Marcus Stroman, Chicago Cubs. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)
The Atlanta Braves keep surging as favorites in the NL, which means an active MLB Trade Deadline, and the bottoming-out Cubs are rich with trade targets.
Maintaining their lead in the NL East and holding the National League’s best record, the Atlanta Braves are the goods. They should be among anyone’s favorites to win the World Series, especially doing what they’ve done to start the year despite a myriad of injuries. The Chicago Cubs, however, are on the opposite end of the specturm.
With a loss on Wednesday night to the Angels, the Cubs dropped their third straight game and their fourth in their last five games. Chicago now sits nine games below .500 and seems to have no answers for how to fix the issue.
Unlike the Braves in the 2023 season, though, the Cubs have started building the roster with eyes toward the future of the franchise, not necessarily intent on contending right now. Subsequently, players who could be gone after this year are prime candidates to make Chicago sellers at the MLB Trade Deadline. And with the Braves being surefire buyers, it’s worth exploring what the Cubs have to offer.
And when you take a look at the roster, there are three clear Braves trade targets that Alex Anthopoulous definitely needs to call the Cubs about before Aug. 1.
Braves Rumors: 3 trade targets to poach from the Cubs
3. Trading for Marcus Stroman would give Braves baseball’s best rotation
One thing that we don’t know about the Braves and Anthopoulos is just how aggressive the organization plans to be at the trade deadline. But if they choose to get frisky and go after the top of the market, then Cubs ace Marcus Stroman should be one of the first players they look at.
Given the season that Stroman is having in Chicago, it might seem ludicrous that they would trade him. After all, the 32-year-old right-hander has given the Cubs 11 Quality Starts in his 13 outings this season, posting an absurdly good 2.39 ERA and 1.00 WHIP over his run this season as well with a 7.7 K/BB rate as well.
The rub with Stroman, though, is that he has a player option for the 2024 season in his contract and, at his age and with his performance this season, he’s surely trending toward opting out and cashing in big on one final big contract.
That may not be what the Braves want. At the same time, though, with Charlie Morton nearing the end of his career, maybe they would like another veteran arm in the rotation and Stroman is about as good as it could get in that regard.
More importantly, though, as Atlanta has been searching for answers with the rotation this season amid the numerous injuries they’ve suffered to Max Fried and more, adding Stroman to the mix to eventually give them a 1-2-3-4 of Fried, Spencer Strider, Stroman and Bryce Elder would be a nightmare for every other team in baseball to face at any point, but especially in the playoffs.
And when it comes to the Braves, the postseason counts more than anything else. So perhaps the hefty price tag on Stroman would indeed be worth it.