Braves: 3 Jesse Chavez replacements to trade for if reliever misses serious time

2. Scott Barlow, Kansas City Royals

Not that many expected the Kansas City Royals to be good this season, but the club is now shockingly the worst team in baseball by record thanks to the recent and unexpected surge by the A’s as of late.

That’s surely going to set the Royals up to be sellers and their bullpen is the easiest place to target. The Braves, however, don’t necessarily need to go to the proverbial Rodeo Drive of the reliever trade market by pursuing Aroldis Chapman. Instead, a veteran like Scott Barlow, particularly in terms of a Jesse Chavez replacement, would be perfect for Atlanta.

When you look at the numbers for Barlow this season, they aren’t going to blow you away. The 30-year-old has a 4.38 ERA and 1.30 WHIP over 24 appearances this season and has not been good in his last two outings, admittedly. Having said that, 18 of his appearances this season have been scoreless outings, including a run where he produced a scoreless outing in 14-of-15 appearances from April 22 to June 4.

In the previous two seasons over a combined 140 appearances, Barlow had a sub-2.40 ERA and a WHIP below 1.20. He’s been a quietly dominant force out of the Royals bullpen but, at this stage of his career, he might no longer be part of their future plans.

As such, they could look to offload him for pieces that would help in the future. With one year of club control left after this season, the Braves could add a great veteran arm to the bullpen to help serve as the buffer while Chavez is out and core piece beyond that too.