3 Braves trade targets that would be immediate team stat leaders

If the Atlanta Braves secured these potential trade targets, they would be immediate stat leaders for the team.

Honestly, if the Atlanta Braves stood pat at this year’s MLB trade deadline, I would probably still choose them as my absolute favorite to take home the World Series trophy this year. After all, they’ve looked dominant as-is and have just about every piece you’d think they might need to get the job done.

Ronald Acuña Jr. is a runaway MVP leader, and if he weren’t so dominant, Sean Murphy would be right up there with the other National League talents.

The only real deficiency the Braves have is with their pitching, and even there, deficiency might be putting it unfairly. It’s simply the only area the Braves could still make huge upward leaps in with an extra player.

So, while they ultimately could stand pat, much has been said about possible candidates the Braves could add. But how would those players stack up with the current roster based on their stats so far this season?

Let’s take a look at a few mentioned trade candidates and how they would align with the team this year. The criteria here will be that candidates have to have been suggested for the Braves by someone other than me (i.e. another writer on our own site or another outlet, and ideally both) and they have to be the equivalent of top-three on the team now in a key statistical category. I won’t be inventing stats or pulling out crazy percentile measurements of Statcast metrics as the top-line stat to look at in this article.

Jorge Soler would be a home run runner-up

Jorge Soler is a former Atlanta fan favorite that helped the Braves win a World Series, earning a World Series MVP in the process. Once a midseason acquisition for the Braves — along with Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall, and Joc Pederson that same year — could he be the same this year?

Realistically, it’s tough to see the Miami Marlins trading Soler directly to the Braves in-division considering the Marlins are just 2.5 games back from a wild card spot of their own. That said, we did look at what a trade might look like, and other outlets have identified Soler as a possible Braves target, too.

Complications of convincing Miami to do this aside, our job here in this article is just to assess how proposed targets would emerge as statistical leaders.

Soler, with his 23 home runs this year, would come in behind Matt Olson, who has 29, and just ahead of Ozzie Albies with 22. Infusing another player pacing for 40 home runs on the year would be simply unfair for the Braves.