Atlanta Braves news via the Josh Donaldson TomahawkTake podcast, Episode 4

A quick rundown of the coming dogfight in the NL East highlights this 4th episode of the TomahawkTake podcast along with an Atlanta Braves mid-Winter status report.

WWJD… er ‘What Will Josh Do?” That’s the big question plaguing both the Atlanta Braves and the Washington Nationals here at the end of December as the waiting game continues into its 3rd week after Anthony Rendon‘s signing. So we may as well name the show in his honor this week.

The fact is… we’re all waiting… fans, teams, other free agents… all of us. In this podcast, we speculate a bit on what the holdup might be… and the best guess seems to be that he’s waiting for the Braves and the Braves aren’t budging. But as January is looming, the backup plans almost have to be getting dusted off with implementation steps being explored.

Beyond that, we discussed how good this Atlanta Braves rotation might be as currently configured. We know about four of the arms: Soroka, Fried, Hamels, and Foltynewicz in some order. What we don’t know about right now is how that 5th slot will be handled… and what contingency plans might be in place in the event that the injury bug bites.

Unfortunately, injuries do happen, and we noted a bit of Braves history from 2014 (it was guessed to have been 2012 in the show… “missed it by that much”.. seems like it was longer ago than that!) that derailed both a rotation and ultimately a season as the team pieced things together for a 79-83 record thanks to rather heroic efforts from the quickly-acquired Aaron Harang and Ervin Santana.

All of that and some happy traveling music to hold together all of the chaos and mayhem that marks this Winter of the MLB Hot Stove.

We hope you find this banter between Jake, Fred, and Alan to be useful – or at least entertaining – and if you do, please subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Thanks!