Archive for November, 2011

Free agent middle infield signings have been bizarre this off season with border line bench guys receiving good sized pay checks and multi-year deals.* This really makes things annoying for the Braves who would love to sign a shortstop to a cheap one year deal. Apparently the market for all glove no bat guys is pretty good and Frank Wren may want to get a stop-gap shortstop via trade. *Clint Barmes- 2 years, 10.50 million, Jamey Carroll- 2 years, 6.75 million, John McDonald- 2 years, 3 million I am going to go over several shortstops who have either been rumored [...]

Braves GM Frank Wren heads to Dallas  this weekend for the winter meetings still without two of his three desired pickups this off season – if you consider Drew Sutton as the utility man he was seeking. Publicly he says he’s happy to start the year with the current roster. Privately I suspect he’s still looking for that RH bat we were missing last year. Will he be able to accomplsih that? Who knows? A little bit of luck might need to be involved, similar to online bingo games.

Good morning guys, here are some links around the NL East to keep you up to date with the Braves as well as their competition: Atlanta Braves Hudson has back surgery, should be ready for spring Arizona Fall League Report Trade talk should keep Braves busy at Meetings McCann contract situation looms for Braves Miami Marlins Free Agency Update: C.J. Wilson Visits Miami; Broxton to Marlins? 1997 v. 2003? The Worst Games In Florida Marlins History New York Mets 2011 Season in Review: Carlos Beltran The Impact of Baseball’s CBA on the Mets: Free Agency Inbox: Does Murphy have trade [...]

For a team that was bankrupt and left for dead a less than two years ago, the Texas Rangers are now stocking a really nice cabinet. That cabinet now includes two of the greatest living modern day pitchers in their front office. The Texas Rangers announced this afternoon that the club has hired Greg Maddux as Special Assistant to the General Manager. He has spent the past two seasons in a similar role with the Chicago Cubs. In his role with the Rangers, Maddux will be in uniform during spring training as an extra instructor for both the major and [...]

Braves pitching elder statesman, Tim Hudson, underwent successful back surgery to fix a herniated disc. The old man in the rotation should be cleared to hand out hard candy to those young whippersnappers and yell “get off my lawn” by Spring Training. The surgery was overdue… The Braves say Hudson has had discomfort in his back the past two seasons. The surgery was scheduled after the pain became worse during his offseason workouts. Braves general manager Frank Wren said “the prognosis is positive” for Hudson to pitch in spring training. Hudson still made 34 starts in 2010 and another 33 [...]

The next prospect we are going to go over in this little mini series is Talking Chop’s number 1 ranked Braves outfield prospect, Mycal Jones. Out of all Atlanta’s minor league outfield guys he is probably the closest to the Major League level and with a good 2012 season he could be looking to take over for Michael Bourn’s departure in 2012* *There is always the chance that the Braves resign Bourn but Scott Boras is going to be selling extremely high on his speed and defense and I wouldn’t count on Atlanta entering the bidding war. You should check [...]

Alright, so I admit it. I’ve always kind of been a closet wrestling fan. I was way more into WWE than I ever was NWA or WCW in the later years. But I figure this video has some relevancy to those of you down south. Ric Flair was the father of NWA, WCW, the Four Horseman, and for all intensive purposes; pro wrestling in the south. The montage you’re seeing above showcases his bread and butter move, the flop. In every Ric Flair match, you got a figure four, messy blonde hair flying wild all over (and sometimes blood mixed [...]

I hope everyone had a good Turkey day and a subtle return to the “real world” on this Monday. I know that since I entered the working world, the Monday following Thanksgiving has always been one of my least favorite days of the year to return to work. I struggle to find productivity, and I appreciate my company going light on meetings to let us ease back into things on the rare occasion that they’ve done that. There’s not a ton going on in the baseball world right now. There’s even less going on in the Braves-sphere, unless you have [...]

You might not think that an MLB Trade Rumors article on Matt Garza and the Cubs has any relevance for us Braves fans but it definitely does. Teams looking for starting pitching options outside of the thin free agent market are now going to make a bee line for Garza, as he is now the best trade option on the block. Garza is young, under team control for two more seasons, and coming off the best season of his career. You can bet teams will put together a better package for him than Jair Jurrjens, and right fully so. Here [...]

These past few days have been extremely brutal as a fan of baseball. Not much is going on in the trade rumors department, and since we are in the off season that means little to talk about. We have been over the CBA deal so much recently it’s gotten exhausting and of course I won’t be discussing the NBA’s deal. So I thought it would be a good idea to look over some promising young Braves prospects. Since Brian McCann is arguably Atlanta’s most consistent player I thought it would be interesting to start off with Christian Bethancourt, potentially his [...]