The Joc Pederson Trade

Well, for the time being it appears that the Braves are buyers.  This comes as a surprise to me and many in Braves country especially with the recent season ending injury to the best player on the team.  The conversation for most of June and early July has been will the Braves dump guys like Morton and Smith.  Even rumors of trading Freddie floated around from time to time on my twitter timeline.  However, as of July 15th Joc Pederson was traded to the Atlanta Braves from the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Bryce Ball.  Ball was at Single-A Rome batting .207 but he had a good OBP.  His career slash line was .277/.375/.529.  I wish all the best to Bryce and I hope to see him perform well at Wrigley someday, but for now the focus is on Joc.  If the Braves needed outfield help before Ronald went down with a torn ACL then now they are in dire need of a savior.  Is Joc that savior? No.  Can he give a boost to a struggling team and use his power to take advantage of the shorter porch in right field? Absolutely.  Joc came up as a center-fielder but the majority of his games this year came in left.  He’s been a decent fielder with a plus bat ever since he came into the bigs and honestly he’s killed the Braves throughout his career with the LA Dodgers.  One thing I love about him is that his performance seems to elevate in postseason play.  Last season Joc was on the world series winning Dodgers and he hit .382 for the postseason with a .991 OPS.  That’s really really good and if the Braves can manage to make it to postseason play there is no doubt that Joc Pederson will be ready for the bright lights.  Joc’s exit velo stats and hard-hit percentages speak for themselves:

So what does this mean for the remainder of the 2021 Atlanta Braves season?  Well to be honest I’m not sure.  That could sound like an easy cop out but honestly I could see the rest of the braves season going two different ways.

Option 1:

The Braves get on a roll.  I’m talking within a game or even leading the NL East by July 30th.  In that case I believe AA makes even bigger moves and brings in someone like Joey Gallo or Kris Bryant.  Alex Anthopoulos has been to 6 straight postseasons as a general manager and I think the Pederson trade was a warning to the rest of the NL East that the Braves aren’t giving up easily.

Option 2:

The Braves hover around .500 or worse until the trade deadline.  If this happens, and it very well could with how tough the upcoming schedule is, then I think AA might flip Joc Pederson before the deadline.  Also, guys on one-year deals could be traded away like Morton and Smith.

Truth is nobody knows what direction we will take.  I don’t even think Anthopolous knows what direction we will go, and he’ll have to decide later this month.  However, the Pederson trade was desperately needed because the Braves outfield combined OPS minus Ronald was in the bottom 5 of the league this year so far.  Here’s to hoping I get to write more positive articles about big trades in the near future!