As we prepare for next week’s Winter Meetings and speculation is running rampant about if the Atlanta Braves will pull off a trade for Chicago White Sox starter Dylan Cease or any other frontline starting pitcher that’s available, it’s worth looking back at the last time Atlanta took a big swing at the Winter Meetings.
The year is 2015. Atlanta’s coming off a 67-95 finish, 4th place in the NL East, and things aren’t necessarily looking up. While Atlanta had Max Fried and Ozzie Albies in the farm system, there wasn’t a lot of impact talent waiting to be promoted to the majors (the top prospect, per MLB Pipeline, was 2B/OF José Peraza, who never made the majors with Atlanta and was out of affiliated baseball after 2021.)
But then-GM John Coppolella had a trick up his sleeve – Shelby Miller.
The righty, a 2009 1st rounder by the St. Louis Cardinals that Atlanta acquired in 2014’s Jason Heyward trade, had a good year for the Braves…if you looked hard enough.
He lost the most games of any pitcher in MLB, with 17, but that could be explained away by Atlanta’s poor showing overall. His conventional stats were better: A 3.02 ERA in a NL- leading 33 starts, with an All-Star selection to boot.
And the Arizona Diamondbacks wanted him.
So Coppolella made a deal. Atlanta needed a shortstop, as Andrelton Simmons had been traded away the previous month to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and Arizona had one:
Dansby Swanson, taken at #1 overall out of Vanderbilt University in that summer’s MLB Draft.
The final package ended up looking like this:
The Diamondbacks received Shelby Miller and lefty pitching prospect Gabe Speier.
The Atlanta Braves received Dansby Swanson, outfielder Ender Inciarte, and 2013 1st rounder Aaron Blair, a right-handed pitcher.
And ooh boy did it NOT work out for Arizona.
What happened to Shelby Miller?
Miller only started 28 games for Arizona over the next three seasons, going 5-18 with a 6.35 ERA (although he did have a complete game shutout in 2016). It wasn’t all ineffectiveenss – he also suffered a partial tear of the UCL in 2017 and had Tommy John surgery.
Ultimately, after pitching 388.1 innings between St. Louis in 2014 (183) and Atlanta in 2015 (205.1), Miller was never the same. Being miscast as a frontline starter didn’t help, but his on-field performance was a disaster for Arizona. Miller ultimately bounced around the league before re-emerging as an effective reliever on the 2023 Los Angeles Dodgers (coincidentally, re-joining former Braves teammates Freddie Freeman and Jason Heyward), where he went 3-0 with a 1.71 ERA in 42 innings.
Atlanta got great contributions from both Dansby and Ender Inciarte
Braves fans are familiar with what Dansby Swanson in Atlanta, including the 2021 World Series and putting up an All-Star and Gold Glove campaign in 2022, his final year before signing with the Chicago Cubs in free agency.
But Ender Inciarte was no mere throw-in piece to the deal.
Inciarte immediately took over as Atlanta’s starting centerfielder in 2016, providing Gold Glove defense (he won three straight from 2016-2018) as well as surprisingly, if fleeting, offensive dominance.
Inciarte’s first two seasons saw him bat a combined .298, while scoring 178 runs and stealing 38 bases in 288 games. His lack of power (only 14 homers and a .397 slugging) resulting in his overall OPS+ coming in slightly below average, at 98, but he more than held him own at the plate.
But nagging hamstring issues started hurting his performance at the plate, and his batting average started consistently falling, with 2018’s full-season mark of .265 representing his highest figure for the next few seasons. He batted .246 in only 65 games in 2019 and only .190 in the shortened 2020 season, before being released in mid-July of 2021.
Inciarte bounced around the league after that, spending time with the Cincinnati Reds, New York Yankees, and New York Mets before finally leaving affiliated ball all together after 2022.
Could Atlanta pull off another blockbuster in Nashville?
It’s certainly possible, if not likely.
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