Multiple GMs silence Ronald Acuña Jr. trade rumors

You never really know how crazy a fan base is until they reach rock bottom. That’s about where the Braves are right now, at least we hope, even after a much-needed win on Wednesday night against the Athletics.

Atlanta still sits 9.5 games back in the Wild Card race, and the Rockies catching up to them in the standings feels more likely than the Braves making a miraculous playoff run at this point. There’s simply no way Alex Anthopoulos can justify buying leading up to the trade deadline after the injuries to Chris Sale and Spencer Schwellenbach. The Braves need to be fully focused on 2026 and beyond, which means selling, an unfamiliar position for an organization that has made the postseason in seven consecutive seasons.

That has Braves Country a lot more riled up than usual, and some of the takes deserve to be hung in the Louvre. One of them being the grand idea that the club should consider trading star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. and completely hit the reset button.

Of course, it’s not just the fans. Talking heads over at MLB Network have also portrayed this as a good idea, and even the folks at ESPN came up with three trade hypotheticals for Ronald Acuña Jr.

For content purposes, I get it. It’s fun imagining what kind of ridiculous package it would take to pry Acuña out of Atlanta. How many top prospects until the Braves would consider such a thing? But that isn’t reality.

Ronald Acuña Jr. is an organization’s dream. He’s a top three player in baseball under control for three more seasons at a team friendly rate. The amount of surplus value he provides is almost incalculable. Additionally, this is a business, and few people put more butts in seats every night than the Braves right fielder.

Perhaps there’s a day down the line where the Braves reconsider their stance, but that’s at least a couple of years away, which is exactly what multiple GMs confirmed to The Athletic’s Jim Bowden recently.