I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while. It is always fun and easy to write about something you know entirely too much about. That is me with the Braves and I’ll try to keep this bad boy under 5,000 words (to save my fingers and your interests).
The Braves earned a Wild Card birth a year ago and played the World Series Champion Giants to four one-run games (losing three) in the first round of the playoffs. With a roster void of Chipper Jones, Martin Prado, Jair Jurrjens, and Billy Wagner, the team still competed in the playoffs. Injuries mounted for Atlanta a year ago and the team they ran out in the playoffs was signifigantly worse than the team that won 91 games during the regular season. The Braves had questions going into the year in 2010 and have equally as many questions in 2011, lets see if they can repeat but stay healthy for the playoffs.
Projected Lineup:
- Martin Prado (LF)
- Jason Heyward (RF)
- Chipper Jones (3B)
- Dan Uggla (2B)
- Brian McCann (C)
- Alex Gonzalez (SS)
- Freddie Freeman (1B)
- Nate McLouth (CF)
Projected Rotation:
- Tim Hudson
- Tommy Hanson
- Derek Lowe
- Jair Jurrjens
- Mike Minor
Strengths:
Rotation: This rotation may not match up with the Phillies in 2011 but take a look at the career numbers and it gets interesting. Career ERA numbers:
- Team 1: 3.85, 3.16, 3.52, 3.42.
- Team 2: 3.85, 3.18, 3.53, 3.32.
Team 1 is the Atlanta Braves top 4 of Derek Lowe, Tommy Hanson, Jair Jurrjens, and Tim Hudson. Team 2 is the Phil’s Fab Four (which is destined to be the best rotation of all time, well sorta). The Braves line up well with anyone and with a healthy Jurrjens (the guy who posted the NL’s third best ERA in 2009 (2.60 ERA)), they could be really good.
Youth/Age: Jason Heyward is one of the games top young players. This is a guy who posted a .393 OBP in his age 20 season. Thats fifth highest all time for a player that young. The others on the list: Mel Ott, Alex Rodriguez, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx (all Hall of Famers or likely to be one). Martin Prado (27) is coming off a great first full season as a starter. He made the All-Star team and lead the league in hitting through most of August. Brian McCann has made five AS games before his 28th birthday. I’m not the only one who thinks this team could be really good for a really long time.
Depth: With Chipper Jones likely to play less than 130 games, depth on this team is very important. Good news is that GM Frank Wren has made it a priority to have a deep bench. Eric Hinske is a great bat off the bench and capable of playing LF and 1B (and depending on his weight 3B). Joe Mather was claimed off waivers in December and has shown flashes of very powerful power (that’s right). He can play all three OF spots and the corner infield spots in a pinch. With Brooks Conrad’s ability in the late innings, this team has options in close and late pinch hitting situations.
Weaknesses:
I’m fairly confident this team doesn’t have any weaknesses. Ok, I’ll give you one as suggested from some friends.
Center Field: Nate McLouth has not been good for the Braves since his trade from the Pirates. Its really quite strange how poor his numbers have been. He has hit .229 with 17 HR and 60 RBI in over 500 ABs. McLouth needs to return to the form he showed in Pittsburgh to justify his contract (He’s due 7 million in 2011). If McLouth struggles, the Braves will likely call on former top prospect Jordan Schafer who has struggled through 2009 and 2010 after breaking his wrist and trying to play through it. Its important to note that Schafer broke his wrist in the Braves home opener in 2009 and played poorly that year at least partly because of the injury. I’m a big Schafer fan and hope he gets a chance to show what he can do.
Storylines:
Chipper Jones: Chipper has not played more than 137 games just once since 2003 and is coming off of ACL reconstruction surgery. Given his performance thus far in Spring Training (.353, 2 HR, 8 RBI in 7 games) Hoss looks ready to go. I wrote about this earlier but I want to look at how the Braves are positioned in the event that Chipper goes down. With the addition of Dan Uggla, the Braves have moved Martin Prado to Left Field. Prado has looked comfortable there thus far this spring but in the past has looked most comfortable at third base. Prado would slide into Third and Eric Hinske, Joe Mather, or Jordan Schafer could step into the everyday role in left. Its a good thing the Braves have a contingency plan for Chipper because he won’t play everyday, or 6 days a week.
Fifth Starter: The Braves turned some heads when they drafted Mike Minor 7th in the 2009 draft. Minor made the Braves look smart in 2010 when he made it through the minor league system and made his debut with the Braves on August 9 after Kris Medlen’s injury. Minor looked good, striking out 43 in 40 Major League innings but struggled after throwing 150 innings in his first pro season. Brandon Beachy stepped in after Minor was shut down for the year and looked good. Beachy knows how to pitch and has a solid feel for his change and curve. Both are very solid No. 5 options and are fighting it out this Spring for the job. The loser will go to AAA and be very sad.
Freddie Freeman: Freeman is a 21 year old rookie and ready to take over the first base job to start the season. The Braves are putting most of their eggs in this Freeman basket as they have few options behind him. Freeman should produce.
Other Stuff: Given how much I know about the Braves, I gotta touch on this stuff. Venters and Kimbrel taking over for Wagner at the closer spot. Venters throws a 95 mph sinker. Bobby Cox is not the manager for the first time in my life. Freddi Gonzalez hasn’t ruffled too many feathers… which is what he should do. The Braves have 3 top pitching prospects. Julio Teheran is widely considered the top pitching prospect in the game. Aroldys Viscaino throws over 100. And Randall Delgado is a poor man’s Teheran.
Predictions:
93-69, 2nd Place, NL East. I really like this Braves team. They are solid throughout and really deep with really high quality players. The rotation will keep them in many games and the lineup is better with the addition of Dan Uggla (keep in mind this team scored the 5th most runs in the NL). The Braves will win a lot of games and if Chase Utley’s knee injury is serious, the Braves can win the NL East and maybe the World Series.
Bold Predictions:
- Jason Heyward will have a monster year: .317, .415 OBP 29 HR, 108 RBI, and finish third in MVP voting
- Jair Jurrjens will have a sub 3.00 ERA
- Jonny Venters will dominate hitters with a sub 1.20 ERA and get the save in the 10th inning of All Star game.
- Julio Teheran will make 5 Major League starts and win 4 of them.
- Chipper Jones will hit .313 with 22 HRs and 89 RBIs in 112 games
And Now For Something Completely Different:
Here is a great article about Baseball. If you’ve ever played the game you need to read this. Doug Glanville does a great job of reminding us why baseball is so special to so many of us.
Look at this. Should have invested in Apple.
