While Monday brought us a trade of AL prospects, we witnessed the swap of two high-priced, middle-aged NL outfielders on Tuesday when LA traded Gary Sheffield to the Atlanta Braves for OF Brian Jordan, LHP Odalis Perez, and RHP Andy Brown.

Sheffield has been off and on the trading block since he arrived in LA, so it isn't really a surprise to see him leave the Dodgers. However, its shameful that after contemplating dealing him for this long, LA couldn't come up with a more equitable exchange. This trade was a swap of high-priced, middle-age NL outfielders, the difference between the two players being that Brian Jordan is overpaid and injury-prone, whereas there are good reasons for columnists to now discuss the Braves outfield as the best in baseball.

Jordan will be in the 3rd year of a 4-year, $32M contract in 2002 and has little chance of performing at a level worthy of that salary unless he manages to remain healthy and productive all season. Some have suggested that he will play in RF for LA, but I consider that to be extremely unlikely. Shawn Green takes over as the undisputed leader of the Dodgers after this trade, and his superior arm and defense belong in RF. Jordan should play LF, and will probably slip right into the cleanup hole in the order, significantly reducing the amount of protection for Green this season. Several members of the Dodgers will need to have career years for the offense to withstand this hit.

Odalis Perez is a young lefty starter with a good deal of potential. However given the current Dodger pitching staff, the fifth spot in the rotation will likely be unavailable even for competition in spring training. Perez will probably wind up in the bullpen until someone goes down with an injury, though I fully expect him to receive some time in the rotation during the season. I'd expect LA to break camp with a rotation including Kevin Brown, Andy Ashby, Omar Daal, Hideo Nomo, and presuming he signs, Kazuhisa Ishii. A healthy Brown is obviously the club ace, but after that the rotation positions seem very much up for grabs. The Dodgers continue to energetically shop Eric Gagne, but it is possible that they will also keep him around in the bullpen, so they should have some very good starting depth to cover for potential injuries and possibly enough to minimize the significance of the loss of their established closer.

Andy Brown spent last season in short season A ball after missing all of 2000 due to injury. At 20, Brown is still young and shows potential, but he's had very little development time in the minors thus far. He probably needs another 3 years of preparation and even then he'll likely never be spectacular.

Many will say that as in the case of Carl Everett's departure from Boston, the Dodgers are better off in the wake of this switch simply because they no longer have to deal with Sheffield. Nonetheless, in this instance that argument does not hold water. Although Sheffield was not originally overjoyed at the thought of becoming a Dodger, he waved his no-trade clause to allow the Marlins to complete the deal. Since that time, Sheffield has run into trouble with Dodgers' management not because he has wanted out of LA, but because he wants to negotiate a long-term contract extension to secure his home through the end of his career. Oddly enough, Sheffield was originally acquired for Mike Piazza because the Dodgers didn't want to give Piazza a long-term deal.

Sheffield requested a trade after discovering that not only had the Dodgers' snubbed his desires for contract talks, the club was also already shopping him around. Most of you likely recall the antics of the two parties last spring. Before the 2001 season began, Sheffield had apologized and rescinded his trade request. However, this off-season he attempted to extract an even smaller commitment from the LA in that he wanted them to either guarantee that he would be with the club through the end of his current contract or trade him now.

I see no reason for him to have the same kind of problems with the Braves. He's already started plans for a house in the Atlanta area and he wants his daughter, evidently an excellent athlete herself, to be able to enter high school as a freshman this fall and stay at the same school through graduation. His current contract has two years and $20.5M left on it, but I think that Sheffield will go out of his way to negotiate an extension with the Braves. He's already waved the right of a player dealt in the middle of a long-term contract to demand a trade at the end of the season.

Sheffield should play right field in Atlanta, and I would expect him to hit cleanup behind Chipper Jones. They will likely hit Marcus Giles 2nd and Andruw Jones 5th, but I think I might switch the two as Jones appears to have more raw speed. The big question mark is obviously first base. B.J. Surhoff is now without a set position, but he is still receiving a large paycheck, so it would seem logical for the Braves to try to work him in at 1B. However, the team really wants to see what happens with Wes Helms and Julio Franco during spring training, and then they still have Dave Martinez on the roster. Prospect Wilson Betemit should challenge Giles for 2B in Spring Training.

Although I still don't like the Vinny Castilla signing, as it forces Chipper into the outfield a year or two earlier than I would have liked, this trade solidifies their competitiveness in the division and goes a long way towards protecting their pennant. I definitely think John Schuerholz did an excellent job in these negotiations.

I realize a good number of news items have piled up in the last few days. However, I've felt that several of these stories deserve full articles, and as the news tends to come in spurts, I'm fairly sure things will slow down again at some point. I plan to comment on much of the backlog in the next few days, but if you feel that I may have skipped over something in which you have interest, please feel free to drop me a line.