The hottest rumor going for the Braves if they are to be buyers at the trade deadline has us acquiring outfielder Xavier Nady from the Pittsburgh Pirates. But do we really want Xavier Nady? 

The Good:

• He's hitting a career best .321 this year with a career best ..525 slugging percentage
  
• He'll be around next year and could be an option to take over at first base after Teixeira leaves
• He's only in his second year of arbitration and would be relatively affordable this year and next
• He's a lifetime .290 hitter at Turner Field (.478 SLG)
• We could prevent the Mets from trading for him (or at the very least we could run up the price on the Mets and hope they don't run up the price on us)

The Bad:

• He's hitting 42 points above his career average this year, and is slugging 71 points above his career average -- how long can he keep that up
  
• One of the people with similar career comps to Nady is Jeff Francoeur (at this point do we want to run the risk of acquiring another Jeff Francoeur)
• The dreaded Scott Boras is his agent
• He's never played more than 130 games in any season
• We would likely have to give up two "quality" prospects in return

Certainly Xavier Nady would not be the sexiest trade acquisition we've made in recent memory, and yet we would still be counting on him to be an offensive spark plug in the lower-middle part of our order for the remainder of the year. The biggest drawback (or red flag) to this trade from my perspective is that Nady has never really shown this kind of offensive prowess in the major leagues. But... he has been fairly consistent throughout this year and maybe at age 29 he's ready to be more than an average major leaguer. If that's the case and we are able to tap into it for a couple of years then I'm okay with this trade. I do like the fact that Nady "could" be a potential replacement for Teixeira at first base next year; I don't think it would be hard to find another outfielder if Nady were to move to first, besides, many of our almost-ready-prospects are outfielders.

While I'd rather not give up any more prospects in trades (especially after the deals last year), this may be the perfect place to use Gorkys Hernandez -- long thought to be a chip we would use in the trade market ever since his acquisition from the Tigers last November. We may also be able to sell high on a pitcher like Kris Medlen. I would probably be okay with that trade, not devestated or blown away, but okay.

We'll have to see if the Braves make this move. With the ability of Nady to play first, this may be a trade that is made whether or not the Braves keep winning in the next week or two, with the intention that Nady would be the replacement needed anyway next year for Tex. A lot depends on what we have to give up, but I'm warming up to this trade more and more.