the end of the year if you are unable to sign Justin to a long term deal, you still get a draft pick back. If you follow through by getting Justin Upton and Chase Headley and trading Kyle Seager I think the Mariners immediately become World Series contendors. That’s why I think it makes a lot of sense.
Braves would haves to kick in more than J-Up for Seagar. I’d love for the Braves to get Seagar, but even with DJ Peterson ready to move to the MLB level I don’t see the M’s moving Seagar.