Rue Grant Defends Jordan Schafer

Scenario 2:  Schafer never used HGH. Rumors are nasty things. I spent a week in high school in the principal’s office for something I never did but someone claimed they saw me do - in a locker room nonetheless. Subsequent monitorings made me look suspicious and guilty, but only because people were looking for something in particular, and oftentimes suddenly normal actions seem extremely unusual. Same thing for Schafer. He was being monitored all through spring training apparently. Maybe growing suspicion just made him seem guilty at the time - and allegations were blown out of proportion.

Scenario 3: He did it, he knew, and now he’s covering his ass. I’m not really thinking this is a valid speculation though, because who would be stupid enough to go ahead and do that after watching the struggles Roger Clemens has gone through day after day recently? I’ve met Jordan Schafer and he doesn’t seem to be that naive.

So where are we? We wait. Will we forgive him regardless? We can only hope that the Braves community will accept whatever comes of this - and if the allegations prove to be innacurate, then my greatest hope is that he does not lose the credibility and hype that he has worked so hard for.  If the truth ends up hurting us all, then hopefully someone down the road  will learn from Schafer learning the hard way.

For now, I’m standing by Schafer for the following reasons:

1. Schafer’s father wants to speak out so badly, but is waiting on his son. Seems that something that needs to be said is not out in the open yet. I anticipate that revelation.
2. If he used it pre-2005, I have absolutely NO issue with it.
3. Not all allegations end up being true. There has got to be more to this than meets the eye.
4. Tom Glavine said that being a great player is about being respected as much for your character as for your stats and numbers. I think that Schafer has had the spotlight on him a lot recently, and was making an effort to be one of those venerated, respected players before moving into the bigs. He had the spotlight on him, was turning heads, making people smile, and impressing everyone who interviewed him. Would he go out of his way NOW to ruin everything he’d worked for? Absolutely not.
5.  He’s offered up far too many samples, has failed to test positive for what he’s being accused for taking, and is obviously very disgrunted about this whole situation.
6. The Braves haven’t thrown him under the bus yet. He’s going to Orlando to keep training with other minor league players who aren’t playing official games. If it were as intense and serious as everyone was making it out to be, the Braves would have cut and run. They haven’t, and show no signs of doing so.

So, for now, I will stand by Schafer.  And I’m one of the harder ones to get to take sides.

Trade Rumors Circle Optionless Players

Frank Wren let loose this past weekend with a couple interesting tidbits regarding roster options heading into the season.  Firstly, there are trade talks surrounding many of the out of options players.  Secondly, the Braves have the payroll flexibility to add a player with a $3-4 million if necessary.  This puts us in a good position as Bobby and Frank finalize the 25-man roster.

Wren has said that teh Braves will take whatever player is the best fit for the team, and shop the other players around.  If the Braves don’t trade their out of options players, they’ll likely lose them on the waiver wire with no compensation.  What do other teams want with our leftovers?  Let’s break it down by player:

Brayan Pena

Corky Miller looks to be the favorite to win the backup catcher position, leaving Pena without a place.  He’s a switch hitter and can play first and third as well as outfield, which will make him in demand and valuable to other organizations.

Scott Thorman

Thorman has at times shown power potential that is interesting to some teams.  I’m really not sure what we’d be able to get for him - he’s not been very successful (putting it lightly) in his time in the big leagues, not to mention this spring.  He’s hitting .140 this spring.

The bullpen is congested - seven spots are available, but five of them appear to be spoken for.  Soriano, Moylan, Acosta, Bennett, and Ohman appear to be locks.  This leaves Blaine Boyer, Royce Ring, Chris Resop, and Tyler Yates competing for two spots.  Ridgway will likely get sent to AAA as he still has options left.  Boyer and Resop have been impressive and likely are the leaders for the last two spots (Resop has averaged a strikeout per inning, and Boyer has a 2.25 ERA in seven outings).  This leaves Yates and Ring.

Tyler Yates

Yates has been unimpressive so far this spring.  He’s walked 10 in 7 innings.  He’s also given up 7 hits.  But he’s a steady arm and will likely settle down once the season is moving.  For a team that needs depth in the bullpen, he could be an important addition.

Royce Ring

Royce Ring has immediate value to many bullpens because he’s a lefty, and left-handed specialists are in short supply.  This is the same reason the Braves may keep him - if they want another lefty to join Ohman, they may not want to wait for Mike Gonzalez to get healthy mid-season.  We’ll see what happens - he’d be useful to a lot of teams out there.

For one, I appreciate that the Braves are leaving enough room in their finances to be able to spend money going into the season.  I also appreciate that Wren isn’t just going to ship our guys through waivers and hope they make it to the minors.  We won’t know the magnitude of the goings on until the trigger is pulled on the trades, but as we hear it, we’ll report it.

Javy For Backup Catcher?

All you ladies out there have certainly been following the backup catcher battle with some interest this year.  Hard-hitting catcher and all-around good guy Javy Lopez is trying to make a comeback to win the backup role with an increased focus on his defense this offseason.  Standing in his way are Corky Miller and the young Clint Sammons, along with Brayan Pena.  But can Javy prove he’s still able to play at the big league level?  Has his focus on defense improved him to the point where he’s extra valuable for the Braves?

Here’s the deal - offensively, there’s nobody with more power.  Javy is only hitting .200 after a slow start, but he has two home runs and has gotten more playing time than any other catcher save McCann.  The other guys are hitting for better average, but they don’t have the power potential Javy has.  Mid-season when we need a pinch hitter, I’m sure Bobby would prefer to have someone with a bit of punch - and Javy is that guy.  He just has to calm down, not try so hard, and his average will come along too.

Defensively, Javy isn’t there yet.  Brayan Pena has caught three runners stealing, Clint Sammons has caught two, and Miller has caught one.  Javy hasn’t gunned any runners down.  But neither has McCann - proof that the Braves may be more focused on the game calling and batting aspect than protecting the base paths.  And Javy has game calling experience that none of the younger guys have.

As far as fan preference, there’s no contest.  In our recent fan poll, Javy pulled 75% of the vote, Sammons pulled 16%, Pena pulled 9%, and nobody voted for Corky Miller.

If I had to go with someone today, it’d be Javy.  The Braves need the powerful bat off the bench and he’s got it.  He’ll continue to work hard to improve offensively and defensively, and he’s the clear fan favorite.

If all goes well, we’ll be able to welcome Javy back to Atlanta soon.

2008 Rotation Thoughts

Braves.com eluded towards the Braves starting rotation for the beginning of the season in an article yesterday, saying that Tim Hudson was in line to lead the Braves against the Nationals in the season opener on March 30th.  This would leave John Smoltz to make the start in the home opener against the Pirates on the following day.

As of now, there have been no official announcements from Bobby Cox or the Braves organization, but signs are pointing towards the starting rotation being Hudson, Smoltz, Glavine, Hampton and the currently undecided fifth spot.  This would be the second time in the past three years that Hudson would get the honors of leading off the season for the Braves.

Personally, I’d like to see the rotation pan out this way for a couple of reasons:  First of all, it would allow John Smoltz to pitch the home opener, which I’m sure fans at the game would love to see.  Secondly, this would leave Smoltz to finish out the series against the Mets in the first weekend of the season.  Either way, we should expect to see Smoltz and Hudson in the final two games of that series.

More to come on the starting rotation as we hear it and when we finally have an official announcement from the Braves as to who the starting five will be.

Handicapping The Outfielders

We all know that Jeff Francoeur and Mark Kotsay have their positions locked down. Francoeur remains the face and future of the Braves’ outfield, and Kotsay is the veteran bridge until Jordan Schafer is deemed ready for big-league play. Over in left field we’ve got a slightly different situation. Matt Diaz platooned last year with Willie Harris and put up some decent numbers of his own (a .338 average, a .368 on base percentage, 12 HRs and 45 RBIs).

The question this year is whether Diaz gets his own starting gig in left or platoons with another player. The lead candidate for the possible platoon, at least prior to the start of Spring Training, was Brandon Jones. He’s left-handed, and he has had success in the minors. This spring though, he’s seemed anxious at the plate, striking out too frequently (7 times in 24 at bats).

Some would argue that even had Brandon Jones not written himself out of the playing situation that Diaz deserves to play a full season by himself. He’s certainly a capable offensive player - and even though Terry Pendleton says he wouldn’t teach anyone to start batting the way Diaz does, something has to be working.

Here’s an interesting statistic.  Since the start of 2006, out of all players in the majors with at least 650 at-bats, the players with the highest batting averages are as follows:

This suggests that Diaz is among one of the better hitters in the game. Now most of his starts come against left-handers, but he’s not half bad against the right-handers either.  In 2007, he went 51-146 with 6 HRs for a .349 avg against left-handers. Against right-handers, he went 37-110 with 3 HRs for a .336 avg. His OPS (on base plus slugging) was .932 against lefties and a respectable .813 against righties. I think Diaz is ready for a full-time job, and I believe Cox thinks he could handle it. We’ll see how it unfolds, but right now I think there’s a higher probability he finds himself in left permanently.

We recently had a question to the mailbag about whether or not Josh Anderson could outplay Mark Kotsay for the center field job. I don’t think that’s even a possibility at this point - Kotsay may not have the range Andruw had (or Anderson has), but he has a great arm and the Braves will give him his opportunity. I know some of us are concerned that he’s going to hurt his back playing hard, but he’ll get the starting job out of spring training. I think Anderson will be one of the four players coming off the bench heading out of spring training.

I’ve written enough - but those are our outfielders. Diaz, Kotsay, and Francoeur should be our starters, and we’ll go from there. I expect Anderson will be the main backup, with maybe Jones playing another role. But he needs more development time. A little more patience wouldn’t hurt him.

The J-Train - Jurrjens’ Chances

Jair Jurrjens - J-Train, we’ll call him - continues to impress during spring training.  Whether or not Mike Hampton makes the rotation out of spring training, I think it’s a good bet we see this young man in a Braves uniform from the get-go.  We’ve been very impressed with his stuff so far.

He’s earning the fifth rotation spot.  His last outing featured three scoreless innings.  He’s given up two hits and one run in five innings of work, and he struck out three.  He’s got one win.  But more important than the stats, he’s got good movement on his pitches, keeps the ball down, and has had great composure.

What makes Jurrjens’ stuff special?  He has four pitches - a four-seamer, a two-seamer, a slurve, and a change-up.  He says his slurve is still developing, but his fastball tops out at 97 mph.  And he doesn’t just have great variety - he has control.  One of his criticisms is that he throws too many strikes.  What we’ve seen of him so far, he’s keeping his pitches low and hitting the corners.  He has let a few drift up - but with a 97 mph heater, who can blame him?

Jurrjens is a special player who will do well in the big leagues in the years to come - I’m excited that we get to see him develop in Atlanta.  If he keeps performing like he has so far, the fifth rotation spot will be his to lose.

Center Field Options

So the AJC published a blog regarding the state of the center field position this afternoon.  The article speculates that the Braves may be interested in either signing former Oriole Corey Patterson or trading for Athletics outfielder Mark Kotsay.  These options are intriguing, but don’t offer the most cost-effective way to fill the gap in center.  That said, either option provides arguably a more solid solution than plugging Josh Anderson in.  I’m just not sure it’s the best way to spend a few million dollars.

Patterson is a Georgia native, Read more »

Top 10: Looking Forward to 2008

Happy New Year! As we roll into 2008 with a head of steam, the BravesBlast crew has compiled a list of the Top 10 things we’re looking forward to in 2008. So without further ado, the Top 10 things we are looking forward to in 2008!

#10 - Frank Wren working his magic from the front office. After working with Schuerholz for years, I can’t wait to see Wren working the trades. Hopefully he’s as masterful as Schuerholz and maybe even a little more gutsy in going for exciting trades.

#9 - Watching a healthy bullpen emerge. We should see Soriano as the closer and some decent setup work, but we want to see Soriano and Gonzales both stay healthy.

Read more »

Mailbag

With only a couple days left to enter to win the Brian McCann autographed baseball, there’s a lot of commenting on. Get your chance now - simply comment on one of the articles or pages with a valid email address. With each valid comment, you are entered once. Contest ends December 31!

Now, let’s dig into the mailbag. Katrina Taylor writes:

With the recent signing of Javy Lopez, given he meets or exceeds expectations in Spring Training, how much rest is Brian McCann expected to receive with an experienced backup catcher in the lineup?

Well Katrina, I have a few thoughts here. Read more »

The Silence Scares Me

So, we know where Andruw went. Willie Harris has signed elsewhere. Tom Glavine is back. Alex Rodriguez went back to the Yankees. Tejada traded to Astros, Dontrelle and Cabrera traded to the Tigers. These are just a few of the trades and free agent moves we’ve seen and heard of over the past month - and indeed it has been a while since Glavine signed. Yet with all this free-agent activity, the Winter Meetings in Nashville, and the blockbuster trades, there’s one absolutely crucial player the Braves must think about in the same sentence as “contract extension” for.

I am, of course, talking about Mark Teixeira. Read more »

Glavine Hiding Something?

Tonight I was at a charity event raising money for childhood cancer victims. At the front table were Tom Glavine and Chipper Jones, and other members of the audience included Chuck James, Brian McCann, and Leo Mazzone. Read more »

Heard The Latest Rumor?

According to a Boston television station, there are 4 teams that have topped the Red Sox’s offer for World Series MVP Mike Lowell. The teams are the Angels, Cardinals, Yankees, and somehow, the Atlanta Braves. All four teams have reportedly offered 4 years for a total of between $55 million and $60 million, which tops Boston’s three year offer. The other three teams all make sense here, but why the Braves? They obviously can’t put Chipper back in the outfield as his offense was abysmal during those years. And with Tex on first, that leaves Lowell without a position. It could just be a rumor started by Lowell’s agent to try and squeeze a forth year out of the Red Sox, which is where I believe Lowell would like to remain. Either way, it’s an interesting rumor that makes absolutely no sense if you ask me.

-Charles