I went to the Braves website today and saw that the lead story had the following headline: "Braves in talks to acquire Renteria."

My heart stopped.

I had two thoughts when I read this: The first was "Oh no," and the second was just plain "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo."

I was pretty sure that acquiring a proven veteran such as Edgar Renteria would mean that Atlanta would have to give up one or two of its top prospects, most likely Andy Marte, who's only the top-rated prospect in baseball according to nearly every prospect manual available. And sure enough, the story said the Braves would be willing to trade Marte, and either Jarrod Saltalamacchia or Brian McCann, if they could land Renteria.

Which, if you don't mind me saying, is a steaming pile of froggerknocklebulls**t. I will renounce my allegiance to the Braves if this trade happens. It's a totally unnecessary deal and an overreaction to losing Furcal, especially when we have a perfectly fine replacement for him in Wilson Betemit. In fact, you could easily argue that Betemit would be just as good an option at short as Renteria, maybe even better.

In 2005
Edger Renteria (623 at-bats): .276/.335/.385
Wilson Betemit (246 at-bats): .305/.359/.435

This isn't a praise of Betemit so much as it is a knock on Renteria. Simply put, he isn't that great a player and really has had only one slam-dunk season in his career, in 2003, when he hit .330/.394/.480. Besides that, he's basically been Julio Lugo -- not a bad player, but not someone worth acquiring if it means giving up a 21-year-old prospect who could potentially be the cornerstone of your franchise.

Committing to Betemit as the opening day starting shortstop obviously wouldn't make as big a splash in the papers as a mega-deal to acquire Renteria, but I think it's the smart decision. Part of it is that I think Betemit deserves a shot to prove he can put it all together again next year, this time for a whole season. But mostly, I've heard too much about Andy Marte and his star potential to just have him be shipped to another team for someone as "so-so" as Edgar Renteria.

Hopefully, Schuerholz resists.