News-Record.com

... and that's not meant to be a shot at the writing of the Braves beat writer at the Atlanta Journal-Consitution. I love reading DOB's stuff. It's hard to come up with interesting stuff day in and day out on a MLB beat, but he pulls it off pretty well.

Rather, DOB's recent blog post about Atlanta's trade for Texas Ranger's 1B Mark Teixeira has set my mind at ease.

The deal had me feeling excited, stunned and apprehensive all at the same time. Excited because the Braves got a big bat at first, plugging a huge hole in their lineup and making it one of the most potent in the NL. Stunned because it's been 14 years, since trading for Fred McGriff in 1993, that the Braves have been this aggressive at the trade dealine. Apprehensive because the Braves, who are famous for making deals while somehow managing to avoid giving away their top prospects, gave up three in this deal.

But, as I said, DOB puts my mind at ease with his blog entry. His most important point - because Teixeira has 1.5 years left on his contract, the Braves will get two, not just one, run at the postseason before having to deal with Teixeira's pit bull agent, Scott Boras.

Still, given the line of thinking that says that Teixeira won't be in a Braves uniform past 2008, Atlanta needs to make the postseason either this year or the next, or maybe both years for the deal to be considered a success. Atlanta gave up a lot of young talent to make this happen.

It's a risk, but I haven't felt this good about the Braves in quite some time. Given their bolstered bullpen - after getting Ron Mahay in the Teixeira deal and Octavio Dotel in a later deal - and their strong lineup 1-8 (except Andruw Jones, of course) and their strong 1-2 starting punch of John Smoltz and Tim Hudson, I think the Braves are better prepared for postseason play than many of their recent playoff teams, many of which had much better regular season W-L numbers than the 2007 edition.