Written by Joe Lucia at Bloguin
On Wednesday night, an interesting rumor began to surface – the Atlanta Braves were discussing trading shortstop Andrelton Simmons to an unnamed NL West team.
Braves Twitter proceeded to go absolutely nuts at trading Simmons, a 26-year old two-time Gold Glove winning shortstop that is signed through 2020 at the relatively fair price of $53 million.
Atlanta isn’t exactly asking for peanuts for Simmons, though – they reportedly asked the Mets for either Jacob deGrom or Matt Harvey in return.
But when you strip the emotional aspect of trading Simmons out of the equation, the Braves looking to trade him not only makes sense, it could be a logical move for them.
While Simmons’ glove is clearly one of the best at any position in the league, his bat hasn’t really progressed the way the Braves expected. In 2012, Simmons’ rookie year, he hit .289/.335/.419 in 48 games in the majors, though he did miss time with a broken finger. The following year, his first full season in the majors, Simmons homered 17 times and slashed his way to a .248/.296/.396 line. Either of those are sufficient from a shortstop, let alone a shortstop with a glove like Simmons’.
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