If Atlanta Braves first baseman Troy Glaus comes even close to matching his best season of 47 home runs and a .284 average, the Braves could actually compete for the East title.

The problem is, Glaus has hit that well just once in his entire career. His hot preseason streak is promising only to show that he is healthy.

Glaus is a .250 hitter, but it is the power the Braves desperately need.  The problems are he hasn’t hit a home run and this hot streak has produced two RBIs. He’s not hitting with men on base, but he is scoring runs.

How important is Glaus to this team? Obviously, they hope  Glaus is a first baseman who performs better than Casey Kotchman. That shouldn’t be too hard if he stays healthy.

But I think the Braves and Bobby Cox are banking a lot more on their only real free agent move in the preseason. A good season for Glaus could very well translate into the Braves returning to the playoffs. Add a successful Jason Heyward, a young group of future All Stars (sorry Chipper, but not you buddy) and a very good–possibly one of the best–rotations in baseball and this is a team that is not going to lie down without a fight.

Derek Lowe is already complaining about minor injuries.  He’s an important part of this puzzle because if he has another rough season for the Braves, he could sink the ship like he helped do last year.

The team also has a new ace in town in Tommy Hanson, who doesn’t even have a full season under his belt.

Still, it has been quite some time since I’ve been excited about the Braves season to begin. Play Ball!

Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox is pretty much convinced that Jason Heyward will be his starting right fielder when the season starts.

Heyward’s hot progress continues, hitting a 425-foot bomb the other night in the Grapefruit games. He’s batting .417 in these preseason games. Let’s not forget, either, that the Braves had to make special concessions for their training camp field because Heyward was hitting balls so far they were smashing into vehicles.

So, apparently this kid can really hit the ball. But his progress and heavy work load has already hurt his young body.

The AJC reports that Heyward is resting a sore back.

“It’s nothing,” Cox said, “He could play, easily. He wants to play.” But Braves head trainer Jeff Porter told Cox it might be best to rest Heyward. So he’s resting.

“I”m gonna [tick] off 10,000 people by not playing him,” Cox said he told Porter. He was joking. Maybe.  (There will be thousands upset not to see the uber prospect today, no doubt.)

Cox and the organization need to be careful with how they introduce Heyward into the big leagues. The Jordan Schafer experiment started pretty with a homerun and ended sadly with a seat on the bench. Now fans are left wondering if Schafer’s good enough to play in the majors. He wasn’t last season. Having a poor beginning to a major league career can all but kill a kid’s confidence–and he already dealt with a drug suspension scandal.

USAToday

All eyes are on Atlanta Braves minor league outfielder and MLB’s top prospect, Jason Heyward, who is hitting bombs in practice as the team prepares for the Grapefruit League games.

I am a bit surprised at how much he has grown just in size over the two years his name has been mentioned on the prospect list. This guy really looks ready to play now, and his good friend Freddie Freeman, doesn’t seem to be too far behind.

At practice, the Braves had to take action to protect vehicles because Heyward was hitting bombs over the fence and the balls were crashing into parked cars.

Buster Olney says that when Heyward hits the ball it sounds like Hank Aaron.

Although the Braves seem to be tempering the attention on the kid, the press is all over him. So far, he’s been compared to Fred McGriff, Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron.

Will this kid be the real deal?

The Atlanta Braves are not the best team in baseball. They are not even the best team in the National League. That doesn’t mean the team lacks the talent to send Bobby Cox into retirement with a smile on his wrinkled face.

I’m not going to be a homer and say the Braves are going to win the World Series. We’ll hope they make it into the postseason.

There are a lot of questions that the season will answer.

For example, will Troy Glaus provide any boost to the Braves offense?

Will Martin Prado be able to continue his improvement and be a solid second baseman?

Has Yunel Escobar matured enough to realize he is likely going to be crowned as the team’s leader once Chipper Jones decides to hang his bat up for good.

Is the outfield of Melky Cabrera, Nate McLouth and Matt Diaz good enough? Do you call up Jason Heyward (all signs are telling me that the Braves do plan to bring up Heyward sooner than later) with fingers crossed? How much can a rookie do for a team, anyway?

Now, I can feel confident in answering some questions about the Braves.

Will the rotation survive without Javier Vazquez? Yes. Tommy Hanson is the real deal and Jair Jurrjens has proven he is an ace. Add to the equation a healthy Tim Hudson and even an average Derek Lowe (15 wins) make this one of the best rotations in baseball. It’s not the best, though.

Chipper Jones will rebound because he knows that his career clock is ticking.

The Braves added some depth with Eric Hinske and removed two inconsistent relievers who each had special stuff, but they could not stay healthy or consistent enough for the Braves to really compete for pennant.

Bobby Cox might be all this team needs for motivation, but there is no question that certain players will have to succeed if this team is going to compete.

Johnny Damon, 36, signed with the Detroit Tigers for $8 million today. The Tigers and the Atlanta Braves were rumored to be in the hunt for Damon, but the Braves offered HALF of what the Tigers offered, according to some media reports.

The Braves half-serious attempt at signing Damon probably means that young outfielder Jason Heyward will start the season with the team.  The only other outfielder with power is former Brave Jermaine Dye, who hit 27 home runs last year with the White Sox. His average isn’t so hot, .250 with the White Sox in 2009.

It’s blowing my mind that ESPN Baseball is talking about the Washington Nationals as “the new team” because of some mediocre pitching acquisitions and a new coach. No one is talking about the Braves. No one is talking about the rotation. No one is talking about Heyward or Freddie Freeman.

All of this almost seems like 1992 all over again.

Chipper Jones is usually the first guy on the Atlanta Braves who is asked to comment on some new player in the farm system. But I cannot remember one as remarkable as his comparison of Jason Heyward to Fred McGriff.

McGriff is a bit of an unsung hero for the Atlanta Braves because when he signed with the team, the Braves appeared at times simply unbeatable.

So it comes with great excitement when Jones says a player in the organization reminds him of McGriff, as told to the AJC.

“His swing’s obviously a little different, but he looks like a bigger, more muscular version of Fred,” Jones said. “And that’s saying something. Fred’s 6-5, 230 or so. This kid, he’s built like a brick house. To watch the way the ball jumps off his bat — it’s batting practice, I know, and everybody’s supposed to do that in batting practice, but. …”

Heyward is baseball’s top prospect. His name is appearing in every baseball magazine. But is he really going to have McGriff-like power?

Maybe the Braves don’t need Johnny Damon.

Johnny Damon is considering offers from possible three our four teams but his agent, Scott Boras, has already said he prefers to play for either the Atlanta Braves or the Detroit Tigers. Well, apparently the Tigers offered the 36-year-old outfielder possibly $3 million more than the Braves did.

Bye Bye Johnny.

I’m mad. There was no way a team was going to offer Damon the two-year $20 million deal he was seeking through his agent, but $7 million seems fair for a guy who hit the most home runs in his career last year and had almost 90 RBIS with 12 steals. The Braves need some bulk at the position and although Damon is unlikely to knock more than the 24 home runs he has hit only twice in his career, he could still lead the team in dingers.

That’s why this low-ball offer irritates me. For a decade the Braves have played a game with free agency that has not worked well. To make such a low offer is not only embarrassing, but it’s painful considering the Braves have more money to spend after dumping Javier Vazquez.

Maybe Boras will ask the Braves to up the ante, but I don’t see it happening. Looks like either Jason Heyward is going to get his big league chance way to early or we’ll see Melky Cabrera starting with Matt Diaz and Nate McLouth in the outfield.