Kris Medlen: Starter or Reliever?

Not much has been happening lately in the ‘hot stove’ so why not speculate on players for the upcoming season. A lot of things are set in stone for the Braves at this point in time and there is only one real hole left on the team (LF).

• Brian McCann is a hall of famer, he isn’t going anywhere
• Freddie Freeman was one of our most consistent players as a rookie
• Dan Uggla is the best power hitter on the team
• Tyler Pastornicky is likely going to start the season at short
• Chipper hasn’t retired
• Michael Bourn is playing for a lot of money in 2013
• Jason Heyward will probably be in right field despite Wren saying he isn’t guaranteed a spot
• We will either trade for an outfielder or Prado will stay in the grass for one more year
• We have a plethora of starting pitching

It looks like we are Opening Day ready right now to be honest. But despite all the depth in the rotation there are still questions. Questions of health (Hudson, Hanson, Jurrjens). Questions of youth (Beachy, Minor). Questions of inexperience (Teheran, Delgado).

All of these questions, plus DOB’s interview with Frank Wren make it seem pretty likely that Kris Medlen will start off the year as a starting pitcher. This is the best scenario in my opinion because Medlen has been successful in the bullpen and in the rotation for us. We definitely want to see if he is still a quality starter because they are much more valuable than relief pitchers.

There have been a few people mentioning Medlen as possible trade bait but we would definitely not get as much value out of him through a trade. The smart move is definitely to pencil him in for the rotation, and I am pretty sure that is what the Braves are going to do.