Miguel Tejada: What's his deal?

It's now been a month since Tejada came out and requested a trade from the Baltimore Orioles. In his own words, "a change of scenary would be nice". Since then everyone has their own rumor/fantasy trade conjured up. While the most named teams involved being the Cubs and Red Sox.
As of yesterday, Tejada tells the AP "Now, I am more upset than when I requested the trade because it's been a month and they haven't done anything,''. Miguel, listen it's not all about you. Sure, your a premiere player and can have a direct impact on a team but it takes 8 others to play the game. Tejada's view is that the Orioles will finish fourth or maybe even in last place next season. Lack of free agent signings and trades has really gotten Tejada upset. I think in the business of baseball when you bring in a huge impact player, promises and guarantees are made between mgmt and the player. Sure, Baltimore may have told Tejada we will build around you, your the top priority, yada, yada.
First off, the AL East is a tough division. Boston, NY, and now a competitive Toronto team will fight it out next season. For the first half of last year the O's looked good before the walls came tumbling down. Secondly, its Baltimore. The last time the O's made the playoffs was '97 when they won the division.
So, if Tejada is causing an uproar about being traded then Baltimore will probably do it, if the price/player is right. Will they do it because Tejada says so? Kinda sorta. He's the best player on the team and nobody wants negative publicity coming into a new season or much less at all. So, trade him and get a substantial return like 2 marquee players plus prospects. Everyone's happy, right? In the end, this is just another sign of today's sports world as more players come out throwing temper tantrums if something doesn't go there way. We see it all the time by these guys demanding trades, wanting more money cause so and so makes more, involving arbitrators. It's simply ridiculous. Look, you make more money than most of us will ever see so just shutup and do your job. Well I've done enough ranting for now...

World Baseball Classic: Will it succeed?

This spring for the first time a world tournament consisting of 16 countries will take place it what will be called the World Baseball Classic. This tournament is sanctioned by the International Baseball Federation (IBAF). MLB also gives it blessings. An idea of what to expect was shown during last year's home run derby as each competitor represented their country. The tourney which begins March 3rd and goes until March 20th will interfere with Spring Training. I don't think the players involved are too worried about that. I do question the competitiveness this will bring out. Will the tournament be laid back like an NBA all-star game or will the players go all out. Who will be favored? Surely one would think the U.S. has to be one of the top teams. The WBC will be going on at the same time of March Madness. A couple of people have already told me their not going to watch the WBC because of March Madness. So I have to ask, will the general public be in "baseball mode" at this time of the year?

What about the MLB teams, are they concerned over risking injury to players before the season? Of course, who isn't? I say if it's going to happen, it's gonna happen. For example, two years ago Aaron Boone torn his ACL in a pickup basketball game and had to miss the next season. In this case some major league teams are not allowing some players to participate in the WBC. Finnally, will the WBC succeed? I think so. It's something new and fun for the game that has been dragged through the mud the last few years.

Here's a list of Braves players who will be participating in the WBC:
Pete Orr, Chris Reitsma, Scott Thorman-Canada
Oscar Villareal-Mexico
Andruw Jones-Netherlands
Jorge Sosa-Puerto Rico
Chipper Jones, John Smoltz-United States

Rumor Mill: Langerhans to Indians?

According to a few sources Ryan Langerhans may be dealt to the Indians for David Riske or Coco Crisp. Crisp for Langerhans is odd. With newly acquired Matt Diaz the Braves are in a bind. It's easily assumed that either K.J. or Langerhans would eventually be traded personally, I would rather see K.J. traded. I don't know much about Riske, but it sounds a little risky..haha.

On the flipside, other reports have Crisp traded to Boston for Marte which would be crummy by Boston.

Ranger Millwood

Pending on the physical ex-Brave, Phillie, and Indian, Kevin Millwood will be the newest addition of the Texas Rangers. Millwood gets a monster deal 4/48M with a fifth year option at 12M. Can we say overpaid! The deal includes a limited no trade clause and the Rangers have the right to void the deal after the fourth year if he hasn't reached a number of innings pitched in the second, third, and fourth year. Texas needed to land someone big and they did, but it cost them too big of a check to get him. Expect Millwood to have a increase in wins and ERA in a hitter freindly park.

Arbitration Signings

Expect to see more signings in the next few days from Atlanta. The Braves have until midnight tonight to offer contracts to all of their arbitration players. The list includes:

-Marcus Giles
-Oscar Villareal
-Chris Reitsma
-Jorge Sosa
-Horacio Ramirez
-Jim Brower

All are expected to to recieve a contract except for Brower. I'll update when the specifics come in.

Update 12/21-Atlanta offered contracts before the deadline last night to Giles, Villareal, Reitsma, Sosa, and HoRam. Brower and newly acquired Wes Obermueller were not offered contracts. Brower will take his services to another team while, Obermueller may or may not strike a minor league deal.

Braves get OF Diaz from Royals

Atlanta finnally got their OF/1B platoon guy. His name is Matt Diaz. Diaz comes from Kansas City in a trade that sent minor leaguer Ricardo Rodriguez to the Royals. Diaz has been up and down from minors to majors. Diaz is the type of player the Braves like off the bench. He can play at multiple postions C/OF/1B. Remember Matt Franco? I think he's another Franco that can play catcher. During his time last year with K.C. Diaz appeared in 34 games going .281/.323/.404. Now, with this acquisition do the Braves trade Langerhans or K.J?

Blauser rejoins Braves

Today the Atlanta Braves formally announced that Jeff Blauser will be the new manager for the double A affiliate Mississippi Braves. Blauser retired in 1999 and, over the last 3 years has been a roving instructor within the Braves organization. Blauser takes over the job from Brian Snitker who as promoted to Triple A Richmond.

Braves getting new ownership?

A rumor is floating around that the Atlanta Braves may be bought out by Home Depot co-founder and Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank. This would be great news for Braves fans. The Braves would finnally be free from the AOL/Time Warner stronghold. I listed a link to the snippet below. I'll update the post as more news happens.

http://www.mdjonline.com/articles/2005/12/10/270/10203858.txt

Update 12/14: As of yesterday Time Warner has placed the for sale sign on the Atlanta Braves. Along with the Braves Time Warner attempt to add Turner South as part of the deal. All eyes are looking towards Mr. Home Depot Arthur Blank as a potential suitor.

Winter Meetings Wrap-Up

If you've been keeping up with previous posts you'll see the Braves did make some moves during the meetings most notably the Renteria for Marte trade. In a late signing yesterday, Atlanta was able to land a backup catcher for Brian McCann, by acquiring Todd Pratt. Pratt has been a solid backup and will be a good addition to the team. Any Philly fans want to comment on Pratt? In a loss, Julio Franco signed a two year deal with the N.Y. Mets yesterday. As apart of the deal Franco is guaranteed a position with the club after retirement. Happy Trails, Julio.

Still as I posted earlier, I expected the Braves would get a closer this week, but that didn't happen. There's still a long ways to opening day so we'll see what occurs until then. There are a few questions I am still wondering about. What does Atlanta do with Wilson Betemit? Does Atlanta need another LF? Does Giles bat lead off? Time will tell on these.

As for the big deals, the most suprising to me was Soriano to the Nats. I didn't expect the Nats to do this, but then again Bowden is their GM. Florida continued the fire sale by sending Pierre to the Cubs. After all the talk, Manny didn't get traded. Damon didn't get signed,(eventually the Red Sox will re-sign him). Zito and Abreu remained with their clubs. Burnett signed w/the Jays, declining last minute offers from St. Louis and Washington and Hoffman went back to the Padres for less money.

It was an active winter and more deals will come before opening day. Until then we have to sit and wait.

Done Deal: Renteria traded to Braves for Marte

After all the speculating, meetings, 3 team trade talk, and everything else it was made official today as the Atlanta Braves traded top prospect Andy Marte to the Boston Red Sox for SS Edgar Renteria. FoxSports reports the Red Sox will pickup 11 mill. of Renteria's salary. This will result in Atlanta paying 6 mill. a season for the next 3 years. This may not be the end of it, as Boston is being rumored to package Marte and C Kelly Soppach to Tampa for a Lugo/Baez/Huff combo. Initially Tampa and Atlanta were talking about a Marte/Lugo swap, but Tampa wanted either McCann or Salty as part of the deal. Regardless, Renteria is a better deal than Lugo.

Renteria didn't do so well with Boston last year committing a career-high 30 errors while putting up .276/.335/.385 out of 623 AB's. Atlanta would love to see the 2003 form of Renteria return and maybe a change in sceneary will provide us that.

With Chipper restructuring his contract and being around for a few more years, Marte was blocked with no place to go. According to reports Bobby pushed this deal as he and others in the front office weren't set on Betemit being the day-to-day starter, and given the fact Bobby likes to bring the veteran's along. Atlanta does have depth at third for the future, as Eric Campbell, who is being compared to as a Matt Williams caliber type player and Van Pope who should be ready by the time Chipper's contract is finished.

Andy Marte has been Atanta's top prospect for a couple of years, and it's a shame he won't be a Brave when he breaks out. In the end I wish him best of luck with whomever he ends up playing with.

Kolb traded back to Brewers

The Dan Kolb experiment is over. Atlanta has traded Kolb back to the Brew Crew instead of just non-tendering his contract and letting him go as a free agent. I expect Turnbow will remain closer and Kolb will be a setup guy for the Brewers. In return Atlanta got relief pitcher Wes Obermueller. Obermueller isn't very good but it's gotta be an upgrade over Kolb, right?

Estrada Traded to Diamondbacks

In the first move of the winter meetings by the Atlanta Braves; the Braves traded catcher Johnny Estrada to the Arizona Diamondbacks for relief pitchers Oscar Villareal and Lance Cormier.

Scheurholz has been throwing Estrada's name out there. Houston and Colorado were mentioned as other possibilities but nothing came of it. I personally would have expected more in return for Estrada. Maybe Javier Vasquez? Remember 2 years ago when Millwood was traded for !who?! Johnny Estrada. I thought that deal was awful! Hopefully this will be another working of JS magic.

Estrada's reign as a Braves wasn't bad. In 2004 he had a breakout year resulting in an All-Star appearence. For 2005 much of the same was expected by Braves fans, but slacking performance and injuries caused Estrada to move down the depth chart.
I see this deal as being a dump off, Atlanta will now go full-time with McCann as the starter and I'm assuming Pena as backup. Although we might acquire a veteran sometime before spring training.

Winter Meetings Dec. 5th-8th

It's the holiday season and you know what that means for baseball fans; the annual GM Winter Meetings. This is where the general managers from each team come and meet to discuss players, trade proposals, mlb business, and whatever else crosses their mind. This year the meetings are held in Dallas, TX. Who is trade bait? There have already been some deals done on behalf of the fire sale down in Florida(Beckett, Lo Duca, Lowell, Castillo, Delgado). Big names like Manny Ramirez, Johnny Damon, A.J. Burnett, Bobby Abreu and Barry Zito are on this year's trade block. Will they be dealt, only time will tell.

What about the Braves? Obviously we need a closer, and that should be priority numero uno. Here's what I could see happening .

1) Atlanta signs free agent Trevor Hoffman to a 3 year deal worth 21 million.
2)Atlanta in a packaged deal to Tampa sends Estrada and HoRam for closer Danys Baez and Julio Lugo.
3)Atlanta trades Andy Marte and pitchiung prospect to Houston for Brad Lidge -Houston's dangling Lidge to see what kind of offers are out there.
4)Atlanta resigns Dan Kolb -Haha

Below is a list of who "could" be traded based on what reports have stated:
Johnny Estrada, Horacio Ramirez, Kelly Johnson, Langerhans, Marte, Betemit.

You never can predict what will happen at these meetings. JS pulled a string last year and landed Tim Hudson in a trade from the A's. This year the Braves have somewhere between 14-16.5 million to spend for next season. It should be interesting, I'll keep the site updated as news comes through.

Furcal Verdict.....

Rafael Furcal has reached an agreement to join the Los Angeles Dodgers as their new shortstop. Furcal received a 3/39 million dollar deal from L.A. Well what about Atlanta? The Braves and Cubs were also involved in the hunt. Atlanta offered 4/36 million while the Cubs sent out a 5/50 million dollar offer. So much for the "hometown" discount. I don't blame Furcal leaving for the big bucks. Although it's kinda depressing for the Braves; when we are restricted with a tight payroll and can't resign the players that develop within the organization. What's next? Who's going to take over SS? Wilson Betemit....or will we trade for a "one year rental".