Pittsburgh Pirates: Possible Richard Rodríguez Trade Targets From Atlanta

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a few pieces that are going to be highly sought after in trade talks leading up to the trade deadline and one of those names is Richard Rodríguez

The MLB trade deadline is just under four weeks away, which means that trade talks are starting to heat up and teams are having to decide on if they want to buy or sell at the deadline. Could the Atlanta Braves become buyers at the deadline and make a push for Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Richard Rodríguez?

At the time of writing this, the Atlanta Braves are sitting just 4 games back of the first-place New York Mets in the NL East and are coming off of a series win against the said Mets. The two wins they got were huge as one was a 20-2 blowout and the other was one where they knocked up Jacob DeGrom for three runs.

These games came at an important time in the season, as they need to determine if the beginning portion of the season was just a bad skid or if they need to add deadline deals to compete and make another run like last season that ended in the NLCS.

If these last few games are any indication, the Braves should become buyers and improve on their bad bullpen by trading for Rodríguez. The Braves bullpen has been pretty bad, to say the least, as they are the 9th worst in terms of ERA and 5th worst in WHIP.

These types of stats are ones that will not help a team make a deep playoff run, so if the Braves want to make another run they are going to need to take a serious look at trading for Rodríguez. The Braves will get to get a great first-hand look at him also, as they start a three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday.

Let’s take a look at some potential pieces that the Pittsburgh Pirates could be looking for if the Braves decide to pick up the phone and try to work out a trade.