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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > July > 19
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Braves must keep Teixeira
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s not going to happen. Well, they sort of suggested as much on Saturday night at Turner Field. That said, if Braves officials do trade Mark Teixeira before the July 31 deadline, they should apologize to everybody on their roster, and then they should give rebates to those entering Turner Field the rest of the season.
Surrender never should be rewarded in sports. That’s especially true when you’re part of an underwhelming division, and you’re a medium-sized winning streak from first place, and you have this Teixeira guy who is pretty good as both a cleanup hitter and a first baseman.
Teixeira can become a free agent after this season, but so what? If he leaves, the Braves get a couple of draft picks. If he stays, it saves Braves officials the difficult task of trying to find another slugger as good or even better. So you keep him through September no matter. In fact, to hear all parties involved tell it before the Braves’ 8-2 loss to the Washington Nationals, he isn’t going anywhere. Braves manager Bobby Cox informed Teixeira and others as much on Friday in a team meeting.
“Bobby pointed out that there had been rumors about me and [reliever Will Ohman], and he told us not to listen to media reports and to those rumors, because this team is still trying to win the [National League East],” said Teixeira, 28, giving one of the two primary reasons those rumors never made sense. Here’s the other primary reason: He is pretty good.
Since joining the Braves on last year’s trade deadline from the Texas Rangers, Teixeira has shown often why he has two Gold Gloves and counting. There was the sixth inning Saturday, for instance, when he converted a nasty hop into an easy out to increase his major-league lead in putouts by a bunch. He also is a switch-hitting terror at the plate. He has hit safely in nine of his past 11 games, and after a slow start earlier this season, he has accumulated 12 homers and 38 RBIs since late May.
No wonder Cox said emphatically before the game, “We’re buyers, not sellers. We’re trying anything to improve. We’re not seeking to move anybody. I don’t know where [people] got all of that stuff from. There’s a time to [start trading players], I suppose, but we’re in this thing.”
Which brings us to the question that causes Braves officials to waffle regarding Teixeira’s future: What if the Braves tumble out of “this thing” in a hurry? Their next seven games are against division foes. After the Nationals leave town today, the fourth-place Braves travel to Florida to face the third-place Marlins. Then the Braves head to Philadelphia for a series against a first-place team that has whipped them eight out of nine times this year.
Said Braves general manager Frank Wren, whose team had more than a few uneven moments in this one at the plate, on the mound, around the bases and in the field, “I think we all have to be realistic. We have to play better baseball in the second half to continue to stay in this thing. As long as we’re in it, we’ll keep this approach. But once, I think, we realize that it’s a situation where we need to start looking toward ‘09, then we’ll try to do what’s best for the organization.”
Keeping Teixeira is best for the organization, period.
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