zitothebrave
Connoisseur of Minors
In a perfect world, the Braves would release Uggla and call up TLS. Is that going to happen? No. Why? Because this isn't fantasy baseball. The Braves are not going to eat $20MM+ ...
So instead of eating cost by selling Uggla to the highest bidder (someone will pay a few million for him as a recovery project, see Lowe, Derek) you want the Braves to sell Uggla, probably include a prospect, to bring in Phillips an aging 2B who's under contract for 2 more seasons than Uggla and for 24 million more. So we're taking on more money, and likely will be in the same boat 2 years from now when we're paying Phillips 27M and he's not hitting.
PHillip's wRC+ last 4 years to this year
122
101
91
61
Uggla is on a similar slip when you go back to 5 years
135
111
104
91
58
Philips of course had Uggla beat defensively, but he's not gonna maintain his high level of defense into his mid 30s, players don't do that.