We’ll miss you, Andruw.

Written by Colin on October 3, 2007 – 4:27 am

Jon Schuerholz announced today that the Braves would not be re-signing Andruw Jones in 2008. As expected by many, we simply cannot afford Andruw, who is expected to pull in around $20 mil a season in his new contract. That’s $6 mil more per season than he made last year. He’s good in the field, but you have to ask if that overcomes a batting average of .222. Whether or not agent Scott Boras is asking too much is probably not an issue - as someone out there will probably choke up the money to get Andruw.

Who will cover center field for us in ‘08? Obviously the spot belongs to Class A prospect Jordan Schafer eventually, but no telling when he’ll be ready - it may be a year or two. Until then we’ll need someone else to fill the gap - we could either go for a veteran journeyman or throw Willie Harris in there (We’ll refer to him as Willis from here on). Willis hit .270 in 117 games with 32 RBI and an OPS of .741. He’s fast and covers a lot of ground, and when comparing his fielding percentage against Andruw, Willis has a .988 fielding percentage versus Andruw’s .992 fielding percentage. Willis has .0202 errors per game against Andruw’s .0225 errors per game when playing in CF. I’m not suggesting Willis has equal fielding prowess to Andruw, but for $650,000 last season he was a bargain. He’ll probably command close to $1 mil this year, but it’d be worth it for a bit, I think.

So, play Diaz in LF, throw Harris in CF and wait for our Schafer kid to develop a bit. It should be a good decision moving forward, at least temporarily. If not, Torii Hunter, Aaron Rowand, Mike Cameron, and Corey Patterson are free agent center fielders, and we could pick one of them up.

Andruw - we wish you nothing but the best. I wish we could have seen you play your entire career here but business won’t allow it. On behalf of all Braves fans I know, good luck. We will miss your smile and play in the outfield. Thanks.

Thanks for reading! Til next time, let’s figure out how to rebuild for next year.

Colin

Posted in Roster Moves |