Are We Done Yet?

Written by Akshay on July 22, 2008 – 10:36 am

After getting completely dismantled by several former Braves in this past weekend’s series against what was supposed to be the worst team in the division, the Braves are looking forward to a tough series this week against the Marlins, followed by an even tougher series against the Phillies (where the Braves have won their only game of the season against Philadelphia). I think it’s easy to say right now that anything less than 4-2 or more likely 5-1 would not be acceptable by the fans, the players, the coaches and most importantly, the front office.

It’s pretty apparent right now that the fans are getting restless. I know it has only been three games since we returned from the All-Star Break, but usually it takes longer to gauge what’s going to happen during the second half of the season. There are obvious comparisons to this team and Braves teams of the past, in the early ‘90s, very few Braves teams had the hitting that we consider today to be a solid line up. In 1993, the trade for Fred McGriff really brought about a change offensively. At the point of the trade, the Braves were last in the league in batting average and close to the bottom of the league in runs scored.

Could something like that happen this year? Easily, there are guys out there that we could get maybe to help turn around the team. It wouldn’t be too difficult to put up a double A pitching prospect and a low-A, but A level, position prospect like Jason Heyward, or similar to Heyward, to get a guy like Jason Bay or Xavier Nady. What’s the problem with with that? We’d have to give up a guy like Heyward or Tommy Hanson to get a guy that we may have for two months (Nady) or a year and two months (Bay) that wouldn’t even guarantee us a spot in the playoffs.

By the way, Heyward is hitting .325 for High-A Rome with eight home runs and 44 RBI in 342 at-bats, his slugging percentage is .465, which is solid as well. The guys we traded for McGriff? Melvin Nieves played more than 100 games twice for the Detroit Tigers in the 1996 and 1997 and had 20 home runs and 60 RBI in both years: pretty good, but the Tigers lost 109 games in 1996 and finished third in 1997, so not really a significant impact. Vince Moore never got it together and finished his career in the minors in 1997 without a trip to The Show. Donnie Elliot pitching 35 Major League innings and had a career 3.09 ERA, but just never got it done in the minors, and for whatever reason, never got an extended chance to prove himself at the highest level.

My point is, trading is not an exact science; in 1993, we traded away three “prospects” that never really panned out and got a guy that helped us the next five seasons (one being a strike year) and was the first baseman on our only world series team. The same thing happened last season when we got Mark Teixiera. We don’t know how many of those guys will pan out. Most of them are young and several of them were in our top-10 prospect wise. Matt Harrison was considered to be one of the next guys we brought up and may be in Charlie Morton’s rotation spot, had he not been traded.

Harrison has pitched for the Rangers this year with a 9.20 ERA in three starts, but does have a sub-3.50 ERA in the minors and should come around in a couple of years. Neftali Perez has a career 2.80 ERA in the minors and is currently in double-A. Beau Jones is still getting it together in A ball. The position players were Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Elvis Andrus. Andrus played in the futures game this year and walked, stole a base and scored a run. The guy’s got the glove to be a stud shortstop, but was playing behind Yunel Escobar and Brent Lillibridge (who finally started hitting).

Andrus is currently hitting .293 for Double A Texas and was probably the best prospect we traded. Salty, the center piece of the trade is hitting a poor .219, but is still just 23 and has plenty of time to be the stud catcher/DH he is projected to be.

But what did we get in return? Ron Mahay was awesome last season; Tex was even better and has been a very dim bright spot on this season so far. It’s tough to gauge what you’re getting in terms of talent when you trade for minor league talent. Look at the Baby Braves from 2005, for example. Only Blaine Boyer, Brian McCann and Jeff Francoeur are still on the team.

There’s no easy fix for this team, people have already started to write off Jojo Reyes, Francoeur and even Morton, just six starts into his young career. Reyes has been average and inconsistent. But most people forget that even Tom Glavine and John Smoltz had a lot of trouble their first two seasons. Reyes is a guy very similar to Glavine, a guy that needs to be able to locate his fastball for his change up to be effective. To me, Reyes has a better curveball than Glavine does and throws it far, far more often.

I think the pitching is set. Tim Hudson is locked up for the next few years. All of the other guys that have been so good are rookies—Jair Jurrjens, Reyes, Morton and Jorge Campillo. Mike Gonzalez is a guy that the Braves could possibly re-sign to an extension, and should re-sign as long as he is affordable. Not very many closers can close 34 games in a row, even if it is over four seasons.

Overall, the pitching side is pretty solid. As far as middle relief goes, there’s Boyer, Rafael Soriano, Peter Moylan and Manny Acosta among others as well as guys the Braves just seem to find out of nowhere.

The offensive side of the ball is where the Braves need the most help, and that’s apparent. The last two seasons the Braves have been able to power their way to the top of the league in hitting. But this season, we haven’t been able to do that. Some of the seasons we have had earlier were very different and it started at the top of the order. In 2000, Rafael Furcal won the Rookie of the Year award after stealing 40 bases and hitting .295 in 455 at-bats. Throwing out 2001, when he missed half the season to injury, Furcal never stole less than 25 bases and had 58 or more walks four out of his six years with the Braves. David O’Brien at the AJC threw out an idea that we should re-sign Furcal and move Escobar over to second and Johnson to first in addition to signing a power hitting outfielder. Possible? Definitely. Likely? Maybe not since the Dodgers are trying to re-sign him to a long term deal.

In addition to the leadoff spot, the outfield is where we have had a MASSIVE power outage this season. Of the guys that played the outfield the most often, Willie Harris, Matt Diaz, Andruw Jones and Jeff Francoeur, only Harris hit less than double figures. They totaled 59 home runs and 276 RBI. This season? Of these guys: Francoeur, Mark Kotsay, Diaz, Blanco, Greg Norton, and Brandon Jones, guys with more than 50 at-bats in the outfield, none have double digit home runs this late in the season. The Braves outfield is currently near the bottom in every major statistical category offensively. Between six guys, the Braves have just 20 home runs and 120 RBI. Projected to 162 games, that’s 33 home runs and 198 RBI, just awful numbers for a collective of three position spots.

For the Braves to take the next step, they need to shore up their left fielder spot. Jordan Schaefer was predicted to be a guy that would be our center fielder as early as next season, but in 40 games, he’s hitting just .234 and may need another season of minor league ball before he’s ready.

Unfortunately, there’s not a quick fix for this team and age and the minor league outfielder system has slowly crept up on the organization and is currently more apparent than ever. Luckily, the Braves have two blue-chip trading guys in Tex and Will Ohman. So far, from listening to the radio, watching TV and reading David O’Brien’s Braves Blog at the AJC, the Braves aren’t ready to be sellers. Frank Wren is giving the team probably till the end of this road trip, but so far they haven’t shown the clutch hitting ability to overcome their road woes, heck even their home woes have been apparent the last month or so.

To sum up the article:

• No trade is perfect, let’s not rush to throw the guys out in return for guys that may not pan out
• The Braves need more than one or two guys to get over the hump
• They desperately need a consistent leadoff hitter than can steal bases (Gregor Blanco has not been getting it done in the leadoff spot)
• They need guys with power that can play the outfield
• And they even more desperately need to get Francoeur back together.

So – if the Braves do go 2-4 or 3-3, like they normally do, on this road trip, they’re looking to sell. They’re most likely looking for a guy that’s already in the majors. So far, the names Kevin Youkilis (Red Sox) and James Loney have been thrown about. The Red Sox probably aren’t going to give up a guy that has a different, yet similar, skill set to Tex. The Dodgers may give up Loney (very good hitter with decent power) if they get desperate and we could even get a pitcher out of the deal, which is what we tried to get for Tex from Boston.

-Akshay

PS: My MCAT is coming up, so I’ll be AWOL for the next three weeks or so (until August 7th). Hopefully, by then the Braves will be in first place (not keeping my fingers crossed). Anyway, I just wanted to thank you guys for reading my articles and I’ll see everyone in three weeks.

BravesBlast note – Akshay will be gone for three weeks but the rest of the staff will still be here bringing you the best Braves news and articles on the web.  Check back tomorrow for more!

Posted in Speculation | 3882 Comments »http://www.bravesblast.com/2008/07/22/are-we-done-yet/Are+We+Done+Yet%3F2008-07-22+14%3A36%3A16Akshay