Busy Day On The Trading Block.

First off, the biggie: Rangers 1B Mark Teixeira is now a Brave, pending a physical and a fourth player from Atlanta — which is bad news for everyone else in the NL East (grumble). The Braves also get lefty reliever Ron Mahay, while the Rangers get Jarrod Saltalamacchia and three minor league prospects. This makes the Braves scary as far as a line-up goes, now on par with the Mets’ bats and those of the Phillies (when said Phils are healthy.)  I’m not that sure Mahay fixes their bullpen issues, though — there are bigger issues than just lefties, including Bob Wickamn’s occasional tendency to cough up games — then again, rumor has it the Braves are after Octavio Dotel, too.

The Mets had to respond somehow, so they snapped up Luis Castillo from the Twins in exchange for minor leaguers to play second base and likely hit behind Jose Reyes. Castillo doesn’t run the way he used to due to bad knees, but his defense is a clear upgrade over both Ruben Gotay and Jose Valentin, and he can still get on base successfully. The Phils were also pitching-despearate due to injury, so the Reds’ Kyle Lohse seemed like an attractive option in a market for starting pitchers that was non-existent after Mark Buehrle took himself out of the sweepstakes.

The non-MLB biggie that everyone’s talking about, obviously, is Kevin Garnett to the Celtics for Al Jefferson, Sebastian Telfair, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, Ryan Gomes, and a couple of first-round picks — this still needs to be finalized, too. This smells of “let’s take a shot now” on the part of Danny Ainge and Doc Rivers, and they’re either going to make a serious shot at it in the next couple of years, or watch the whole thing fall apart. Either way, now the Celtics are at least on the radar for the next couple of years in the East, but I don’t know how Ainge talked McHale into this one when the offer with Jefferson and the 5th pick would have been ten times better for the Wolves. Maybe McHale’s just a saboteur.

Betcha Kobe Bryant is PISSED.