Braves pry righty Toussaint from D-backs

Saturday was right-hander Touki Toussaint's 19th birthday, but the Atlanta Braves were the ones blowing out candles and having their wishes come true.

The Braves acquired the 2014 first-round pick (16th overall) late Saturday night alongside right-hander Bronson Arroyo, sending back infielder Phil Gosselin and agreeing to take on the roughly $9.5 million owed to Arroyo in 2015.

Toussaint was 2-2 with a 3.69 ERA in seven starts with Class A Kane County. The Florida native, who was Arizona's fourth-ranked prospect at the time of the trade, struck out 29 in 39 innings, walking 15 and allowing four home runs.

The right-hander ranks 83rd on MLB.com's Top 100 Prospects list. He features a fastball that runs into the mid-to-high 90s and a breaking ball that earns plus grades from evaluators. As Ken Rosenthal reported on Twitter, Toussaint has not thrown his curveball at all this season, with Arizona instructing him to improve his changeup by using it as his primary off-speed pitch.

In his last start Friday night, Toussaint allowed one hit over six innings while striking out five in a 4-1 win over Peoria. After the outing, Toussaint told MiLB.com he'd been working with pitching coach Doug Bochtler to improve his focus during games.

"'Dude, it looks like you just lose focus sometimes for a split second,'" Toussaint recalled Bochtler saying. "'Not even that big, it's one pitch and it's a hit and you try to rush. Passed ball, now there's a runner on second and it snowballs. It's that one pitch, that one little relapse of not paying attention.'"

"I've just been working in the bullpen on keeping focus, trying to make pitches instead of just throwing the ball. He's really helped me a lot this year, and it's starting to show."

The Braves have traded away a number of veteran players since the end of the 2014 season, including outfielders Jason Heyward, Justin Upton and B.J. Upton. Clearing all that salary put Atlanta in position to use the coffers to acquire promising, young talent, even if it's a few years away from the Majors.

"We have cut between 150-200 million [dollars] total in the trades we've made over the last seven, eight months," Braves assistant general manager John Coppolella told MLB.com. "If we want to take whatever it is here, $9 [million] or $10 million to where we could get a guy who had arguably the very best stuff in the 2014 Draft, yeah, it was one where as we tried to build for the current as well as for the future, we felt like it was a good mix and well worth it for us."

Atlanta - which has also added pitching prospects Matt Wisler, Max Fried, Mike Foltynewicz, Manny Banuelos, Tyrell Jenkins, Arodys Vizcaino and Ricardo Sanchez in the past year - jumped at the opportunity to add another high-ceiling arm to it's reserves.

"I don't know what this guy is going to turn into, I don't have a crystal ball," Coppolella told MLB.com. "But I sure like his stuff and I sure like the body, the history and the upside. I think this is a guy who fits into the plan of what we're doing."

D-backs general manager Dave Stewart said Arizona was willing to shed Toussaint in part because the team had just acquired a number of college pitching prospects in the 2015 Draft - the D-backs selected six college hurlers in the first 10 rounds.

"We are getting some good pitching from our young rotation and that's the direction we are going to go." #Dbacks GM Dave Stewart on Arroyo

- Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) June 21, 2015

Stew: "With this year's draft we stacked our minor league system with college guys" who are ahead of Touki Toussaint on depth chart.

- Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) June 21, 2015

Arroyo is still recovering from Tommy John surgery and is expected back around August. The 38-year-old has an $11 million option for 2016 with a $4.5 million buyout.

Gosselin is a 26-year-old right-handed hitter who played all four infield positions and left field in 2014. The Pennsylvania native appeared in 20 games for Atlanta this season, hitting .325 with four doubles. Gosselin is currently on the 15-day disabled list with a fractured left thumb.