The Braves and Royals have already swung one trade together this month, and we’re a year removed from the huge-in-hindsight swap that sent Jorge Soler to Atlanta. Now, the Braves have interest in another K.C. outfielder, as MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter) reports that Michael A. Taylor is under consideration. Taylor is delivering his usual excellent center field defense while also enjoying the best offensive season of his career, with a 111 wRC+ from hitting .275/.345/.395 in 262 plate appearances.
Since Taylor is under contract through 2023, he represents a longer-term option for an Atlanta club that could lose Adam Duvall in free agency this winter. Duvall is already out for the rest of the season due to wrist surgery, so Taylor could step right in as the right-handed hitting side of a left field platoon with Eddie Rosario. Taylor also provides cover in center field if star rookie Michael Harris starts to slump, but playing Taylor and Harris in the same outfield would also make for an excellent defensive pairing.
More from around the AL Central…
- Reports surfaced earlier this week that the Guardians were open to discussing their controllable starting pitchers in trade talks, and Jon Heyman of The New York Post reports that the Phillies have interest in right-hander Zach Plesac. A trade for Plesac or any controllable pitcher would be a little complex, since Cleveland is naturally in the playoff race and is likely looking for at least some players that can provide immediate help. This could perhaps help the Phils, who don’t have a terribly deep farm system, and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski recently said that “I just don’t think we’re there” in terms of having the flexibility to deal their top prospects. Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia thinks the Phillies are likelier to move position-player prospects than young pitchers. Speculatively, a top-100 prospect like catcher Logan O’Hoppe could be of particular interest to a Guardians team that has been looking for a long-term answer behind the plate.
- The Blue Jays are one of the teams showing interest in Tigers reliever Michael Fulmer, according to MLB.com’s Jon Morosi (via Twitter). The former AL Rookie of the Year has revived his career with two strong years as a relief pitcher, and is a natural trade chip for the struggling Tigers since Fulmer is scheduled for free agency after the season. Toronto’s bullpen has been generally solid but somewhat inconsistent, and Fulmer would help reinforce the high-leverage innings in front of All-Star closer Jordan Romano.
- Cubs relievers David Robertson and Mychal Givens are among the bullpen arms being considered by the White Sox, Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Sun-Times writes. While it used to be quite rare to see the two Windy City rivals combine on trades, the Sox landed Craig Kimbrel and Ryan Tepera in separate deals just last year, not to mention the Jose Quintana/Eloy Jimenez/Dylan Cease blockbuster back in 2017. Left-handed hitting outfield help also appears to be on the Southsiders’ radar, as Gonzales writes that the White Sox had interest in David Peralta before the Diamondbacks traded Peralta to the Rays earlier today.
The White Sox can have Robertson and Givens in exchange for Dylan Cease.
Lmao no
Not in this lifetime, a young starter for two rentals, no.
Pretty sure that was in jest… Well done!
Think that may have been a joke?
That may have been a joke?
May have been a joke?
Wouldn’t put it past Hahn.
By Jove, surely you jest!
rather have Whit than Taylor
Why not both?
Yeah I think most people would lol
Yeah most people would
Yeah most people would
Yeah most people would
Yeah most people would.
Hope the Braves figure out something better than Taylor. Good news is, if there is a news article indicating the Braves are interested in XYZ, there is a 99.9999% chance the trade/signing is not happening.
Braves moves are rarely oredictable.
Braves moves are rarely predictable.
Only one that happened after rumors/reports was Shane Greene a few years ago IIRC. But yeah, AA deals in the shadows. Kinda makes it fun tbh
Michael A Taylor has a decent bat and he also has a gold glove. his defense is very good he has proven he can start or he can come off the bench.
Michael Fulmer has been solid. Good arm for someone come postseason.
The cost will be low too since Avila is really good at losing trades
Giants,Red Sox per Heyman Sellers know so Pederson and other OF Braves can get,
Hey Yoda, lefty is Pederson. Not interested likely Braves.
The Braves should be interested in Pederson. They desperately need another lefty with some pop. If they have to face a tough RHP, it’s going to be rough sledding.
I’m not confident Rosario figures it out.
I’ve seen enough of Taylor to know that he’s not good. In fact, without looking at stats, his career #’s are prob similar if not worse than heredia. He might be cheap, and he might be having a decent year… but Taylor is trash and I don’t want him. He’s worth more now than he ever has been and that’s too much. He’ll prob cost a top 30 prospect in our weak organization, and honestly, that’s an overpay
So to clarify. You know that you don’t know but you still know. The player may be better than you know, but you don’t wanna know that, you know. Player is valuable but trash and bad but you don’t wanna know any more than you know.
Got it.
No clarification needed. He’s terrible and we don’t need him. His current market is inflated and not a real representation of his norm. Braves should stay far away
I also don’t want the Braves to acquire Taylor. He may be having a nice season, but they’d be acquiring a guy for 1 1/2 seasons that’s a .242 career hitter with little pop, but who strikes out a lot.
His value is more the glove, and the Braves don’t need that.
I don’t want to underplay the value of having a decent glove. But heredia can provide that without the bat. Otherwise Eddie and Ozuna literally cost us games with their defense
He has a gold glove ! how many outfielders that were a fourth outfielder for a World Series winner can say that? (He won the World Series with the nationals in 2019. that’s where he was the fourth outfielder).
Zach Plesac ? HELL NO !
Yea. I don’t expect much for the Phils at this deadline, but that doesn’t move the needle at all.
VonPurpleHayes;
I was going to comment to you the other day that I saw Plesac as a fit for the Philles at the deadline. As the article states, the problem is the return. Cleveland has so many solid young prospects that they have a 40 man roster crunch. So getting 2 or 3 prospects back is a no go. They don’t need any middle infielders or corner OF’s. So maybe O’Hoppe would work – even though Cleveland has 2 young Catchers that are about to reach FA. Might be possible with a 3rd team.
Frankly, over the years many pitchers have had problems with pitching coach Carl Willis. Plesac just needs a change. He can easily be a quality 4th or 5th starter / innings eater.
Sam, I agree. Eflin has pitched his last game as a Phillie. Plesac is a better pitcher than his ’22 numbers with three years of control remaining. Losing O’Hoppe would hurt but better than filling out the rotation with FA.
To me, Plesac is a guy who hasn’t progressed at all. In fact, you can argue he went backwards. He doesn’t miss enough bats. I get it. He’s young and controllable, but if he isn’t good who cares?It’s not like the Phillies have a good track record for developing talent lately. O’Hoppe can certainly be packaged for a better return than Plesac. I hope these rumors are just that.
Jays need to target Fulmer and Joe Jimenez from the Tigers.
I don’t think they d target Greg Soto but I would imagine the price would be Moreno or Orelvis Martinez type tier of prospect.
Honestly every contender should target Tiger relievers since Al Avila loses just about every trade he makes.
GMs dont control future injuries. Avila is getting a worse rap than he deserves. Just about every pitching prospect they have traded for has gotten hurt. JD trade was the only one with zero value, but I dont think there was much of a market for a rental corner outfielder that year.
Seven years in and the tigers have no stars, a HISTORICALLY bad offense and plenty of failures. Al Avila created this disaster and deserves every criticism coming his way
Fun fact. Tigers GM Avila even traded his own son away once!
Rebuild has been going on for 5 years. Avila’s first two years were on the Illitch’s last stand directive. Bad luck factors in and I do believe Avila has been instrumental in gutting the tigers front office and bringing the team into the 21st century, with a more analytics based approach. Results aren’t there yet, but whoever cleaned up the mess after Mike Illitch died was going to be facing an uphill battle.
The Tigers offense has a WRC+ of 77. They are the only offense to generate negative WAR. They are well behind the AAA offenses of the Nats and As in runs scored.
Al has lost a majority of trades, made disastrous free agent signings and shown an inability to develop positions players.
There is no defense
I was happy about the offseason when it happened. Didn’t expect this regression from Baez, Grossman, Schoop, and Candelario and definitely didn’t expect the issues with Rodriguez and Meadows.
Whomever is responsible for signing Miguel Cabrera is at fault in Detroit
Like when he traded Avila and Wilson to the Cubs?
I liked the Daniel Norris for Reese Olsen trade last year two. A year later and the tigers have both.
I feel like Moreno and Martinez are two very different tiers of prospect.
Kamkid
They are totally different, Moreno is Top 10 in all of baseball- Martinez is Top 100 but not close to being worth what Moreno is. No GM wanting to keep his job would trade Moreno for a reliever or 2 no matter how good.
I’d give you Soto, Fulmer, and Jimenez for Moreno right now…
The worst part is that’s actually not a bad trade for the jays
You do not trade a top 10 overall prospect for Relievers, with one being a pure rental. BA has Moreno as #1 in all of baseball.
Jal
Moreno is a Top 10 prospect in all of baseball there is not a reliever on the planet that would warrant that much prospect capital. Groshans or Martinez + a lesser prospect for all 3 of the Detroit relievers but Moreno will not be moved unless its a blockbuster.
Plesac for Marchan, Rojas, McKinley Moore and Micah Ottebreit.
Not sure Plesac is worth giving up someone like Rojas. I’m good with maybe just Marchan and a couple lower level guys.
I don’t think Cleveland makes that trade though.
They have a 40 man roster crunch. They’d only lose most of those guys the Rule 5 draft.
Doubt it also
The white sox have no business trading for anyone for this season. They are truly awful and have no chance. I am an extremely disgruntled season ticket holder. They may be trying their hardest, but that just proves how bad they are.
They are trying their hardest—to do a lot of nothing. I have never seen so many sports teams work so hard to cling to mediocrity as they do in Chicago. What a bunch of ‘Do nothing’ franchises.
Cubs won the World Series, only about 5 years ago, lol.
So the previous 100+ years don’t matter?
The blue koolaid has been known to wipe memory, as well as critical thinking, so I guess tgat tracks.
The Cubs don’t typically win trades. I can think of maybe three in the past 50 years. It really is quite pathetic.
I guess the “I can think of” part of this statement is doing most of the heavy lifting here.
Were you alive back, 100+ years ago?
It’s funny how White Sox fans would always troll Cub fans about not winning a WS, when until 2005, it was almost as long of a period for them.
Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they revert back to the other side of the argument.
The White Sox typically don;t win. I can think of one time in 120 years where they made the postseason in back to back years and that was when the league added extra playoff spots. It really is quite pathetic.
And they jettisoned any remaining talent since then. The argument is valid, even moreso for the Cubs.
Cubs won in 2016
They’re in a weak division and have had a fair amount of underperformances. Buying at the deadline and a few bouncebacks and they’re in the thick of it.
The bulls were fun this year. Had a lot of injury issues, but when they were healthy at the beginning of the season, they were crushing it. The bears and hawks have been depressing, but at least they’ve went all in on choosing a clear direction.
The Sox are at their payroll limit based on revenue. They have nothing in their farm system to trade or coming up to help the ML team. They have a terrible defense (many DH’s and 1B’s playing elsewhere). bad baserunning, and the lowest Baseball IQ for a team in MLB. They have no idea at all how to manufacture runs and win toss-up games.
No team wins with their O hitting HR’s and the pitchers striking out 22 opponents a game.
Their roster looks good in a rotisserie league though.
Sox won last night with a walk, a bunt, and scoring from 3rd on a wild pitch. Maybe they will start manufacturing runs again like their pre-COVID team.
Maybe Chicago should get a third MLB team you can be a fan of, and change your name to (New Chicago MLB team)Fan, as you did with the Cubs which you were fan of, then changed to be a White Sox fan…Such a loyal fan…ufff!
“No chance”? Jeez. Wish I knew you so we could put some money on that…and I cannot stand the sox
Expecting ATL and NYM to make significant moves to improve team. Curious as to what PHI is planning
Hot take… Taylor is the replacement for Harris who will be traded in Ohtani deal..
lol
Don’t believe any rumors. AA doesn’t let anything out to the press.
The source came from the Royals side of things, not from Atl.
Robertson and givens for Crochet.
Not gonna happen, but I’m in!! Cubs desperately need a LH RP and power arms for their pen.
LOL, are you serious? The Cubs should be looking for s few 5-tool players and an Ace-type pitcher to provide a core for their rebuild. Bullpen should be the lowest priority, duh.
Trade deadline is proving to be a real bust so far! Nothing against MLB trade rumors but there is virtually nothing new in this article.
I think the Soto/Ohtani situations have paralyzed the GM’s. Hope things pick up!!!
They will tuesday, day of the deadline. Trades are always sparse in the days before.
But Castillo got a hual. Also Deadline this year 6pm almost better but midnight better and no games on day or Sunday last Game ends at 6pm.
Deadline isn’t until August 2nd this year. The last 24-48 hours are when a good portion of the big deals are made.
Alot of trade happen in the last few hours of the deadline as prices come down and than other teams don’t have time time to react when a big deal is made.
The draft being moved back a month has adversely influenced the deadline in terms of deals being completed in the weeks leading up to Aug 2nd.
It should get pretty hectic starting tomorrow. Remember, they removed the ability to reach post trade deadline deals in Aug. Everything has to be completed before the new deadline, and this combined with the later draft has thrown a lot of timelines off from what we’re used to.
OK, I give… “The Braves and Royals have already swung one trade together this month” Who was traded? Thorburg was released…
Waters
Thank you.
Hello McFly…anyone home?? Drew Waters for competitive balance draft pick.
Why the sarcasm? BobGibsonFan (AWESOME username, by the way) just couldn’t recall, probably because he or she has other things going on in his or her life. Believe it or not, the trade you referenced was HARDLY of the Earth-shattering variety. Dial it down a notch and show some respect.
Why the sarcasm? So BobGibsonFan (AWESOME username, by the way) couldn’t recall the trade, which was HARDLY Earth-shattering. Maybe BobGibsonFan has other things going on in his or her life. Dial it down a notch and show some respect.
The White Sox are buyers? What are they paying with?
Exactly. WSox offense is putrid against RHPs. Pitching won’t help.
They have so many holes in this team right now. Bad defense, bad baserunning, 2-3 SP, and a LHRP. That doesn’t even start addressing the lack of OBP and walks this team has, not to mention the unreal injuries they keep having. They are a disaster in almost every conceivable way. Yet they are right there in a bad division…
I have no faith in LaRussa’s ability to use Robertson the right way as he would probably overuse him the same way he does Hendriks. I would be much more optimistic if they fired LaRussa.
They’re more likely to fire Rick Hahn and put one of Tony’s boys in charge of running the team. TLR is probably in JR’s ear right now telling him this.
Fire TLR would be the best addition by subtraction.
LOL
This is 100% true and 1000% underrated.
White Sox aren’t WS contenders, they should be sellers. That team needs a pivot/retool for next season.
That franchise needs the new majority owner to take control and revamp the entire Baseball Ops department.
Agree!
They have no one to sell. Either the players they would sell have no value at all, or they are pieces that just haven’t been good due to an injury shortened season.
Platoon? Michael A Taylor is objectively better than Rosario, period.
As a Cub fan, I’m tired of trading w the White Sox…ha, it’s not working out so well for Jed.
Personally I don’t see anything impressive about Nick Madrigal, even though some think that was a win for the Cubs. McKinstry seems more talented and I’ll take his lefty bat at 2B over Madrigal.
Rodon and Robertson would look real nice in a Twins jersey. They’re both rentals so maybe won’t cost toooooo much in prospects
Rodon has legit TOR stuff last couple years following TJS. Despite being a rental, he would get SF a really good headliner prospect in this lacking pitching market.
If Taylor doesn’t cost a lot of $$ or prospect capital…..then that’s right in AA’s wheelhouse. Don’t have a lot to flex in either. I think Atl really needs to get a mediocre of, a backup 2b, & a vet SP.
I just don’t think AA can swing trades for all unless giving up something pretty valuable to their long-term success (Harris/Anderson).
Cubs’ players typically stink under pressure.
Hoyer Sucks
Morning latest 2 Tweets read them first one interstring.
Little known fact… if you type “Dave Dombrowski” into any baseball related search engine, it autocorrects into “Doesn’t have a deep farm system”.
Maybe Zach can wear uncle Dan’s jersey if traded to the Phillies
I think the Phillies should be looking at Happ and either Tarik Skubal, Pablo Lopez, or Carlos Rodon if they really think they can compete. Zach Plesac is a 4 or 5 at best. These untouchable pitching prospects are just that. Prospects. Look at Spencer Howard for example. He was untouchable at one point.
Instead of Taylor, maybe the Braves should be asking about Drew Waters. It seems likely he just, for whatever reason, wasn’t comfortable in Gwinnett. He hit everywhere before he got there and has a 1101 OPS with 4 homers and 9 steals since joining the Royals AAA team.
It seems unlikely, but if they could get him back and put him directly into left field, he may actually be that last piece and what we all thought he was.
Plesac has pitched much better than his record. He’s gotten 1 run or less in 9 of his starts this year. O’Hoppe and a BP arm would do it.
If Jed Hoyer makes another trade with the White Sox, where he trades an asset for some White Sox trash like he did for Madrigal last year, I will be done with him. Rick Hahn must have some blackmail material on Jed.
I dislike the whole attitude of wanting to “win” a trade….like somebody has to lose or you are trying to get away with cheating somebody. Value and usage.
For God’s sake, don’t hire the Superfife. He might eat all the empanadas.
Who’s Don?
Word around the campfire is that the Sox are shipping Vaughn and Foster to the Cubs for Robertson .
If that happens then Hahn should be fired on the spot
The White Sox are a .500 team and no trade for a reliever is going to solve this. Nor is getting an RF or even another starter. Its not worth giving up what little the Sox have in prospects for anything this year. Until the Sox get a heart transplant in the org and in the coaching positions (and a competent conditioning and training staff) and then ship out any players not with that program, they will only be a .500 team at best. At least last year they kinda of beat up on subpar teams, but this year they cannot even do that well. Even in games where there is urgency (which is only because the Sox woefully underachieved in the first half this season) they fail to make an appearance most times.
Yes, the Sox are a .500 club in the AL Central. But i disagree with you on the impact a significant addition to the roster would make. RF and 2B have been huge holes in the roster, such that it puts them at a disadvantage against complete rosters on opposing teams.
A Nick Castellanos or Joc Pederson type addition would give them another slugger in the lineup everyday (which sorely needed). Couple that with a sure handed 2B with a little speed who can hit for contact and take walks, and you have an offense on par with other contending teams when healthy. Everybody in the organization and around baseball sees this. It is apparent owner Jerry Reinsdorf sees this as well, and has forbidden any major position player acquisitions.
Hence why we get the constant, pointless and wasted bullpen additions. The bullpen is moot if you’re losing the game by the 5th inning because you can’t drive in runs or make routine plays on defense. They’re bullpen is overkill for a slightly below average club (move them to a decent division in they’d be 10-20 games under right now).
Let me clarify what I meant regarding Jerry Reinsdorf. I’m trying to say he’s never been motivated to win championships during his 40+ years of owning the club. Whenever they’re good, and close enough to becoming a dominant contender with a big move or two, he tells everyone the team is suddenly broke. But he always finds money to sign inconsequential players/positions where the impact would be marginal. His interest in the club is purely financial. He know Sox fans will only show up to watch a quality ballclub on the field. As long as they have a few guys who can put butts in the seats, and generate decent tv ratings, he gets what he wants. I image his favorite team while growing up in NYC don’t mind this at all. Teams like the Sox who consistently stay away from the limelight for decades get compensated well by the league.