Archive for December, 2011

Carlos Quentin Joins Padres For Two Unrated Prospects While Frank Wren and the Braves front office prepared for Their New Year’s Eve party, the Padres traded for an outfielder who was both affordable and a perfect fit for the Braves needs. The White Sox got two minor league pitching prospects; Simon Castro and Pedro Hernandez. Although the 23-year-old Castro was ranked as the Padres third best prospect by Baseball America at this time last year,   BP’s Kevin Goldstein says that a lack of secondary pitches caused his to go backwards this year. The left handed Hernandez finished the season in [...]

So if you haven’t been keeping up with the Braves the past week then you really haven’t missed out on anything. We have entered that dead period of the off season when nothing is happening. Wren has effectively scared everyone but the Rockies away from trading with us and teams are exploring other options like Gio, Danks, Garza, and maybe even Shields and Wandy. I don’t know if you guys know but I am in the midst of my first ever dynasty baseball league and it has been pretty exciting so far. I recently converted my old Braves blog into [...]

There’s been a decent amount of buzz resonating from the Marlins installing fish tanks behind home plate in their new park. Personally, I just want to know how it’s going to be pulled off. There’s never been any type of livestock that resided at a Major League park before. Those fish tanks have been installed. And another example of why the fine folks at PETA are monsters–they have a problem with it. Instead of exposing fish to the loud crowds, bright lights, and reverberations of a baseball stadium in an unnatural environment that will certainly have a negative impact on [...]

Keith Law is probably one of my favorite guys in the baseball writing world–if not my favorite. This was all accentuated when he stopped by a Sunday Night Baseball Liveblog of ours last summer and answered a few questions. One could say that he is ‘the people’s writer’. He’s accessible on twitter–unlike Calcaterra and Neyer. He comments on posts on this very blog. He loves Wholefoods. Keith Law is a big, bright shining star. And his day just got a lot more interesting. Keith Law is interviewing for a possible position in the Houston Astros front office. This would be [...]

We came into the off season with barely any pressing issues. Before the off season truly began most Braves fans assumed that we would have a relatively quiet off season, which is not a bad thing. Then we heard that the Braves might have more money than we thought to spend. We had many thoughts of big trades, free agent signings, and even some crazy Jimmy Rollins and Hanley Ramirez rumors. Frank Wren let people know that Martin Prado and Jair Jurrjens were available for trade and seems to have been actively shopping Jurrjens. The Rockies took an unusually large [...]

Frank Wren has said many times that he is not trading any of his core group of young pitchers (Minor, Teheran, Delgado, and Vizcaino) and I have pretty much agreed with that position. Pitching is probably the most coveted asset by any team, and the Braves by far have the most depth with starting pitchers. But do we really need 8 starting pitchers? Here are the starters that are on the team right now: Hudson Hanson Beachy Jurrjens Minor Medlen Delgado Teheran Arodys Vizcaino could be a starter but as of right now he’s in the bullpen. I think that [...]

Braves Trade / Signing Story So Far – eh…not much Trades and signings continue everywhere oddly enough except Atlanta and Boston, the teams that would seem to need the most shaking up. The Red Sox have an excuse; money  Boston is hamstrung but their horribly overpaid $174 M roster. Boston is up against an enhanced luxury tax barrier and are unwilling to push through it. They have seven players – two of which won’t pick up a baseball this year – whose salaries add up to more than the Braves payroll the estimated growth it will take be allowed this [...]

I always get excited when I see people talking about young Braves position players so I have definitely enjoyed all the talk of Tyler Pastornicky this year, even if a lot of it has been pretty negative. So I was pumped up when I saw Mike Newman’s article on TP at Fangraphs. You really should read the whole thing especially if you are a Pasto doubter, but if you really don’t want to I will give you the last paragraph: In struggling to find a strong comp, I keep coming back to Pastornicky scouting similarly to Cincinnati Reds shortstop Zack Cozart with [...]

Mike Minor turns 24-years-old today. Have a good one, Mike, you’re so close to being able to rent a car. When I was 24, you know what? I’ll save that for the tell all book. Minor is one of the Braves’ glut of young arms on the horizon. While Minor might be the most Major League ready of the bunch, he has just a 4.74 ERA over his 123.1 innings in the bigs. The identical 3.63 xFIP (expected fielding independent pitching) and 3.63 SIERA (skill-interactive earned run average) suggest he’s quite a bit better than what we’ve seen so far. [...]

If you still doubt the Braves and me, for telling you to not doubt the Braves maybe you should take a look at this piece by Scott Coleman. I understand fans want to add as much as possible to the team, but there is a big difference in no activity and New York Mets. I’ll let Scott take it away: The Braves finished 2011 with a record of 89-73, which was fifth best in the league and ninth best in baseball. They’ll replace a bad starting pitcher in Derek Lowe with a good one in Julio Teheran or Randall Delgado. [...]