Here are some rumors being reported by Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus that involve the Braves:

The Rangers were clear winners at last year’s deadline, already seeing a payoff from last year’s deals. They might try again, making smaller deals focused on 2009. They might again have a match with the Braves, dealing one of their extra OF bats — Frank Catalanotto, Marlon Byrd, or even Milton Bradley — for Mike Gonzalez. There hasn’t been much interest in Hank Blalock, but he’s another name that could clear waivers.

I really don't want to get rid of Gonzalez unless we're getting premium young talent back, and none of those guys are (A) premium or (B) young. Unfortunately, this rumor has multiple sources.

Once again, no one seems to know what the Dodgers are doing. Reports that they’re showcasing Andy LaRoche and discussing Matt Kemp in deals are balanced against discussions involving Jack Wilson on the low end and Mark Teixeira on the high end. A rumor has been making the rounds that the Dodgers would be willing to eat some of Andruw Jones‘ deal and send him back as part of a package for Teixeira were shot down by both sides.

So, no one knows what the Dodgers are doing, but there's the rumor nonetheless. I shudder to think why in the world we would want Andruw Jones back. Hasn't he proven (both this year and last year ) that he's not the player he used to be? No mention of James Loney, but my guess is he's the guy the Braves would want.

UPDATE 12:00PM 07-23-08

Braves beat writer Mark Bowman responds to Will Carroll's speculation about the Braves trading Gonzalez to Texas:

Reacting to that rumor on Wednesday morning, one Braves official said, "Gonzalez will not be traded before the deadline or during this off-season unless Texas offers us Josh Hamilton."

I'd take that... Josh Hamilton is a real hero. <gondeee vomits a bit in his mouth>

Bowman also has this to say about Will Ohman, possibly our most tradable player at the moment:

Interest in Ohman has picked up recently.  The Braves are looking for something greater than the Type B compensation they'd receive if they were to offer him arbitration and lose him to free agency this year.

I still think Ohman has more value if he's packaged with Teixeira, so maybe they'll wait until near the deadline to make any deals. I also think Ohman's value goes up once Brian Fuentes gets dealt. The teams who lost out on him may get desperate and up their price on a guy like Ohman.

"All right you guys, listen up. We won a game yesterday. If we win one today, that's two in a row. We win one tomorrow, that's called a winning streak. It has happened before."

The accolades just keep coming for the M-Braves this year. Last week Kris Medlen was named Southern League Pitcher of the Week, and this week the honor goes to Todd Redmond. From the official release:

Redmond did everything but record a win on Friday against the Carolina Mudcats.
 
The 23-year-old allowed just one hit - a single - without permitting a run in a season high-tying eight innings before departing with a two-run lead.
 
In the ninth, the league's Hitter of the Week spoiled Redmond's chance at a league high-tying ninth win with a go-ahead, three-run homer. Despite not getting a decision, Redmond recorded six strikeouts to move into third in the league with 97 overall.
 
The native of St. Petersburg, FL also lowered his ERA to 3.34, good for eighth in the circuit. It was the second impressive showing during the week for Redmond, who pitched a flawless inning with one strikeout in the Southern League All-Star Game on July 14.

Maybe in a few years we'll be able to look back and say that the best thing Tyler Yates ever did for the Braves was get traded for Todd Redmond. (Some people are probably saying that right now.)

One of the scenarios in the whole Mark Teixeira, do-we-trade-him-or-do-we-keep-him saga, has us keeping him (presumably because there is no where to trade him, or we have some delusion about staying in the race) and just accepting the two draft picks we would receive as compensation when he would presumably sign with another team (after we offer him arbitration). Many people from beat writers to bloggers have floated this scenario and suggested that the two draft picks would be a manageable return on our investment of prospects plus a year and a half of Tex.

Well don't start counting your chickens before they've hatched. Kevin Goldstein over at Baseball Prospectus recently posted a story about the excesses that some teams are spending on first round draft picks this year. The teams with the money -- New York and Boston -- are spending several millions of dollars to sign their first round picks and are also spending lavishly on later round picks with first round skill sets. Meanwhile, other more thrifty teams are having a hard time signing their first round picks for reasonable amounts of money (even when you consider reasonable in the baseball contract sense).

Consider that if we end up keeping Teixeira through the end of the season and getting two draft picks when he signs elsewhere, then we may have to pony up anywhere from $6 million to $14 million just to sign all of our picks before the second round. Add on to that the possibility of Will Ohman bringing at least one supplemental first round pick and that's four players who would be expecting first-round money.

On one hand it's a good problem to have since you are no doubt infusing your system with an amazing amount of talent at one time, on the other hand, you may have to pay through the nose for that talent.

In the past the Braves have been on both sides of the fence between paying first round money for first round talent and trying to get some players at a bargain. Certainly their history with draft-and-follow players means that they're willing to shell out good money to players picked lower in the draft, but their history with guys like second round pick Josh Fields last year and fifth round pick Jacob Thompson this year shows that they may not be willing to go as far as this new market is pushing some of these contracts. Also, don't forget that the Jason Heyward negotiations last year dragged on until three days before the deadline to sign draftees.

Maybe it's too early to worry about this problem, but it's something to consider when considering some of the packages being floated for Tex.

Sweet demise. Here is a complete waste of time... kind of like the Braves right now.

With the series loss to Washington over the weekend the Braves record moves to six games under .500 and 6.5 games behind the Phillies and Mets for the division lead. While 6.5 games to make up in the standings with two months to play is not unthinkable or unheard of, the real question at this point is what will it take for the Braves to make up that ground and make the playoffs. To answer that question we have to take a realistic look at what the Braves need to do in their remaining 64 games.

One of the Braves core philosphies under Bobby Cox has been to focus on winning series, be they three-game series or four-game series. If the Braves can be perfect in that philosophy for the remainder of the year then our record at the end of the season would be 90-and-72 (that would mean we won every three game series 2-1 and every four game series 3-1). In two of the past three years, 89 and 90 wins have been good enough to win the NL East, so certainly in this scenario 90 wins may be good enough for the division crown.

If we split each of the four, four-game series we have left for the remainder of the year our record at the end of the season would be 86-and-76, which might be good enough for the division lead, especially as much as each team in the NL East plays each other during the rest of the season.

We also have a chance to do damage to the division leaders first hand as we play each team in front of us -- Floriday, New York, and Philladelphia -- nine times in the second half. We'll get to see immediately how this team will respond to this challenge -- and how this team responds to the challenges of playing on the road in the second half -- when we head down to Flordia and then up to Philladelphia for three games apiece over the next seven days.

Despite the "possibility" still being alive for the Braves to make the post-season, the reality that there really is no chance is becoming more apparent each game (and each loss to teams we should be beating). At the start of play in the second half, we had an 11.9% chance of making the post-seasons this year. After losing the series to the Washington Nationals over the weekend those chances have dwindled to 6.6%.

The odds are against us, and certainly luck has not been on our side. It seems that making the playoffs is a pretty far-fetched idea at this point; an idea which may have run its course. While the possibility still exists for the Braves to make a post-season appearance, the amount of things that have to go right are so numerous that the possibility of that happening is pretty rare. If we can win some series... but that's the big IF, and it certainly hasn't been happening with regularity.

Realistically, we won't win every series for the remainder of the year, so realistically, we don't really have a chance.

Jo-Jo Reyes starts against former Atlanta Braves golden boy Odalis Perez -- interestingly they both are pretty shitty this year, though if you've watched some of Jo-Jo's starts you'll know that he should have a much better record than he has. He actually has some of the worst run support in the league -- 125th out of 132 starters in the NL  -- that's a measly 2.55 runs per start (save for the four starts that Jeff Bennett (2.16) made). Jurrjens (5.27) has the best run support of any Braves starter except for John Smoltz (6.33) and Tom Glavine (6.07).

The surgeon needed some RS last night as he seemed to have some rust on his arm from the break. Was it just me or did we have base runners and runners in scoring position in every inning only to ground out or line out or fly out or strike out or Francoeur out?

Here are the x-Braves Nationals players vs. us this season:

Willie Harris - .455 BA w/ 2 3B, 3 2B and 5 RBI
Ryan Langerhans - .571 BA w/ 1 3B, and 2 2B
Pete Orr - 1-for-2.... anyone who allows Pete Orr to get a hit is horrible
At least we've handled Johnny Estrada, who is just 3-for-20 against us

Oh, and Odalis Perez has a 1.80 ERA against us in five innings...

Playoffs?... what?

The Georgia DOT is doing construction on the north side of the connector, so if you're headed down to the game via 75 or 85 southbound you may want to allow an extra half-hour to an hour to get to the park. I drove up 85 today and traffic was backed up all the way back to Georgia 400. I would recommend taking 285 to 20 and get to Atlanta that way -- especially if you're one of those who don't like to sit in traffic. Check out this website before you leave for the park.

And back at the Ted, we won a one-run game last night.... how about that. Hudson had a good outing last night despite the line score that says he gave up five runs. Let's hope Gonzo was just shaking off the second half cobwebs, or serving up some free hits for ex-teammates. The surgeon goes tonight.... let's keep this winning streak going!

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.