MLB Trade Rumors: Braves Smart Not To Move Jair Jurrjens for Orioles Adam Jones

The Atlanta Braves almost traded away one of their best pitchers in Jair Jurrjens today for an average outfielder with a lot of potential in Baltimore Orioles’ Adam Jones. Luckily for Braves fans, they made the smart move by declining Baltimore’s alleged trade request. 

According to MLB Network’s Mark Bowman, Atlanta opened up the trade talks with Baltimore today. 

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The Braves expressed interest in Adam Jones. But they did not offer Martin Prado and Jair Jurrjens to the Orioles in exchange for the outfielder.

A source with knowledge of the Orioles negotiations disputed a Baltimore Sun report that indicated the Braves were rejected when they offered Prado, Jurrjens and a pitching prospect for Jones.

The source said the Braves were told Jones was unavailable when they asked about him a couple weeks ago. The Orioles later called the Braves to see if they would trade Prado, Jurrjens and two other “premium guys” in exchange for Jones.

The Braves said they were not interested and the two clubs have not had any recent discussions about these players.

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If this trade would have gone through today, it would have given the Braves another young outfielder to go along with 2010 Sporting News' Rookie of the Year, Jason Heyward and the speedy Michael Bourn. 

However, giving up one of their better young pitchers in Jurrjens and the outfielder Prado, would have seen the Braves taking a step backward instead of forward. 

This year, Jurrjens posted another sub-3.00 ERA at 2.96, with a WHIP of 1.22 and 90 strikeouts. While Prado saw his batting average drop from .307 to .260 while his slugging percentage and on base plus slugging percentage dropped from .459 and .809 to .385 and .687.

The Braves would have gotten Jones, who had a career year in home runs with 25, RBIs with 83 and an slugging percentage of .466. While those numbers are great, he still stuck out 113 times and had a batting average of .280. 

Basically, if The Braves made a move for Jones, they would have added a player with a lot of power. 

However, they already have a power source in their lineup with Heyward and second baseman Dan Uggla. Jones would have struggled to find his place in the Braves’ lineup, while they would have seen Jurrjens have another season with an ERA of under 3.00 and a WHIP of less than 1.25. 

They did the right thing by not selling a lot of their key parts for Jones here. If they want to make a move during the offseason, they should look to find a replacement for Chipper Jones at third base for when he decides to retire. 

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