The Braves, in my opinion, were faced with a rotation change out of necessity. Glavine signed with the Mets, Maddux was a free agent and may have been leaving. That left them looking for quality arms and they went out and got Ortiz and Byrd. Then Maddux agreed to stay with arbitration and suddenly they had extra pitching. Now taking a back-up catcher for a good (not great) arm is questionable but there must be something involved here besides payroll (which played a big part). Javy Lopez is on the downside of his career and Blanco has defensive skills but no bat. So they addressed a need coming up in a year or two. Something else involved may be a factor that PB will never account for and that is personalities and harmony in the clubhouse. It would be interesting to see salaries and caps in PB, that would probably generate some trades similiar to the one discussed here...PB is not real-world baseball.