Another version

A little of the Google suggests that Travis Haney is a twentysomething recent college grad who covers the Braves for a news service you've never heard about. So this might well be a fairy tale, but it is worth considering:

Once Soriano looked like more of a possibility, and then a virtual lock, the Braves cooled their interest for Pittsburgh closer Mike Gonzalez.

They then began to focus on Maholm, saying they wouldn’t deal LaRoche without him. Littlefield balked, though, because of his desire to maintain the young pitching nucleus of Maholm, Zach Duke, Tom Gorzelanny and Ian Snell.

Maholm went 8-10 with a 4.76 ERA in 30 starts this past season, his first full year in the majors.

Castillo was intriguing to Atlanta as a cheaper option at second than Marcus Giles, whose $5-plus million salary the Braves are trying to unload.

This strikes me as believable. Trading from a position of strength (relief pitching) for a position of weakness (first base) makes a ton of sense for the Pirates. I'm not so sure, however, that LaRoche would be worth Maholm and Castillo--mainly because I'd expect that Maholm might command more elsewhere.

If LaRoche is your man, however, then I think you have to agree to those terms. It would be a dirty trick to thus bait and switch the Pirates, who are under so much pressure to do something right and must want to emerge from the meetings with something accomplished. But you have to anticipate the dirty trick when you are working in this kind of competitive environment. So my sympathy is not necessarily forgiving. I will be looking to see if Dejan Kovacevic can confirm or refute young Haney's report.