Braves Reportedly Pursued Brewers OF Ryan Braun before Kemp Deal

With most of the trade buzz this morning revolving around reported Indians’ trades for Jonathan Lucroy and Andrew Miller, Jon Heyman tweeted an interesting report regarding another prominent member of the Brewers:

The Braves wound up sending INF/OF Hector Olivera to the Padres in exchange for Matt Kemp and cash in what amounted to a swap of undesirable assets. It stands to reason that that type of deal may have been what the Braves had in mind as a possibility for Ryan Braun, and if that’s the case it’s not surprising that those talks would have gone nowhere. The Brewers are reportedly not interested in dealing Braun simply for the sake of shedding payroll.

Braun is enjoying an excellent campaign this season, boasting a .321/.383/.515 slash line with 14 home runs through 85 games, though he has been in and out of the lineup with various maladies and scheduled rest days. He is still owed another 4 years and $76 million following the 2016 season, though given his recent production he’s a far more valuable asset than Kemp is at this time.

Statistics courtesy of Fangraphs