MLBTR takes this David O'Brien blog post, where he talks to Braves GM Frank Wren, and lists the "hot stove highlights." While there were five bullet points to consider, there was nothing in the way of new information. This got me re-thinking about something that I had meant to post earlier in our off-season.

As great as last winter was for Braves rumors, mainly because of the more open style of Frank Wren, I submit that this winter will be the exact opposite. Wren was a much more media-friendly General Manager than his predecessor John Schuerholz. Wren was candid about many topics, including trades and free agent signings; all of which actually helped make the off-season the tumultuous roller coaster that it became.

Many of the leaks about the Jake Peavy deal came from the other coast, but Wren was certainly not shy about discussing the Braves' interest in the then-San Diego ace. The John Smoltz situation played out as an ugly public spectacle. Losing A.J. Burnett was tougher than it should have been because we publicly pronounced that he was our top pitching target. Losing Rafael Furcal was a also tougher than it should have been because the Atlanta front office was media-friendly enough to leak the news of the signing before anything had actually been signed. And then the Ken Griffey Jr. decision was hashed out in public.

Those are the lessons that our new GM has learned over the past year -- enough lessons for an entire career. I would imagine that Wren will turn back to the ways of John Schuerholz and lock the Braves front office down tighter than Langley. We will not hear a peep out of them this winter, and every signing and trade will be a complete surprise without any advance warning.

I think part of my job this winter will be to point out media bloviating and speculation-run-amok more than talking about actual rumors and leaked nuggets of information. Feel free to bookmark this post and call me on it if I'm wrong.

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There has been a lot of talk in the past week about the Braves inability to keep both Javier Vazquez and Tim Hudson on the pitching staff next year. This is assuming that the Braves pick up Hudson's option (something they said they would do before the season), and that Hudson accepts that option (something he has the right to decline).

Picking up Hudson's option would present the team with a problem -- they would have six starting pitchers going into the 2010 season, and four of them would be very well paid. Hudson and Vazquez would presumably be on one year deals, with the rest of the staff locked up beyond 2010.

Ken Rosenthal pointed out this dilemma earlier this week, and Jeff Schultz of the AJC is the latest to point it out. In both cases they consider only trading either Hudson or Vazquez, reasoning that Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami would be too hard to move, and Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson are too young and too good to move. My thinking lately has shifted from this foregone conclusion of trading either Hudson or Vazquez. I say the Braves should "consider" trading one of those other pitchers, specifically Jair Jurrjens. Now before you blast me for saying this, hear me out (after the jump).

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Could the Atlanta Braves have interest in Billy Wagner?

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Jon Heyman of SI.com has a Twitter post up that says Mets reliever Billy Wagner has been claimed on waivers by some unknown team. After some head scratching, I just keep thinking that it might make sense for the Braves to have claimed him.

Wagner is owed about $2.5 million for the remainder of the season, and he has a $1 million buyout on an $8 million option for next year. There's a chance that we still have $2.5 mil in the kitty to spend for the remainder of this season.

If the Braves did claim him -- and they got a chance to see how good he was up close last night -- it makes sense from several angles. First, one of the teams rumored to need him is the Marlins, who may have been ahead of us in the standings at the time of the claim. Blocking Wagner from going to the Marlins would potentially help us in the division or wildcard race. Heck, several of the teams in the wild card race might want him, and blocking him from going to one of those teams is a wise move.

Another angle here, is if the Mets were willing to just let Wagner go and let us assume his contract, then we get another fresh bullpen arm for the rest of the season. We would also essentially be giving Wagner a two month audition to see if he can be our closer next year (with Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez both free agents this winter).

We're also somewhat thin in quality bullpen depth. Take a look at our 40-man roster and there's only one or two relievers not currently on the 25-man roster who could help out in case of injury.

Anyway, I'm totally spit-ballin, but this kind of makes some sense.

[UPDATE 6:15pm]

So much for that theory. According to K-Ros, it looks like the Red Sox claimed Wagner.

I thought it would be a good day to take a look at the two one-for-one trades that the Atlanta Braves have made in the past month. The first being the trade of hometown star Jeff Francoeur to the rival New York Mets for Ryan Church, and the second being the re-aquisition of first baseman Adam LaRoche for the unpopular Casey Kotchman.

I guess the first question should be, "has anyone really missed Jeff Francoeur?" I don't think we've missed him on the diamond, maybe the clubhouse, but that was becoming questionable. Here is a comparison of Francoeur's stats with the Mets, and Ryan Church's stats with the Braves.

In true Francoeur form he has played more games -- that's what he does, he's always in the lineup for better or worse. At first glance you may be surprised to see Frenchy hitting .300, I was. Jeff hitting .300 for any month-long stretch is pretty amazing, and he's doing it while driving in runs, but that's where his value stops. When we look at OPS (not listed above), we see that Church has a higher OPS than Francoeur, .844 to .780. That's a pretty big disparity, and most all of it can be accounted for in the getting-on-base department. Church also doesn't lose many points in the slugging department.

Church is certainly more of a patient hitter, we all knew that. Francoeur has 1 unintentional walk with the Mets (that's one natural walk in a month), and aside from the 4 homeruns, he's been mainly a singles hitter. The added RBI's can be attributed to him spending most of his time in New York hitting 4th and 5th in a better position to drive in runs than he was in Atlanta. Even then, this trade still looks like a wash in terms of real offensive production. Church has been what we needed him to be -- a more rounded offensive option in right field -- and Francoeur has given the Mets what they perceive is more power.

Here is the second of our recent one-for-one trades, and a comparison of Kotchman's stats with the Red Sox and LaRoche's stats with the Braves.

Obviously this trade has worked out better than we could have ever imagined so far. Adam LaRoche has been hitting mainly in the bottom third of the batting order, but he's hitting like he should be in the middle of the order. Casey Kotchman has not gotten into many games, and it will likely be a shock and require a period of adjustment for him to go from a starting role to a pinch-hitting role. Thus this comparison is likely unfarily biased. Still, LaRoche has done better than Kotchman was likely capable of doing (even with the small sample size).

Taken as a whole, the two trades netted us upgrades in right and at first base. We acquired guys who are going to give us more total offense than the guys we gave up. We also got two guys who will give us more financial flexibility and positional flexibility this off-season.

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Maybe we got Adam LaRoche back just for Chipper?

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The most interesting thing about the deal that sent Casey Kotchman from the Atlanta Braves to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Adam LaRoche is what that deal says about our long term plans for first base. With Kotchman we had a plan in place, as he was under team control through the 2010 season, but with LaRoche, who can become a free agent at the end of the year, we opened up a big question mark this off-season.

A quick scan through the free agent first baseman at the end of the year, yields a depressing list of have-beens, almosts, or never weres -- light hitting 30-somethings that make Kotchman look like a power hitter. The best guy available (in terms of power stats) might be Russel Branyan, who is having his best major league season at age 33. The best all-around player of reasonable baseball age may actually be Adam LaRoche. So we just gave up a first baseman we controlled for another year for the most attractive free agent first baseman at the end of this year.

My thinking, and the thinking of many fans, is that Kotchman was the bridge to Freddie Freeman, simply a place-holder until the talented young first baseman was ready -- but a pretty decent place-holder. As Baseball American's number-11 top-prospect in all of baseball, Freeman is having a solid year after a mid-season promotion from hi-A to double-A, but most people don't think he'll be ready until 2011, or mid-2010 at the earliest. That leaves a pretty big gap, and the only likely candidate from within the organization to fill it is Barbaro Canizares -- a "prospect" who's almost the same age as LaRoche.

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Reports are that the Atlanta Braves have traded their current first baseman, Casey Kotchman, to the Red Sox for their former first baseman, Adam LaRoche. The deal was first reported by Jon Heyman of SI.com, then by NESN via this link. I had barely got done putting up the speculation post about this rumor, when it was confirmed to be true.

As I said in that post, this is not really a trade upwards, but more of a lateral move, and one that frees the Braves of any obligation to Kotchman beyond this year. Kotchman is under team control for a couple more years, LaRoche is a free agent. LaRoche is also one of Chipper Jones' best buds -- they own land together -- and it wouldn't surprise me if he was influential in this trade in some form or fashion.

LaRoche does represent an increase in power production over Kotchman, something that may have intrigued the Braves. He is also often referred to as a "second half" player as evedenced by his .773 first half OPS, versus his .899 second half OPS. His history with the orgainzation may also lead them to believe that he could be re-signed this off-season at a reasonable price. At the very least, there would be less risk in offering him arbitration.

More to come here as we find out.

[UPDATE: 4:15pm]

I just got the press release, and we get "cash considerations" along with LaRoche. So the Red Sox will be sending some salary our way, not sure how much yet.

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The latest rumor du jour has the Atlanta Braves on a short list to re-acquire their old first baseman, Adam LaRoche. This was first reported on Twitter by Jon Heyman of SI.com and confirmed by multiple sources, including the Braves beat writer Mark Bowman. LaRoche is owed around $3 million by the Red Sox after they acquired him from the Pirates last week. With the acquisition today of Victor Martinez, LaRoche becomes expendible to the Red Sox.

On the surface it makes little sense other than the fact that we like reunions. LaRoche would be a power upgrade over Casey Kotchman at first base, but he is making just under $3 mil for the entire year and is far cheaper than LaRoche would be. They're also both OPS-ing about the same this year.

The only way I can see the Braves biting is if they feel this would strengthen their bench to have one of those guys sitting half the time. Neither one can play the outfield. So, again, this rumor sort of baffles me as to the Braves actual interest. Why waste $3 mil on LaRoche for the rest of the season when you have a perfectly good and affordable first baseman (who hasn't made an error in a year).

Unless the Red Sox just want to give him away for free, or give him to us if we take the salary. That's the only way I can see us getting him.

Stay tuned.

[UPDATE: 3:40pm]

Some people say it's a done deal, including a Boston station, NESN. But Braves.com's Mark Bowman says not so fast:

If Braves complete deal for LaRoche and it appears they're very close to doing so, Kotchman won't necessarily be included in three-way trade

Interesting. The other reports we've heard have Casey Kotchman going to Boston, but maybe this "three-way" would have him going elsewhere, like Cleveland.

Per K-Ros:

The Phillies have reached agreement on a trade that would bring them left-hander Cliff Lee and outfielder Ben Francisco from the Indians for Class A right-hander Jason Knapp, Class AAA right-hander Carlos Carrasco, shortstop Jason Donald and catcher Lou Marson, according to major-league sources.

My first thought is that this gives them a very tough 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation. My second thought was "I wonder if this will put pressure on the Braves or anyone else in the division to make a big move."

I say we keep standing pat. Maybe get a reliever, but keep standing pat. We'll get our Cliff Lee when Tim Hudson returns in a few weeks.