Diamond Traded For a Bullock – Mather Clears – Braves head north as favorites!

Following up on yesterday’s post, the Braves traded Scott Diamond to the Twins for reliever Billy Bullock. Bullock is a setup man/closer of the future judging by his minor league numbers – 105 Ks in 74 innings and 27 saves. Baseball America had Bullock as the Twins #15 prospect but he is at least two years away and obviously the Twins saw the left handed starter Diamond as a more urgent need.  As I said yesterday we needed to get something and while I would have preferred an everyday player, you can never go wrong with a 6’6” 225lb flame throwing, strike out  pitcher as a reliever. Full marks for getting a rated player to keep the bullpen strong.Joe Mather cleared waivers and was assigned to the minors in search of his lost stroke. We’re rapidly accruing a team of talented almost stars down there, hopefully they’ll find their way back in time to help us win a pennant and World Series.

Quote of the day came from Fredi Gonzales during an interview with Jim Bowden on XM radio. When asked about the choice of Matt Young he said, “He’s about 5’6” or so and I often tell him if he was 6’2’ we couldn’t afford him. He always hits the cutoff man, throws to the right base and makes the right play.”  As I said yesterday, I’m a fan of Matt Young and glad he and Hicks have their shot.

The news out of Philly that Chase Utley has no idea when he will play regularly but hopes to be back by the All-Star Break caused Jim Bowden and a lot of other experts to jump on the Braves bandwagon. Today’s talk was all about pitching depth, a resurgent Chipper and McLouth, Heyward’s potential and Freeman as a Rookie of the Year candidate.   Welcome aboard guys, we’ve known most of that for a couple of weeks now.

So the team heads north with a good spring behind them, firing on all cylinders and ready to reclaim their division title. Go get ‘em Bravos!