ESPN and MLB.com praise Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos for trade deadline

Earlier in the week, The Athletic went back and re-graded every team’s trade deadline moves, with the Braves getting an A grade for their work.

“Under president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos, the Braves eschewed the all-in move, instead upgrading around the margins by adding Tyler Mahle, Lane Thomas and Brent Suter,” Johnny Flores Jr. writes. “Consider the moves a massive success. Mahle, who arrived in Atlanta with a 5.13 ERA, has pitched to a 1.48 mark in five starts, going for at least six innings in four of them. Suter has a 1.26 mark as a multi-inning arm, and only Thomas has been middling, though he wasn’t anticipated to be a world-beater.”

Now it’s ESPN and MLB.com praising Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos, with ESPN ranking the Braves’ trade deadline the best of the bunch.

“The Braves’ deadline would stand out if the only move made by Alex Anthopoulos was to acquire starter Tyler Mahle from the Giants,” Bradford Doolittle writes. “That’s how good Mahle has been, posting a 1.48 ERA over five starts and rolling up 1.4 bWAR in his first month as a Brave. It’s not really out of nowhere. He has been a very good pitcher for a long time, including last season when he posted a 2.18 ERA in 16 starts for Texas. But he was just 3-9 with a 5.13 ERA for San Francisco before the trade. He allowed five runs in his last start for the Giants — the same number of runs he gave up over his first five starts for the Braves.”

Mahle’s the unquestioned prize of the trade deadline. The Braves saw something in him that nobody else in the league did and were able to acquire him for pennies on the dollar. They didn’t even have to give up a prospect to get him — all they had to do was pick up the remaining $2 million left on his contract for this season. Given how expensive high-quality starting pitching is to acquire at the trade deadline, this could go down as one of the best deadline deals in recent memory if Mahle goes on to pitch similarly come the postseason.

Unsurprisingly, the Mahle addition also received the top spot in MLB.com’s rankings of the most impactful trade deadline moves.

“The Braves were a Skubal suitor, but like every other club, they had to pivot after the jewel of the Deadline class was shipped to Los Angeles. Atlanta landed on the 31-year-old Mahle, who had a 5.13 ERA across 18 starts with the Giants and missed about a month of action earlier in the year due to a hamstring strain,” Brian Murphy writes. “Once the Deadline passed, he didn’t even make it onto our list of the top 25 trades, but he has been everything the Braves could have wanted for their injury-ravaged rotation.”

You really can’t argue about whether the Braves improved at the trade deadline. They are in a much better spot heading into October now than they were a month ago. Even the additions of Brent Suter and Lane Thomas have made an impact.

However, the question still remains whether the Braves did enough. Alex Anthopoulos had prospects at his disposal to do more, and there remain holes in the lineup, rotation, and bullpen that could have been patched up. If this team does come up just short in a series next month, it’s going to be a sickening what-if everybody is going to have to live with for a long time.

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(Photo by Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire)