The easiest way for the Braves to trade for Cody Bellinger is obvious

The Atlanta Braves have had a huge hole to fill in their lineup ever since Ronald Acuña Jr. went down with a torn ACL. Rather than act out of emotion, trading away the farm for any outfielder that was offered, Alex Anthopoulos has meticulously sat and waited for the deadline to draw closer and for his options to become clearer.

As we enter July, that's now the stage of the season we are in. Teams are really starting to find out if they have a shot to compete in October and one of the teams that's losing hope is the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs' season has completely fallen off a cliff and it's left them in a weird spot. The National League is so bad that they still have an outside chance to push back for a playoff spot, but it might not be the smartest move. They could deal a good chunk of their stars, including Cody Bellinger, if teams are willing to pay the price.

Braves could acquire Cody Bellinger if they take on his massive contract

Obviously, the Cubs don't want to move Bellinger. They spent the entire offseason trying to entice him to come back to Chicago before finally reaching an agreement on a three-year, $80 million deal. If the Braves want to make a deal for him, while he's under contract for two more seasons, they will need to take on his contract as well.

In recent history, we have seen teams make the mistake of not dealing a player's full contract with them when they're sent away. It's happening right now with Max Scherzer. He's being paid over $10 million by the Nationals, Mets and Rangers.

The last thing Chicago wants is to end up in the exact situation that the Mets are in with Scherzer. Imagine they trade Bellinger and are then paying him to hit homers against them. That's a front office's worst nightmare.

The prospect haul would also have to be pretty sizeable in a Bellinger trade, but if the Braves would be willing to take on his entire contract, or at least most of it, they could lessen the load of prospects a decent bit.

Atlanta has opened up the possibility to do this because of how strategically they have extended their star players in the past, signing them to long term deals while buying out their arbitration years in an attempt to get them to take less salary.