Mark Teixeira to the Braves?...that and other possible trades

Jon Heyman over at Sports Illustrated has an interesting article on the upcoming trade deadline and the players that he thinks will be traded and where. There is a few people on his lists that I have heard rumored to be going to the Braves, so I thought i'd break it down real quick for everyone.

1. Mark Teixeira, 1B (Texas)

AVG: .299
HR: 13
RBI: 49

The Skinny:

Mark Teixeira is one of the best young, power-hitting first baseman in baseball right now and seeing as how the Rangers aren't going anywhere for awhile and they probably won't be able to afford him after this year, the likelihood that he will be traded is extremely high. Teixeira's name has been linked to blockbuster deals to the Atlanta Braves in which the would have to give up top prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia and the Los Angeles Angels in which they would have to give up Casey Kotchman, a fellow first baseman. The only question that remains are these teams willing to give up two or three top prospects in exchange for someone who could walk after next season and command $13 million a year?

Best Guess:

My gut instinct is that Teixeira will be a Brave by time the trade deadline on July 31st ends, I mean the Angels or any team for that matter just can't match what the Braves could give the Rangers, Salty is widely regarded as the top catching prospect in baseball and is a switch-hitter just like Teixeira that has a ton of power and then include a pitching prospect and or our seventeen year-old kid at shortstop, Elvis Andrus. I just don't see how other teams can match that.

But i'm not too sure if I want this trade to go down or not, sure Teixeira is a great talent and our first baseman combo of the Mighty Thor and the 789 year-old Julio Franco is currently giving us shit, it makes sense. But I really like Salty and I don't want to see him go, I'd prefer we move him to the first base instead of trading him, I just don't want to see us trade him for Teixeira and then see Teixeira leave a couple of years later like everyone always seems to do. But even if we do trade him **most likely going to happen** I just hope we can re-sign Teixeira and keep him for awhile.

Some other players that we've been linked to are:

Livan Hernandez, SP (Arizona)
Zack Greinke, SP/RP (Kansas City)
Matt Morris, SP (San Francisco)
Steve Kline, RP (San Francisco)
Jon Garland, SP (Chicago [AL] )

Just some recent Braves' rumors

Well with the trade deadline quickly approaching there have been a few trade rumors floating around out there involving my Atlanta Braves. So I thought I'd take this time to mention a few of them.

1. Mark Buehrle to the Braves

It was widely said that the Braves were one of the biggest suitors for the very talented starter. But all of that was thrown out the window when the Chicago White Sox gave him a new fat contract. That pretty much ended all speculation of Buehrle to the Braves. But what was Kenny Williams asking price? A new report stated that Williams wanted Atlanta to give up Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Yunel Escobar. That's just plain insane seeing as how both of them are proving day in and day out that they can hit professional ball and to add more to that they are two of our top prospects, Salty being our number one. j

2. Mark Teixeira to the Braves

This one may still have legs to it. Teixeira is still on the disabled list but he's having a pretty good year and everyone knows what he can do, he's a .300 hitter that can hit 35 plus homeruns with 100 plus RBI's. That could really help our current problem at first base and our lack of power. But there's always a catch. First of all we would have to give up no less than Jarrod Saltalamacchia and another young prospect to get him and at this point I don't want to get rid of Salty, were going to lose Andruw at the end of the year and his power will come in handy. Another snag is the fact that Teixeira is going to be a free-agent after next year and his agent is Scott Boras so he's looking at getting at least $20 million per year. And yet another problem is Teixeira has made it known that he would love to play for his hometown team which is Baltimore so he seems like he would just be more of a rental than anything else, but if he did then we would get some very valuable draft picks.

I don't know exactly what were going to do when the trade deadline comes up, which is about three weeks away, but I have a strong feeling that we are going to get a starter. Now who that starter will be, well I don't know. Here's a list of starters that are said to be available:

Matt Morris, San Francisco Giants

Kyle Lohse, Cincinnati Reds

Jason Jennings, Houston Astros

John Garland, Chicago White Sox

Jose Contreras, Chicago White Sox

Odalis Perez, Kansas City Royals

Steve Trachsel, Baltimore Orioles

Joe Kennedy, Oakland Athletics

Wade Miller, Chicago Cubs (injured, on the 60-day DL)

Josh Fogg, Colorado Rockies

Brett Tomko, Los Angeles Dodgers

That's a few of the names that are being tossed around, of course there is always Rich Harden, but he's injured right now and could cost a pretty penny seeing as how he's a Cy Young pitcher when healthy. I'd love to have him even with injury risk, that is if he didn't cost us too much. We've been mentioned with Matt Morris as of late, and I do have to admit he's have a nice start to his season, but I just don't think he'll keep it up and plus I believe he makes around $10 million this year. If we're going to get a starter from San Francisco I'd want it to be Kyle Lowry, but that's just me. I also would have multiple seizures if we were to trade for Carl Crawford or Alex Rios.

Rumors can be so much fun

According to the Boston Globe, the Boston Celtics could be looking to trade their fifth overall draft pick before the NBA Draft, which is June 28th. The Globe lists the Phoneix Suns and the Indiana Pacers as a potential trading partners.

"One of the scenarios raised by the executive had Shawn Marion and the $33.6 million and two years remaining on his contract headed to Boston for the No. 5 pick and Theo Ratliff, who has one year remaining worth $11.7 million. The Celtics would throw in another player or two with one year left to make the money work -- say, Delonte West ($1.9 million), Tony Allen ($1.9 million), or even Sebastian Telfair ($2.6 million)....Look for an organization like Indiana, without any picks, to try to deal its way into the mix."

Now this would certainly be huge news if Marion was traded to the Celtics after not coming through in the playoffs with the Suns. Marion would be a great fit in Boston, if the trade were to happen, he's great on defense and can provide some contributions offensively, and that would go a long way to helping Paul Pierce.

I'm just not sure if they would be giving too much up for him, I mean the fifth pick in a very deep draft plus the HUGE expiring contract of Theo Ratliff and one of their point guards. It would be a great trade for the Suns, who are looking to dump some salary cap while moving up in the draft. This could be the first of many trades on draft day, seeing as how there are a lot of teams without draft picks and this draft is so deep teams will be looking to take advantage of that.