Were the Braves Winners or Losers at the Trade Deadline

Let's take a look around the internets and see if the Braves turned out to be Winners or Losers in the eyes of writers and bloggers.

First up is the Phill-o-phile writer for ESPN, Jayson Stark. He lists the Braves and the rest of the NL East among the losers on his review of deadline day:

The five NL East clubs did get a few trades done in the past couple of weeks. We'll grant them that. The Phillies did trade for Joe Blanton. The Braves did trade away Teixeira. And the Nationals did ship Jon Rauch to Arizona. But when July 31 had come and gone, it was safe to say they've all had better Deadline Days.

Next we take a look at what Sports Illustrated writer Jon Heyman says as he lists the Braves as a winner at the deadline:

GM Frank Wren did as well as he could to rent Teixeira, pulling in a slick-fielding young first baseman in Casey Kotchman. While the power numbers aren't there, some scouts believe they will come. Kotchman can't compare to what they gave up for Teixeira (a bunch), but hey, Teixeira enhanced their chances in two different seasons. It just didn't quite work out.

Sort of echoing Heyman's take on the trade is Peter Bendix from Beyond the Boxscore, who also rates us as a winner in this deal:

Casey Kotchman and Stephen Marek are better than two compensation picks. That’s what it boils down to. Yes, the Braves look rather silly, considering the fact that they gave up a ton to Texas to acquire Teixeira last year and received "only" Kotchman and Marek when trading him this year. But kudos to Frank Wren for his willingness to potentially look bad, even though it made his team better.

Two major outlets didn't list us as winners or losers at all. USA Today failed to mention us, as did Fox Sports.

Steve Henson from Yahoo Sports sort of missed the point of rating "this year's" winners and losers when he rated us as a loser with this as his reasoning:

So, basically, after acquiring Teixeira a year ago and unloading him two days ago, the Braves get Kotchman and minor league pitcher Steve Marek for the harvest of prospects they shipped to the Texas Rangers: Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Matt Harrison, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz and Beau Jones. They’ll be happy with Kotchman, a solid player. Marek, a hard thrower with a power curveball, has potential. But they paid a big price for Teixeira a year ago and won’t go to the playoffs again.

So that's two wins and two losses. It seems that no one is really sure what to make of our deadline dealing(s).

What do you think?