Uggla – Good or Ugga – Bad?

Looking around the Blogosphere the last couple of days, the general consensus seems to be that this was indeed an “Uggla – Good!” trade from the Braves perspective.  After all, most people seemed to say, the Braves acquired a historically good 30 year old second baseman for the price of a talented utility man (Infante) and a reliever (Dunn) who has more control problems than a ranch-full of cat herders.

While it’s hard to argue against the trade –and I’m not going to try — I do think it’s important that the trade be evaluated in its entire context.  On the positive side (check that; on the VERY positive side), the Braves acquired a bat that they desperately needed.  The 2010 Braves were what I call a “Three Hit Team”.  Through an amazing combination of blindingly slow speed and frighteningly little power, it usually required three hits in an inning for them to score (or at least two hits and a walk).  It doesn’t take a statistician to tell you that the chances of getting three hits in an inning are a lot less than the chances of getting one or two hits in an inning.  If you can score on fewer hits, that’s a really good thing.  This trade will allow the Braves to do that a lot more often in 2011 than would have been the case without the trade.  Uggla’s 33 HR’s would have easily lead the team (no one hit 20 for the Braves), and his .877 OPS is pretty much other-worldly for a second baseman.  If you make the assumption that Chipper recovers from his knee surgery, the 2 through 6 slots in the Braves batting order are very solid (Prado, Jones, Uggla, Heyward, McCann, although the sequence can be argued).  Freeman should be a solid number 7 hitter.  My guess would be that McLouth gets another chance to hit lead-off, with Gonzales filling the 8 hole.  All-in-all, the starting lineup has a reasonable feel, even if Wren makes no other moves.

Before you get too comfortable, though, the trade does leave me some discomfort.  First of all, who’s going to catch all those groundballs that are going to be hit off the Braves pitchers, especially Lowe and Hudson?  Unless he has a glove transplant on his way to Atlanta, I don’t think it’s going to be Uggla.  I would personally play Uggla in left and leave Prado at second, but that doesn’t seem to be the general feeling.  Of course, if Chipper isn’t ready to go, both Uggla and Prado stay on the infield.  I only need to point out the recent experience with Conrad to illustrate how important this might become.

The second big concern I have is that the Braves’ bench just took a big hit.  Infante could play decently at just about every position.  And even though it wasn’t a powerful .321, he did hit .321 in 2010.  Who are the Braves going to find that can put up a .300/.350/.750 line or thereabouts in 300-400 plate appearances?  I don’t think it’s Hinske (if Hinske even winds up on the team).  With Infante gone, all the other guys on the bench kind of slide up a notch in importance.  When you look at current candidates, I think this is a bit scary.

In total, I grade this trade as a B+ for the Braves.  If Wren follows it up with a trade or significant free-agent signing for the bench, then I give it an A.  If Uggla signs a 4 year extension at or near what the Marlins offered him, then I give it an A+.

What do you think??