The Atlanta Braves have still not indicated that they actually want to trade Ronald Acuña Jr. Players with this much talent who have yet to turn 30 and are playing on team-friendly deals don't change hands very often, and for good reason. If you had to guess right now whether he would still be in Atlanta whenever next season begins, the answer would probably be yes by default.

And yet, we all saw how the Braves' 2026 campaign ended. We also saw how Acuña Jr.'s 2026 campaign ended, with yet another no-show in the playoffs and yet more drama along with it. Atlanta picked up his $17 million team option for next year, but they've also been conspicuously quiet about his long-term future. There's seemingly no interest in a new contract extension, and they haven't exactly shot down trade speculation despite ample opportunity to do so. Given his inconsistencies at the plate, his struggles to stay healthy and his looming payday, it's hardly crazy to think that Alex Anthopoulos would be open to moving on if another team offered up a haul.

But just how likely is that? Assuming the Braves at least listen to calls on Acuña, what might teams be willing to put on the table for two years of his services, and how close would that come to the presumably very high bar Atlanta has set for any deal? To answer that question, we decided to look back at recent MLB history for some trade comps involving star players who were also two seasons away from free agency.

Nationals get a historic haul for 1.5 seasons of Juan Soto

This is undoubtedly the one that Braves fans will gravitate to first, and for good reason. The Nationals got a metric ton of young talent when they sent Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres in the middle of the 2022 season, future building blocks like James Wood, CJ Abrams and MacKenzie Gore along with current top pitching prospect Jarlin Susana and more. Both Wood and Abrams were consensus top-10 to top-15 prospects at the time of the deal, too, this is hardly a matter of hindsight.

And on the surface, there's plenty of similarity. Acuña Jr., like Soto, is an elite corner bat with long-term questions about his defense. Both had established themselves as MVP candidates by their early 20s. Heck, Acuña Jr. even has more team control remaining, as Soto was 1.5 years from free agency rather than two.

Of course, there's a reason why no team would offer two global top-10 prospects for Acuña Jr. now. For starters, Soto was just 23 years old at the time he was traded, where as Acuña Jr. will turn 29 in December. And while not as dynamic an athlete, Soto had been the picture of health since breaking into the Majors, with very little question about his durability moving forward. Add in his greater consistency at the plate, and it's fair to knock the return down a bit for Acuña Jr. — maybe one elite prospect rather than two, and certainly not as many ancillary pieces.

Red Sox gave up a haul for three years (and two options) of Chris Sale

Sale was in the middle of a five-year, $32 million deal when the White Sox decided to pivot as part of an interminable rebuild. He had one guaranteed season remaining, plus two affordable team options — making him a decent comp for Acuña Jr., albeit with slightly more control. Where the comp breaks down a bit is that Sale, at the time, had been ultra-durable, averaging over 200 innings a year (with a 3.04 ERA) over his final four seasons in Chicago.

In return, the White Sox got a consensus top-10 prospect in Yoan Moncada, a consensus top-50 prospect in righty Michael Kopech and another solid young piece in Luis Alexander Basabe. Sale had more team control remaining at a more affordable rate, and his stock was frankly higher at the time than Acuña Jr.'s is now given that he finished fifth in AL Cy Young voting in 2016.

Padres' trade for Dylan Cease provides interesting comparison point

The Padres acquired Cease at a very interesting time, coming off a 2023 season in which his ERA had regressed from 2.20 to 4.58 and his FIP had jumped from 3.10 to 3.72. The strikeout numbers were elite, but the command was scattershot, and at that point he'd had more years looking like a mid-rotation guy than a true ace. He also, like Acuña Jr. now, was two years away from free agency.

The return was far less than the other two deals above. The White Sox received a single top-100 prospect, righty Drew Thorpe, plus two interesting mid-tier prospects in Samuel Zavala and Jairo Iriarte and a big-league reliever in Steven Wilson. That's obviously not what Atlanta would be looking for in any trade for Acuña Jr., and understandably so; Cease had exactly one year of elite production under his belt. Still, it's probably closer to what other teams would be willing to pay than Braves fans would like to admit.

Red Sox dealt cornerstone prospect for Garrett Crochet (then extended him)

One more trade involving a star still two years away from hitting the open market. Crochet wasn't nearly as established as Acuña Jr. is when he got shipped up to Boston; in fact, he'd managed to throw more than 100 innings in an MLB season exactly once. Then again, his 2024 season was sensational, and he was also substantially younger, 25 at the time of the trade rather than 28 going on 29.

Both of those factors probably help even out the scales a bit. And fittingly, the return the White Sox received was somewhere between Sale and Cease. Kyle Teel was the headliner, a consensus top-50 prospect at the time. Braden Montgomery was about to break onto top-100 lists himself, while Chase Meidroth was more than a mere throw-in. Zooming out, it feels like that's probably the best the Braves can hope for in trade talks this winter: one legitimate, no-doubt top prospect, plus another lower-end top-100 type and another interesting prospect or two. Whether Atlanta deems that to be worth its while is another matter entirely.