Justin Upton dealt to Atlanta

Oh, someone else will have done this column first. But will they include the projected starting outfield for every major-league team??? That’s right, via the intrepid MLB Depth Charts, lets look at the projected outfields for every team, and see which outfield is the best!

So the final four, along with the Braves:

Bell’s price tag isn’t perfect even with the discount, given his poor 2012, but he was much better in the second half of the season, and you can at least see the bounce-back logic here, given his past. As Young was being pushed by center-field prospect Adam Eaton, and generally a cluster of outfielders for too few spots, this trade made a kind of sense.

The party line right now, from both Towers and manager Kirk Gibson, is that they want gritty players (like Ross) who give the mathematically impossible 110 percent, 162 games per year. Maybe that kind of spark is what the Diamondbacks need to compete and it’s hard to gauge how personalities affect a clubhouse, but one wonders if simply having better players would improve their chances even more. We’ll have to wait and see. Just like the Diamondbacks.

Rosenthal smartly makes a hash of all this, which seems pretty ridiculous especially when you recall that the Diamondbacks enjoyed a surprisingly fine season in 2011 with a healthy Justin Upton in right field. Oh, and by the way he finished fourth in Most Valuable Player balloting that year.

It seems that Kirk Gibson wants players slamming into walls because he slammed into walls; never mind that Gibson, a tremendously talented player, played in more than 120 games only six times. I’m reminded of something Bill James wrote about Amos Otis, who was known in Kansas City as an excellent player who didn’t hustle like some of his hustling teammates:

Hey, real quick, when’s the last time a team had two brothers serving as every-day outfielders?

For much, much more about the Diamondbacks and Braves, please visit AZ Snakepit and .

The Atlanta Braves spent a lot of money to bring in B.J. Upton this offseason, and on Thursday they added Justin Upton for a lot of talent. If you’re wondering about Chico Upton and the one with the bike horn, they probably aren’t ready for the majors.

In return, the Diamondbacks will receive Martin Prado, Randall Delgado, Nick Ahmed, and Zeke Spruill. We’ll start there. Delgado was, not so long ago, one of the top prospects in baseball, and then he made that awkward transition to not-quite-good, no-longer-a-prospect that makes him harder to evaluate. When a young flamethrower is a prospect, he’s a perfect little pearl, who will come right up and dominate! When he struggles a bit in the majors, it’s a little harder to be so convinced about the inevitability of success.

The Braves are said to “be in hard on this,” according to Olney. He considers them the likely frontrunner if the Diamondbacks ultimately decide to trade Upton.

Upton has been in the news recently, with the Mariners even reaching an agreement with Arizona for the right fielder. Upton vetoed the trade, as Seattle was on his short no-trade list.

Last offseason, the Diamondbacks had three outfielders. They had Gerardo Parra in left, Chris Young in center, and Justin Upton in right. It was a fantastic defensive outfield, and there was a chance that it would be a pretty good hitting outfield, too. Most teams would have treated that outfield like a two-car family budgeting a middle-class salary. No, no, looks like we don’t need another car, here. Let’s focus on … heck, whatever Apple’s selling, we’ll take ten.

Something like that. I think the correct analogy for Apple products in that situation is a proven closer but now we’re off track.

Hello. I’m pretty lousy at figuring out trade values, so I can’t tell who would come out on the worse end of a straight Upton-for-Andrus swap, but I think the Rangers would want more. Upton is signed for a year longer, but he had a down year at an easier-to-fill position. It’s close enough to argue, at least.

Justin Upton rumors were all the rage this past summer, but after the Chris Young deal, it looked like the Diamondbacks were close to done for the offseason, at least with the big moves. Look at their projected lineup as it stands right now:

It means something that the first Adam Eaton was traded for the first Chris Young, and that the new Adam Eaton took a job away from the new Chris Young. It’s kind of like The Highlander -- this stuff will play out for generations. They’ll be tall right-handed pitchers one generation, and speedy center fielders the next. Next up: bullpen catchers. We’ll have no idea that it’s happening.

Chris Young (R) - Poor-to-average bat, strong glove

But do you know who’s only 3½ games back in the West? Do you know who’s got the best run differential in the West? Do you know who finished in first place last season, with 94 wins?

Here’s Nick Piecoro (via ):