Braves Dugout: Blogging on the Atlanta Braves
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Monday, December 05, 2005

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.

3 Comments:

  • Atlanta will make a move today or tommorrow.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 10:39 AM  

  • I'm somewhere between unimpressed and disappointed with the Estrada trade that apparently just went down. Once upon a time we lost an All-Star pitcher to get him, he turned into an All-star himself and now we're getting a couple of scrubs for the 'pen for him in what everyone can see is a poorly disguised salary dump.

    I'm also rather terrified by the fact that there is an increasing number of reports linking the Braves to Edgar Rentaria (in a three team deal that would cost us Andy Marte). Betemit can play SS in 2006, Yunel Escobar should be ready for the year after that and Elvis Andrus is only a few years away as well. The point is, we are loaded at that position; why bring in a highly paid, underachieving veteran with a long term contract?

    Personally, I think this off-season is going as poorly as possible and I fear it might only be getting worse. With the Mets poised to make runs in 2006 and 2007 AND the Marlins reloading for 2008 and beyond, the streak of division championships is in grave danger. What are your thoughts?

    By Blogger Ernesto Ruiz, at 2:26 PM  

  • Thanks for posting. Estrada was dumped to 'Zona for 2 relief pitchers that may/may not make the opening day roster. Your right according to the baseball timeline we traded Millwood & Estrada for these 2 guys.

    I have heard the Renteria rumors and am not too thrilled if this goes down. Betemit's time is now and apparently Atlanta still isn't set on him in the everyday role. If we do get Renteria, how long will we have him for, 1 season?

    I'm not worried about the Mets, sure they stocked up with past/present all-stars, but there the Mets. We beat the Mets every year. The Marlins can be dangerous by getting young talent that will be ready to contend in a few years. Look at what happened to them in 2003.

    As for the Braves, we'll see what happens. I'll post a wrap up of the winter meetings on Friday.

    By Blogger Adam, at 3:29 PM  

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