What If the Braves Go Nuclear? Ranking Atlanta’s Boldest Options to Save the Season

From lineup shakeups to blockbuster trades, here’s what could actually move the needle

The Braves were built to be a baseball-blasting battleship—but right now, there’s water on the deck, smoke in the engine room, and no clear course forward.

Heading into July, Atlanta’s just half a game ahead of the Miami Marlins in the NL East and eight games back of the final Wild Card spot. The offense, as we discussed yesterday, was one of the worst in the entire National League even with Ronald Acuña Jr. raking like the best hitter in baseball.

Let’s look at what the Braves can do to right the ship, ranking how likely or unlikely each move is to actually happen.

A minor roster shakeup tomorrow?

Tonight’s series opener against the Los Angeles Angels is the final game Atlanta will play prior to Jurickson Profar’s reinstatement. And the Wednesday transaction required to get Profar back on the active roster gives Atlanta an opportunity here. Let’s look at the options there, ranked from most to least likely to happen.

• Designate an outfielder for assignment

Atlanta’s two options here are Stuart Fairchild or Alex Verdugo. Anyone who reads the newsletter daily knows that I’d get rid of Verdugo over Fairchild, simply since Stuart can give you something. Verdugo is a net negative in all three areas of contribution by a position player, per Statcast - Batting Run Value of -9 (7th percentile), Baserunning Value of -1 (18th percentile), and Fielding Run Value of -5 (9th percentile).

Stuart Fairchild at least gives you both speed and defense, something that Atlanta doesn’t get out of Jurickson Profar. It’s likely that Fairchild gets occasional pinch running and late inning defensive work, whereas Verdugo would be in a similar situation to now-DFA’d Orlando Arcia - not the first option for anything off the bench, just a very mediocre injury insurance policy.

But Atlanta can do more than just DFA an outfielder tomorrow.

• Designate an outfielder for assignment AND option Michael Harris II to Gwinnett, replacing him with Carlos Rodriguez.

This move installs Eli White as the starter in centerfield and adds a high-contact bat in Rodriguez, who is hitting .293/.358/.345 in Gwinnett this season. While there’s obvious power deficiencies with Rodriguez, who has just two homers and an ISO of .052 this season, he’s striking out only 12.5% of the time while walking at nearly a 10% clip.

He’s played some centerfield for Gwinnett this season but has been mostly plying his trade in the corners. In this scenario, he’d be another pinch-running and defensive option off the bench for Atlanta, unless..

• Designate an outfielder for assignment, option Michael Harris II to Gwinnett (replacing him with Carlos Rodriguez in centerfield), and use Eli White at second base for Ozzie Albies.

This is the most extreme option of the three, requiring Atlanta to insert Rodriguez into an everyday starting role immediately (barring a timeshare at second base between Ozzie and White, which doesn’t feel likely - if Atlanta’s making a move, they’re going all the way with it.) There’s also an option to use Luke Williams at second base in lieu of Eli White, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense - sure, it allows Atlanta to keep the highest quality non-Harris option in centerfield as much as possible, but it inserts a well-below-average offensive option at second base.

For the record, I don’t know how Atlanta would configure this roster move - would they put Ozzie on the injured list, or just bench him? This one feels like they’d need the injured list stint, just to avoid the potential embarrassment of Atlanta’s longest tenured player being unceremoniously benched midseason (no matter how much his stats might call for that to have already happened).

Speaking of the injured list…

Placing a slugger on the injured list

This is probably a move that should have already happened, but…

• Place Marcell Ozuna on the injured list, calling up either catcher Jason Delay (optionable) or veteran Sandy León to sit on the bench while both Sean Murphy and Drake Baldwin play every day

Neither León (.195 average, .656 OPS in Gwinnett) nor Delay (.188 average, .487 OPS combined between Columbus and Gwinnett) has done much in the minors this year, but that’s not what they’d be in Atlanta to do. Their true purpose on the roster would be peace of mind/insurance to allow both Baldwin and Murphy to play every day - Murphy behind the plate for four or five starts a week, with Baldwin getting the bulk of his time at designated hitter.

Again, as we discussed yesterday, Ozuna’s been one of Atlanta’s worst hitters in the month of June, finishing the month with a .188/.263/.287 line and just two homers and ten walks to thirty strikeouts in 26 games.

Since missing the Toronto road trip to have his hip injury checked out by the medical team back in Atlanta, Ozuna has hit just .235 with a .719 OPS, striking out exactly once a game and hitting just eight homers. While he insists this is more of a slump than injury-related, it’s hard to wonder if the combination of the hip and the looming age-related decline is combining to make him virtually unplayable despite having only one job.

Get active in the trade market

Here’s an area where Alex Anthopoulos has supposedly been trying to swing a deal, complicated by the fact that the expanded playoffs mean that there are relatively few teams already selling.

But even if Anthopoulos is able to make a deal, there are a few different directions it could go. Let’s look at the options, ranked by plausibility.

• Adding a starter

This feels like the most likely trade to be made in the next week, depending on tonight’s start by Didier Fuentes. The 20-year-old got lit up in both of his first two outings, allowing ten runs on fourteen hits in 8.1 innings to the Marlins and Mets. Whenever you’re almost equal in strikeouts (four) and homers allowed (three), that’s not good.¹

Combine Fuentes’ growing pains with the recent struggles of Bryce Elder, who has allowed an 8.24 ERA and 0-3 record in his five June starts, all but one a loss by Atlanta. The long ball has been the biggest issue for Elder, with six in the month (and fourteen on the season despite making only thirteen starts).

We’ve broken down some of the options here before, but someone like Andrew Heaney of the Pittsburgh Pirates or either Aaron Civale or Adrian Houser of the Chicago White Sox would be a very Braves-type move (and affordable with the poor state of Atlanta’s farm system)²

It’s worth pointing out that they could always just sign veteran Kyle Gibson, who opted out of his minor league deal with the Tampa Bay Rays just last weekend, in lieu of shipping out an actual asset for a starter.

• Adding a starter and a reliever

I’ve already driven this ship for a bit, but a Pirates package deal of something like Heaney and closer David Bednar or setup man Dennis Santana makes a ton of sense for Atlanta, given the instability they’ve had in the back end of the bullpen. With Dylan Lee seemingly taking over the closer role and Daysbel Hernández on his way back to pair with Raisel Iglesias in setup, a true closer isn’t as necessary but would still be nice.

• Buy low on a struggling star

I saw this one recently and thought it made a ton of sense - go out and see if they can get a premium asset at a discounted price, preferably one with future control.

Luis Robert of the Chicago White Sox might be the ultimate ‘buy-low’ target. The former All-Star and 38-HR slugger has hit just .209 with only 22 homers over the last two seasons, but he’s still only 26 and under team control through 2027. If the price is right, he could be a long-term fix in the outfield—or a short-term flyer with a soft landing.” Robert’s making $15M this season and has two $20M club options for 2026 and 2027 (with $2M buyouts), a pittance to pay for ‘2023 12th place MVP finisher’ Robert but easily disposable if it’s not working out.

The best case scenario is he’s the new primary leftfielder next season, while a revitalized Harris is in center and Profar be the main option at designated hitter. The Braves could rotate all three corner outfield bats (and Drake Baldwin) through the DH spot for a “half day” while having starting-caliber depth if someone were to go down (or get suspended for PEDs again). And if Harris doesn’t completely figure it out, Robert can stay in centerfield while Harris works on his swing in the minors.

And the worst case scenario is that it doesn’t work out and they simply pay the $2M buyout for him to leave in the offseason. What, like he can make them lose more games than they already are?

I saw a suggestion that Atlanta do the ‘buy low’ same approach with Miami Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara, but that ship may have already sailed. After putting up an 8.47 ERA in his first 11 starts, the former Cy Young winner turned things around after the calendar turned to June. That much farther away from his Tommy John surgery, Alcantara’s June ERA was sitting at 2.74 in his first four starts prior to last weekend’s blowup against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

It’s likely that Alcantara, who has two remaining years of team control at $17.3M (2026, guaranteed) and $21M (2027, club option), is going to be the most in-demand starter at the deadline and is probably out of Atlanta’s price range.

• Swing for the absolute fences in the trade market

This one’s wild, but I saw a suggestion that Atlanta go approach Boston for a megadeal that got them both infielder Alex Bregman and outfielder Jarren Duran. Bregman, historically a third baseman, would be shifted to second base in this scenario, while Duran would be in the outfield mix, either in center in place of an optioned Harris or in left if Profar was working in at designated hitter in lieu of an IL’d Ozuna.

There are a few reasons why this deal doesn’t make a ton of sense, the first being that it requires Atlanta to find a way to replace Ozzie Albies in the lineup. From a financial perspective, it requires the Braves’ front office to assume the potential liability of Bregman either declining his opt-out and becoming the team’s highest-paid player in 2026 at $25M or picking up his 2027 player option, also for $25M.

(Of note - when Chris Sale was acquired, he was technically owed more than $22M for 2024 plus had deferred money, all of which Atlanta wiped out with an extension that added on an additional guaranteed year in exchange for lowering the first-year salary and erasing the deferred money. Given that Bregman is in a different contractual situation, being just 31 and represented by super-agent Scott “we as an organization don’t like to do business with you” Boras, I doubt that any extension would be reached.)

But this would go a LONG way to helping a lineup that’s struggled in both the infield and outfield, as well as giving Atlanta a starting-caliber outfielder that was actually eligible for this year’s postseason³ and had future years of affordable control prior to free agency.

But the biggest reason this is unlikely to happen?

Atlanta does not have the prospects.

The Braves would need to either trade off of the major league roster or empty the system of multiple high-caliber prospects to get this deal done. And as we’ve discussed recently, Atlanta’s farm system just isn’t that good. It’s got some arms, but most of them aren’t that close to the majors and so it’s a bigger risk for a front office to take than many of us either realize or want to admit.

So, what do they do?

That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Something needs to happen, but how aggressively do they move to salvage this season versus looking to retool for 2026?

The Braves have options, but what they don’t have is time. Whether it’s surgical roster tweaks or a full-on overhaul, something has to give. Because no matter how much faith you have in the core, the standings won’t wait. Atlanta can’t afford to window-dress their way through July—not when the floorboards are buckling and the water’s rising. It’s time to act, and act big. Either plug the damn hole, or start learning how to swim towards 2026.

1. Hard-hitting analysis here, I know

2. There’s probably a veteran starter they can acquire that doesn’t have an “A” name, but I’m drawing a blank right now other than Charlie Morton (and Baltimore probably wants to wait and see if they can climb back into it before finally deciding to sell)

3. Jurickson Profar, per the league’s PED policy, cannot participate in postseason play this season since he served a suspension