Atlanta Braves officially acquire Brandon Phillips from Cincinnati Reds (Updated)

The Atlanta Braves have officially announced the acquisition of Brandon Phillips from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for left-handed reliever Andrew McKirahan and minor league right-hander Carlos Portuondo. Phillips is a Georgia native and will return home to play for his hometown team in the final year of his current contract.

The Braves and the Reds previously discussed a trade earlier this season with Phillips reportedly nixing the deal due to his status as a 10&5 player. Atlanta revisited talks with Cincinnati after offseason acquisition Sean Rodriguez was injured in an automobile accident last month. Rodriguez appears to be headed for should surgery which will keep him out an estimated 3-5 months.

The Braves reportedly gave Phillips a no-trade clause to help get his approval for the deal. Atlanta will still maintain some flexibility given that Cincinnati will pick up all but $1 million of his $14 million salary this season according to a report by FanRag’s Jon Heyman.

Phillips is a lifetime .275 hitter who is just 137 hits shy of 2,000 for his career. He hit .291 with 34 doubles in 2016 with the Reds.

“We are excited to add Brandon Phillips to our club,” Braves general manager John Coppolella said. “He is a Gold-Glove caliber defender who will also deepen our offensive lineup. We are thrilled to ‘welcome home’ Brandon to Atlanta, where he will play in front of his family and friends and many of his fans.”

UPDATE

John Coppolella has issued a statement in regards to the rumor about a no-trade agreement between the Braves and Brandon Phillips. Here is the statement in full:

“We want to be clear regarding the contract provisions we made for Brandon Phillips. Since John Schuerholz took over as GM in 1991, we have never granted no-trade provisions and we have no intention of changing that policy.

Brandon had a limited no-trade provision to 12 clubs of his choosing when he signed his extension with the Reds in 2012. Later in the contract he gained a full ‘no-trade’ through his 10/5 rights as a player. Teams are obligated to honor the contract of players they trade for. We will honor Brandon’s limited no-trade clause because we are bound to honor the contract provision just as we are bound to honor other contract terms whenever we trade for a player.

If Brandon would happen to be traded from the Braves to another team, he would receive a $500,000 assignment bonus.

It should be noted that we never included no-trade or limited-trade provisions for players such as Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, as well as future Hall of Famers Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff and Andruw Jones, and we have no intention to include these provisions in the future.”