Braves Give Up on 2008 Season and Mark Teixeira Is Finally on the Market

It has been a long, long season for the Atlanta Braves. What started as a legitimate World Series campaign has suddenly become an injury riddled nightmare for first year GM Frank Wren.

Yet, he refused to give up on the season and trade the team's biggest soon-to-be free agent asset, Mark Teixeira. Until now.

On Monday afternoon, the Braves officially glued a ribbon on Teixeira's head and stationed him in their main display window. After gathering their chief decision-makers in Atlanta for a meeting Monday, they then began the process of informing other teams that they plan to trade Teixeira if they get the right deal.

The feeling of clubs that have spoken with Braves GM Frank Wren is that he hasn't seen anything lately that would convince him his team has a 41-17 run in it (which is what it would take to get to 90 wins). And neither has anyone else.

Wren followed his team to Philadelphia over the weekend, to try to get "a feel" for which way it was headed, he said. What he witnessed was almost incomprehensible -- a weekend in which the Braves blew leads of five-plus runs to the same team in back-to-back games for the first time in franchise history.

Well, it was a decent run for the Braves this year. I mean, not actually "decent" but they at the very least hung in there given the nature of all the injuries they have sustained. And, it has to seem pretty obvious that the injuries to Chipper Jones and Tim Hudson are the final straw for the season.

No real reason to mull on the idea that Tex is for sale -- he is. The question is, what do the Braves get in return?

The four teams that are reportedly interested/talking about the slugging first baseman are the Rays, Red Sox, Diamondbacks and Angels. The Red Sox, with Kevin Youkilis and David Ortiz, seem unlikely. The Rays have Carlos Pena but stink at the DH spot and are prospect heavy.

The Angels have Casey Kotchman and also have plenty of minor leaguers that could interest Atlanta. Reportedly, the Diamondbacks have Conor Jackson and Chad Tracy in the mix with the Braves.

The rumors floating around are that the Braves might take Tracy and some mid level prospects back for Tex, but that seems like a Fail waiting to happen. Personally, I'm -- anti-ECU bias aside -- not a fan of Tracy.

But the problem is that because of the market, a middling response might be all the Braves get. My guess would be that they ship him off to Arizona, the team that needs the biggest offensive shot in the arm and can offer up the best reasonable prospect package.

Regardless of where he ends up going -- if anywhere -- the next 60 or so hours are going to be a pretty interesting litmus test on the Frank Wren Era.