Printer-friendly

Contact Author

July 29, 2008

Prospectus Today

Trading Tex

by Joe Sheehan

Monday afternoon, the Braves put Chipper Jones and Tim Hudson on the disabled list, and having done so, followed by putting Mark Teixeira on the trade block. The moves followed a disastrous weekend in Philadelphia in which the team blew leads of 9-3 and 5-0 on consecutive days, losses that, combined with the injuries to their two best players, led them to pull the plug on 2008.

I’ve argued for much of the season, and as recently as last week, that the Braves could win the NL wild card, possibly even the NL East. Their performance profile isn’t all that different from that of the Brewers, America’s darlings of the moment:

                   Braves       Brewers
Run differential      +23           +28
Third-order W-L     55-50         57-49
Record              49-56         60-46

OK, it’s a little different. The Braves have not only been a bad joke in one-run games by going 6-23 (with a streak of 26 consecutive one-run losses on the road), they have also suffered some of the worst losses in the game this year. This weekend’s disasters, which had they been won could have completely changed their season's narrative, get thrown on the pile with the Kelly Johnson game, a nightmare in Cincinnati, and a host of other winnable games gone by the wayside.

Injuries have played their part in the destruction of the Braves. Their four best players are unavailable at the moment. Their three best relievers have been intermittently available all season long, a contributing factor to that 6-23 mark in one-run contests. Still, when you look at the games that the Braves have, excuse me, simply pissed away in 2008, it’s hard to not see them as the single-biggest team disappointment of the season. This team was infinitely better than the Mariners at the start of the year, and they simply found a million ways to lose.

So Frank Wren steps into Jon Daniels’ shoes. He has three days to trade Mark Teixeira, or at least Teixeira’s next 225 plate appearances, and try and replace some of the value that was lost a year ago in the deal that brought Teixeira and a lot of hope to Atlanta. Teixeira has played very well for the Braves. In nearly a full season (157 games) he’s hit .295/.395/.565, well above his career marks, and a line that would be the best single season of his career. That the Braves have gone 77-83 since dealing for him has basically nothing to do with his performance. He remains a good first baseman defensively, and as a switch-hitter with power and patience, a near-perfect player for any team in the game. He is likely to be worth 20 runs above a league-average hitter, and save five runs over an average defensive first baseman. Keep those benchmarks in mind.