Hot on the heels of one too-strange-to-be-fake story, it at first appeared that UmpBump had stumbled onto another:

From: Coley

To: UmpBump Staff

Re: Teixeira likes Sci Fi

So, I’m currently writing a blurb about the Phoenix Comicon for the Arizona Daily Star, and I noticed the following graph on the Comicon’s website:

“This year the support from guests and the reaction from fans has blown us away. We’ve got Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness coming out. David Finch, Arthur Suydam, and Matt Wagner. Plus Michael Golden, Mark Texeira, and so many more.”

Mark Teixeira is going to Comicon. And now I need to go. I wonder if he’s into furries?

It was a legit question. After all, if he wasn’t there to yiff, what would the star first baseman be doing at a Phoenix-area gathering of comic book collectors, Trekkies, and Star Wars aficionados?

I felt like a putz for not recognizing the names of the other luminaries in attendance. Not a LeVar Burton or a DeForest Kelley in the bunch! But just as I was starting to doubt my fanhood—and just as we were starting to get some really interesting confessions from Paul—it all came crashing down to earth.

From: Coley

To: UmpBump Staff

Re: RE: Teixeira likes Sci Fi

Sadly, I jumped the gun again. Mark Texeira, the comic book creator, will be at the Phoenix Comicon. Mark Teixeira the baseball player will not.

D’oh.

So remember, baseball fans, no matter what you read on other, less eagle-eyed baseball blogs: Mark Teixeira will NOT be at the Phoenix Comicon.

Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not a furvert.

Mark Teixeira, one of the hottest names bandied about before tomorrow’s trade deadline, has just been traded. The Rangers are sending the first baseman and a lefty reliever, Rob Mahay, to the Braves. The Braves are giving up their top two prospects (and with them, any chance of reclaiming the awesome-nickname-days of yore).

Some suspected that Texas wanted to dump Teixeira because he was a chronic complainer. Nevertheless, it seems they got a lot in return. According to early reports, Atlanta sent them top-rated catching prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia, shortstop-of-the-future Elvis Andrus, pitching prospect Matt Harrison and 19-year-old righthander Nestali Feliz. Salty (as he is known) and Elvis (Elvis!!) are the top two prospects in the Braves’ organization. Harrison is their third-ranked youngster.

Teixeira is eligible for salary arbitration after this season. He becomes a free agent at the end of next season.

I can’t decide whether the Rangers have made out like bandits, or whether the Braves got Teixeira cheap. One the one hand, all the Braves had to give up was prospects. On the other, they reportedly gave up the best three prospects they had.

Here’s the short version on Teixeira:

Teixeira, a 27-year-old switch-hitting slugger, has won two Gold Gloves at first base. He is batting .297 this season with 13 home runs and 49 RBIs. Since breaking into the majors with Texas in 2003, Teixeira has had seasons of 26, 38, 43 and 33 home runs.

Only Ralph Kiner, Albert Pujols and Eddie Mathews hit more than the 140 homers that Teixeira had in his first four major league seasons. He had at least 33 homers and 110 RBIs in each of the past three.

The former Georgia Tech star will be a huge upgrade for the Braves, who’ve slid to third in the NL East and have been using stand-ins at first this year. But was it worth ditching their top three prospects, plus this guy Feliz? Well, Saltalamacchia had nowhere to go after the Braves re-upped last year’s breakout catcher, Brian McCann, to a six-year deal. Here’s what Baseball Prospectus has to say about Salty, Elvis, and Harrison.

Elvis Andrus: Only 18, he’s “as toolsy as he is young” and “even if he’s only a speedy line-drive hitter with good glove-work, that’s still a potential All-Star, and there’s a chance he’ll be more than that.”

Jarrod Saltalamacchia: Twenty-two and six-foot-four, Salty battled a hand injury last season in Double A, but once he kicked it, hit “.338/.474/.649 in the last two months…the other good news is that he improved behind the plate, throwing out 36 percent of opposing runners.”

Matt Harrison: The 21-year old is built in the classic mode: a hulking lefty who likes to throw heat. Like Nuke LaLoosh he can hit 95, but generally works in the low 90s. Unlike Ebbie Calvin, however, he can also control where the ball is going. He “throws a ton of strikes and supplements his heat with a plus curve and change.”

I suppose it makes sense to move Saltalamacchia, if you’re confident you want to go with McCann. I mean, that’s what extraneous prospects are for, right? To use as chips. But to blow all your chips on one dude? I dunno. If the Braves miss the playoffs again this year, they may end up with buyers’ remorse.

Meanwhile, the Rangers have ended up with a young shortstop and a lefthanded starting pitcher for the future, and a catcher they could stick behind the plate tomorrow (sorry Gerald Laird). I’m going to have to give the Rangers the edge on this one. At least it looks like they have some kind of organizational philosophy. The Braves, on the other hand, still seem to be wandering in the desert.

Julio Franco is now a Brave and, if the Lower Hudson Journal News is to be believed, his former Mets teammates couldn’t be happier.

From LoHud:

However, what irked some players was Franco wouldn’t hesitate to get in the face of some of the younger players about doing their jobs when he was hitting .200 with one homer with the Mets.

“To be a leader for me, it’s not enough to talk all the time,” [Jose] Valentin said. “You have to go out and do it yourself.”

This is pretty surprising stuff. I’d never before heard anybody willing to say anything bad about Franco, but here is Valentin saying the old-timer wasn’t a great teammate (he didn’t participate in team stretching drills), while manager Willie Randolph says Franco’s contributions to the clubhouse were “overrated.”

Meanwhile, over in the AL, writers are clamoring for the Rangers to trade all-star 1B Mark Teixeira because, well, he’s a jerk.

Here’s what Dallas Morning-News writer Jean Jacques Taylor had to say about the team’s star slugger:

A few months ago, I would’ve considered the notion of trading Teixeira ridiculous because of the 27-year-old’s prodigious talent. You simply don’t get rid of 30-homer, 100-RBI players with Hall of Fame potential.

I’ve changed my mind.

It’s Teixeira’s fault because he’s a chronic complainer.

Think about it. He didn’t like playing for Buck Showalter. Now, he doesn’t like playing for Ron Washington. Those guys couldn’t be more different in their approaches.

That tells me Teixeira or his agent, Scott Boras, is the problem.

Taylor says that people around the Rangers organization will tell you that Teixeira is “the kind of guy who would complain about the greens at Augusta National or paying taxes after winning the lottery” and says Teixeira has to go — “the sooner, the better.”Here’s my take: I think it’s possible that Franco may have tried to overcompensate for a lack of hitting by being an extra good clubhouse leader, and it blew up in his face. As LoHud points out, it’s hard for people to take your advice seriously when you’re hitting below your weight.

Texeira, on the other hand, just sounds like a jerk. It should be clear by now that MLB clubhouses are overrun by arrogant, ignorant idiots. So for one guy to be so much of an ass that his team is inclined to trade him really says something. The fact that Texas has shown a willingness to trade such a young, accomplished hitter shows that he must be a first class pain.

Word on the street is that the Rangers are negotiating a contract extention with star 2B Michael Young. It’s a big, long-term deal. The kind of package that should keep Young in a Rangers uniform pretty much up to the day he retires.

That’s great news for Young, of course. And great news for Rangers fans. But for Mark Teixeira, it’s a little bittersweet.

As Dallas Morning News columnist Jean Jacques-Taylor points out, Young’s deal almost certainly means Teixeira won’t be getting a similar long-term contract. From the DMN:

When you’re talking about baseball economics, unless you cheer for the Yankees or Mets, the Red Sox or, I suppose, the Cubs, you must always choose between this great player or that great player. The game’s economics dictates that your favorite team can’t have both.

While it’s great that Tom Hicks has given Jon Daniels permission to negotiate a lucrative long-term extension with Young, who certainly deserves it, deep down you know it means two years from now, Mark Teixeira will leave through free agency.

Taylor is pissed that the Rangers probably won’t find a way to keep Tiexiera. But, let’s be honest: Teixeira’s agent probably isn’t pushing for an extention. Because Teixeira’s agent is none other than Scott Boras, and he doesn’t believe in extentions.

Boras is famous for advising his clients to test free agency as often as possible. That’s why he got J.D. Drew to opt out of his three year, $33 million deal with the Dodgers. It’s why people think A-Rod will opt out of his deal before it ends. And it’s why Teixeira isn’t going to sign an extention with the Rangers.

Besides, if I were the Rangers, I don’t think I’d be jumping at the chance to pay Teixeira big bucks. That guy killed my fantasy season last year. Teixeira is too young to be regressing, but he hit 34 fewer RBIs last year than the previous season, as well as 10 fewer HRs. His batting average dropped 19 points, from .301 to .282.

“Hey boss, I did decidely worse at my job this year compared to last. Now let’s talk about a raise.”

Oh what could have been.

My fantasy team (Team Umpbump) entered this week in seventh place in our 12-team league, one spot out of the playoffs. The team was riding high on the strenth of its starting pitching (Pedro, Halladay, Webb, Padilla and Radke) and on the hot bat of one Mr. Chase Utley.

In fact, last week was full of smiley-happy storylines for Team Umpbump. Pedro made his first really strong start after a couple weeks on the DL. Justin Morneau, a guy who got off to a slow start this season, but who I stuck with anyway, hit .400 with 12 RBIs and a homer last week, raising his season totals to .321, 29 HRs and 98 RBIs.

Mark Teixeira, who got off to an even slower start than Morneau, had his second monster week in a row, hitting .304 with 4 HRs and 6 RBIs.

All of this, you’re thinking, must have added up to fantasy success for Team Umpbump, right? Wrong.

You see, before the week started, I made what I thought at the time was a pretty savvy move, picking up Fausto Carmona, the man who inherited the Cleveland Indians’ closer job after Bob Whickman was traded to the Braves. Carmona had been lights out as a setup man. It looked like a no-brainer.

But, as you’ve probably heard, Carmona didn’t last long as the Indians’ closer. In three relief appearances over the course of seven days he racked up three blown saves. His ERA last week was 37.80. He was, simply put, not good.

Over the course of every fantasy season, there comes a roll-the-dice moment. Whether you’re deciding to trade Pedro before he starts his inevitable second-half decline, or deciding to take a chance that Carl Crawford can make it through a season without a major injury, you’ll have to make at least one of these season-changing decisions. My biggest roll the dice moment this season might have been the decision to pin my bullpen hopes on Carmona. It was a decision that made so much sense at the time. He’s a young guy with electric stuff. A fast ball pitcher strikeout pitcher born to close on a team that plays a lot of close games. Plus, his name is Fausto, which conjurs up images of the devil and is just such a cool name for a closer. It really did seem like a good idea at the time.

Now, like so many of my ill-conceived fantasy decisions of seasons past, it seems a little stupid.

Don’t tease me, Mark. Seriously. That’s not cool. Three home runs in one game? I mean, that’s great if you’re going to make a habbit of it. But if you’re just going to revert back to your old, underacheiving form, well, I wish you wouldn’t even bother.

Just go back to your 18 homer pace and don’t bother knocking in 7 RBIs a game. Because I can’t stand this up and down stuff. You know what? Just forget about me. Forget about the fantasy team. Just go out and swing hard. That’s all you ever do, isn’t it? That’s why it’ll never work out between us, Mark. Because you never think about how your inconsistencies affect the people around you. All you think about is you — you and your big swing and your deep fly balls and your…

Mark? Mark! Where are you going? I didn’t mean it! Come back! We can make it work. You’re my man. And I’m yours. I’ve stood by you this long. We owe it to us, Mark. We owe it to the FANTASY TEAM. Let’s see how this ends up. Ok?