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.