As The Deadline Approaches: There is a common notion now abroad among baseball analysts that, at least during the dog days of July, the baseball world is divided into two kinds of people — “buyers” and ”sellers.” These words are used to denote whether a team is contending or not and, therefore, whether it will shuck itself of unwanted contracts, underperforming players, or stars who can bring in a bevy of new prospects. And so it is that Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is reporting that Jon Rauch has drawn interest from the Rays, Red Sox and Diamondbacks.

But here’s the real shocker: Rosenthal is also reporting that Jim Bowden is taking a close look at the Rockies Matt Holliday. 

Holliday is a veteran slugger, a team player with post-season experience and affordable. Holliday is signed through next season and he’s still young, with seven to ten years of good baseball ahead of him. But, while the willingness of Jim Bowden to trade Rauch for  prospects might be understandable, giving those same prospects (or virtually so) back to Colorado is more than a little puzzling.

Still it’s possible to forge an intriguing model for how this might work. After all, the Nats are competing in the same market as the Rockies, who are dangling reliever Brian Fuentes to the same teams – the Rays, Red Sox and D-Backs. My hunch is that the Rays are more in the market for Xavier Nady than Holliday and might prefer Pittsburgh’s Damaso Marte to either Rauch or Fuentes. Then too, it seems unlikely that the Rockies would trade Fuentes to the Snakes, a division rival. Yet, the Rockies are known to covet a number of Arizona prospects so  . . .  so Rauch goes to Arizona and the D-Back’s prospects go to the Nats, who then package them for  Holiday.

Or Not: The Rockies are known to be in the market for young players to round out the core that got them to the 2007 World Series. There’s only one piece missing: starting pitching. The Snakes might have sinker-baller Brooks Brown available, as well as RHP Hector Ambriz and Barry Enright, who the D-Backs think is the pitching equivalent of Ryan Zimmerman: he’s ready for the big leagues now. But the D-Backs would never trade these guys to Colorado and it seems unlikely the Snakes would send them to DC if they believed that Jim Bowden would turn around and send them to the Rockies for Holliday.   

But this begs the question. Why would the Nats be willing to give up prospects for Matt Holliday, when every piece of evidence we have is that the Kasten-Bowden tag team is doing everything they can to stockpile the young and unproven? There are three reasons:

– so long as Zimmerman, Balester, Lannan, Flores and Milledge are not included in any deal, everything is on the table. I would include Elijah Dukes and Garret Mock, very tentatively, in that mix;

– Now that interleague play is finished and the “Battle of the Beltways” is history, the Nats need to put people in the seats. Holliday could do that. And bringing Holliday in would silence those critics who claim the Lerner’s are more interested in padding their own pockets than providing a winner.

– Holliday provides a veteran presence in the clubhouse and in the outfield that is lacking. Milledge and Dukes could use someone like Holliday to show them how to play the game.

So if you really want Holliday, but getting prospects from Arizona and then trading them to Colorado is out of the question, what do you do?

Talk To The Nation: Bowden is considering trading Cristian Guzman to teams who need a shortstop. The line forms behind the Red Sox, who just put Julio Lugo on the 15 day DL. The Nats could trade Guzman (a “rental”) and Rauch to the Nation (where life with Manny Delcarmen and Hideki Okajima is an adventure) and then ship some of those prospects to Colorado. The Nation gets a reliever and shortstop; the Nats get prospects and Holliday.

Nor should we discount the impossible. A 2009 team of Zimmerman, Guzman (who would return for a new contract), Milledge, Flores, Lannan, Balester, a healthy Johnson and Matt Holliday begins to look like a team that can win some games. 

So Jim: pull the trigger.