UCB Roundtable: One move you’d like to see this offseason?
[For the last few days, we've been participating in the United Cardinal Bloggers fall roundtable discussion, in which a member blogger poses a question to the group each day. Today's question comes from Daniel of C70 at the Bat.]
What is one move you’d like to see Mozeliak do during this offseason? Could be a trade, could be a free agent signing.
In his dispatch about the Braves’ imminent re-signing of Tim Hudson, Ken Rosenthal noted that Atlanta may be interested in jettisoning one of its higher-paid starters, such as Javier Vazquez. Although Vazquez is under contract only for 2010, his salary, while not cheap ($11.5 million), represents a likely bargain: the league’s xFIP leader produced a value of $29.5 million in 2009 with 6.6 WAR. If the Braves are primarily looking to dump salary, the Cardinals may not have to give up as much in trade as would otherwise make trading for a 33-year-old soon-to-be-free-agent an unwise strategy. Also: If the team did acquire Vazquez but didn’t get him to return in 2011, they’d almost certainly receive draft picks.
On Monday’s UCB radio show, Bill DeWitt III noted that the team would spend the chunk of payroll putatively allocated for Matt Holliday somewhere else if he doesn’t sign. $11.5 and some low-level prospects for Vazquez might actually be a better value than Holliday, who’ll command at least $15 million next year. The Braves aren’t stupid, though, so it may take more than picking up the tab on Vazquez.