and I think we should call his bluff. Let him talk about other teams and other deals, and if they take a lesser package from one of them, that’s fine with me. But this could be yet another opportunity to get the price on Peavy down, and if this is the trade Wren wants, it may be wise to continue to wait.

I was one who wanted to get jake peavy at the prosposed price that has been alterated a lot over the past week or so. The reason being is that our best two trade pieces were ones that I thought were very managable to replace to improve our team along with the Peavy acquistion. Gorkys could have been traded because we have a better fielding CF in Schafer who is closer to being ML ready, and I have always felt that Yunel’s value has a player was more inflated because of how inexpensive he was(compared to what hecould have gotten on the open market) instead of the talent he will eventually develop into. I think Yunel will put up renteria type numbers in his prime, and while that is valueable, I would definately trade the potential of him getting there as the main piece to get an ace in peavy in a heartbeat.

That being said, the more i think about, the more I would not mind the braves going out and getting Dempster. Lowe, Burnett, etc. and trading KJ for say Ludwick instead of us going to get peavy. My reason is not so much with the fact that I would be pissed if we lost Yunel, as stated above…..It simply is on the matter of available money. Say that we were to go out and Get Peavy, replace him with Renteria, and then sign Juan Rivera. We not only have spent close to 30 million, but we have also lost young talent. Instead, say we go get one of the three pitchers mentioned above, and then trade kj for Ludwick, we have actually only spent around 20-22million, we have a capable backup to replace kj, and we still have all of our pieces in place in the case we wanted to go trade for a Grenke, Cain, Sanchez, so on.

My biggest point is that the braves need to very active early on in the free agent shopping spree, go out and get the pitcher that we want at a reasonable price, and that puts us in a position of even more leverage. Our need for Peavy goes down, we still have all our young talent in place, and this gives us even more options to improve the team, a position any team always wants to be in.

Replace yunel with renteria…..

And even more importantly, while I think that signing Furcal at 13-15 million over three to 3 years would be a better value signing than signing burrell, dunn, abreu, and so on, I just think that we can find a better way to spend our money than Signing Furcal, Trading for Peavy, losing some young talent, and having very little to spend on the open market, as all we really have done is acquire one top of the rotation pitcher, albeit one of the best, and a shortstop marginally better than yunel…..
We need to make moves that keep us in the position to fill all our holes at a comfortable price

Yeah, but Lowe, Dempster, and Burnett are already on a lot of teams’ short lists. I think the Cubs have the best shot at Dempster. Lowe has already said he would want to go back to Boston. And who knows about Burnett, but I definitely don’t see signing 2/3 and it may be tough to even get 1.

and thus is the point of free agency. If we wind up going after all three and striking out, then perhaps we should include locke with yunel and gorkys and be happy to get Peavy. However, if those first three go, then there are still a lot of pitchers out there who I think would be of great interest to bring to the national through a trade not to the level of peavy. Perhaps Greinke, that may not be a bad idea. What about Javier Vazquez, although his contract might be to expensive. Anybody think Edwin Jackson could survive in the NL, or Sonnastine perhaps. Perhaps the Orioles would explore the option of trading Guthrie if they get no improvement in their free agency search, and the twins surplus of pitching has plenty of young talent (Blackburn, Perkins, Bonser) who could be at least be 2 or 3 type pitchers in the NL. MY point is that there is pitching out there that is available. The nl could potentially offer Cain or Sanchez from the Giants, Arroyo from the reds, perhaps Snell or Malhom from the Pirates. While only a few of these options are top of the order rotation options, a lot of them have not reach their prime yet, and could be gotten at a cheap price. I would love to get Peavy, Cain, Lowe, Burnett, Dempster, or perhaps Sheets, and then get one of the other pitchers in this post. This is what makes the FA period fun.

I didn’t know where to put this, but it either has to be comedy genius at play or the Phillies were getting desperate.

It is more along the lines of the fact that he could post similar production to Peavy, while also costing 20 to 30 million less over the next four years at least. I would love to get Cain, but I do agree that the asking price could be right on par with Peavys.

If everyone thinks we’re obsessed with Peavy, we will not see as many serious offers.

I hope this is true, but then again focusing on signing marginal free agent starters (Burnett, Dempster) is an even worse decision, so…

they can keep their high effort, always-terrible-on-short-rest , injury-waiting-to-happen pitcher then.