Who’s Ready For Baseball?

Written by Jonathan on March 2, 2010 – 10:13 am

It seems hardly fitting that today is the first Spring Training game for the Braves.  I’m sitting here staring out the window in Atlanta to a very gray day outside and watching my car slowly get covered in snow.  I’ve lived in Atlanta for 9 years and it has snowed maybe 3 times since I’ve been here, but I’m pretty sure this is the 5th significant snow this winter.  That’s all irrelevant for the most part however.

In a couple of hours, the Braves are scheduled to take the field for their opening Grapefruit League game against the Mets.  It’s mid-60s there, slight chance of rain, but nevertheless, it’s time for baseball.

So here’s where we are and what we’ve learned thus far in Spring Training:

Jason Heyward hits bombs. We’ve heard it plenty from every news source covering the Braves (and a number that really aren’t).  Parking lots.  New nets to protect cars.  We get it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m pumped to see this kid play, but I’m just ready to see how he handles live pitching.  Batting practice is one thing, but I have no doubts that he can bring it at a big league level.

Jair Jurrjens is okay. It’ll be a few days before his pitch counts start to increase again, but all indications are that Jurrjens will be okay in the long run.  I’d much rather the training staff takes their time with him and keeps him healthy down the stretch this season.

Derek Lowe is the opening day starter.  I’m not terribly sure I agree with this, but it’s a showing of confidence from Bobby Cox so I can accept it.  Any situation where Tim Hudson is your number four starter…..I’m okay with it.  I’ve heard a little distaste about that fact, but seriously, step back and look at it.  If this rotation is healthy, it’s stacked.

The games don’t matter. So maybe we haven’t really learned this one in Spring Training, but it’s just a reminder to everyone that the outcome of Spring Training games isn’t the real thing we should be looking at during this time of year.  Keep your eye on individual performances, watch the young guys get the chance to show off a little, and get pumped up for baseball to get started back up at the Ted.

So that’s that, Braves vs. Mets at 1pm today.  Tommy Hanson will throw a couple of innings and I’m looking for another big season out of him.  What are you looking at in Spring Training?  Young guys?  Old guys trying to regain form?  Either way, it’s time for baseball.


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Hanson, Heyward To Minors

Written by Colin on March 26, 2009 – 12:55 pm

Tommy Hanson won’t be starting the season in the major league rotation. He is headed to AAA Gwinnett along with Jo-Jo Reyes. First baseman Freddie Freeman and outfield prospect Jason Heyward were also sent to the minors, as was backup catcher Clint Sammons. There are three more names that will be announced today when the moves are made official.

Hanson has performed to his billing this spring – posting a 2.45 ERA and a 1-0 record in 4 appearances. He gave up 14 hits and 6 walks, along with 14 strikeouts in 14 2/3 innings. Jo-Jo Reyes went 2-0 with a 2.08 ERA with nine hits and three walks allowed in 13 innings. We’ll see who comes up first, should injury come to the rotation – Hanson is the future of the organization but Reyes is left handed (and the Braves only have one lefty – Glavine – in the rotation). The downside to Reyes is that he’s been far less than impressive in the regular season in the bigs leagues. Maybe this is the year he breaks that trend, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Hanson will continue to impress for years to come. His visit to big league camp this year brought praise from the mouths of Chipper Jones and Bobby Cox – mouths that normally stay shut on the potential upside of prospects. We’ll see Hanson in Atlanta before the end of the season. He needs the innings he can get at AAA to finish developing before he comes a few miles south to help out at Turner Field.

Hanson and Heyward will head to their minor league homes after today’s game vs. the Blue Jays.


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Early Spring Training Review

Written by Jonathan on February 21, 2009 – 10:57 am

Pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training last Saturday with the rest of the squad close behind.  The non-roster invitees are getting the chance to meet some of the big leaguers and the young guys have the annual chance to prove that they deserve a spot on the team, either at the start of the season, or down the road when injuries take their toll.  We wanted to take a quick look at what’s going on down at Wide World of Sports since most of this week has been taken up with discussing the last few contract issues the Braves have been working out.

Jair Jurrjens has turned down the opportunity to pitch for his native Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic in the interest of preparing for the 2009 season with the Braves.  With The Netherlands not expected to advance from the first round of competition and the Braves wishing for him to return after his first start, the decision was a little easier for Jurrjens.  Coming off of a surprise season last year that left him as the Braves most productive starter, everyone has high hopes for him in 2009.  This leaves Javier Vazquez as the only Braves pitcher in the Classic, pitching for Puerto Rico.

Chipper Jones and Brian McCann are the only two position players that will be participating in the World Baseball Classic.  Chipper received permission to report to Spring Training early with the pitchers and catchers as he will miss a portion of the preseason.  McCann has the toughest of all though.  With at least three, and potentially four, new pitchers in the Braves’ starting rotation this season, he has a lot to learn to prepare for the season.  With his participation in the Classic, he will miss up to three weeks of Spring Training, but he and the Braves are confident he’ll be ready to go by Opening Day.

Kenshin Kawakami will be the first Japanese player to play for the Braves at a Major League level and he has been soaking in everything that Spring Training brings.  He’s been excited to see his fellow rotation members pitch and eager to show what he’s got as well.  His first couple of sessions throughout the week were mostly to get used to the change in setting and get loosened up and he’s expecting to begin his harder sessions and workouts this week.

Peter Moylan is apparently looking great in camp.  It’s still unknown if he will be ready to go on Opening Day, but he is throwing beyond everyone’s expectations right now, including throwing live batting practice to hitters in Spring Training.  Moylan is recovering from Tommy John surgery on May 8th of last year, a surgery that usually requires a full 12 months for recovery.  My biggest concern is that he takes the time to come back correctly and to not rush anything that might hurt his chance of a full return this season.  Moylan will be a huge asset to the bullpen this year if healthy.

Tommy Hanson has been impressing everyone at camp with his slider.  Hanson is consider one of the top minor league prospects in all of baseball and Bobby Cox continually likens the slider that he throws to that of John Smoltz.  It’s doubtful that we’ll be seeing him in Atlanta at the start of the season, but I have the feeling he will make a few appearances in and out of Atlanta throughout the season.  I expect big things out of this kid down the road.

Jason Heyward is excited to impress as many people as he can this Spring Training.  While likely that he’ll start the season in Rome and probably have the chance to make it up to Mississippi, Heyward is not just another prospect.  At 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, Heyward is the Braves’ power-hitting outfielder of the future and plays defense to back it up.  At 19 years old, he still has some development to go through, but as MiLB.com’s 3rd-rated prospect in the game, look for him to be making a name for himself in the upcoming seasons.

Those are the main things that have happened as far as Spring Training has gone so far and we’re expecting a lot more news to come from this week when preseason games get started on Wednesday against the Tigers.  Don’t miss your first chance to catch the Braves on TV this season on Thursday when the Braves take on the Astros at 1:05pm on ESPN.  This week will likely start the competition between Josh Anderson, Gregor Blanco, Jordan Schafer and Brandon Jones to tie up the loose ends for outfield positions this season; I’m sure we’ll have lots of news on that this week.

So what’re the things to watch for this week in Spring Training?  Who do you expect to impress?  Who’s not going to meet expectations?  There’s a lot to be excited about.  It’s Spring Training and it’s time for another baseball season to get underway.


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Heyward, Prospects Invited to Camp

Written by Colin on January 22, 2009 – 10:29 pm

We got this mailbag question from Brandon today – figured it meshed well with the Braves inviting the top prospects to camp. We’re slapping it into one article and calling it… well… an article on Jason Heyward and other prospects.

I was just recently looking around and came across some top prospects and saw a RF named Jason Heyward. Who is this and how far is he away from the majors?

We need to become familiar with Jason Heyward. MLB.com ranked him as the third best prospect in all of baseball after just one season with the Braves last year.  The 18 year old 6′4″, 230 lb Georgia native played at Class A Rome last year. He batted .323 with 52 RBIs, an .871 OPS and 11 HRs before moving on to Myrtle Beach, where he only played 7 games. He’s pinned as an All-Star and has drawn comparisons to Dave Parker and Willie McCovey. He runs the bases well, covers ground well in the outfield and has a great arm. He’s probably 2-3 years away, but he’s going to be a star in the outfield, if all goes according to plan.

Heyward was invited to Spring Training as a non-roster invitee. Also invited were our friend Jordan Schafer, promising Class A first baseman Freddie Freeman and top pitching prospects Tommy Hanson and Kris Medlen.  These are the top 5 prospects for the Braves this spring.  There’s a possibility that we see Schafer and Hanson on the roster coming out of spring training, but Schafer may start the year at AAA with Hanson. I think we’ll see Hanson on the roster before the year’s end – don’t know about Schafer with the crowded outfield picture still not completely clear, but we could easily see him as well.

Hope that gives ya some more information on Heyward, Brandon. We’ll see them in spring training and look forward to watching them grow.  We’ll hopefully be pulling in some interviews sooner rather than later with at least one of the guys that got invited to camp. We’ve got a few surprises up our sleeves.


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Remaining Roster Needs

Written by Colin on January 14, 2009 – 9:18 pm

The Braves went into the offseason with several needs:

Two Starting Pitchers

We’ve acquired three. Ace-to-be Derek Lowe, Kenshin Kawakami signed as free agents. The third, Javier Vazquez, was acquired via trade from the White Sox. The three pitchers will augment the Braves’ Jair Jurrjens as the four regular starters (all can eat innings), and we’ll likely see Jorge Campillo, Charlie Morton, and perhaps Tommy Hanson fight for the fifth rotation spot. Now that we’ve got a stable rotation, look for the Braves not to rush Hanson to the big leagues, though he’ll be ready in a year or two to start regularly. When Tim Hudson comes back from Tommy John surgery late in the season, he’ll provide the Braves with one of the best rotations late in the season, if he’s true to form. The Braves’ rotation won’t be something to sneeze at, even though it’s not going to be the best rotation in the history of baseball.

An Outfield Bat

I’d imagine the Braves are still looking to fill this need. Even though we’ve got Jeff Francoeur, Matt Diaz, Josh Anderson, Gregor Blanco, Brandon Jones, and Jordan Schafer as options, we need a bat to help replace the hole left by Teixeira’s departure and to protect Chipper in the lineup. If the Braves do sign someone, it will only be for a year or two, because in addition to the players I already listed, Gorkeys Hernandez and Jason Heyward are outfield prospects in the minor league system, just two-three years away. Maybe Heyward switches to first, but there’s still a glut of good prospects waiting to play outfield for the Braves. I don’t know if we fill this or go with young talent, but if we want to compete in the NL East, we probably need another bat somewhere in the lineup. Left field is a logical position for that bat to play. If I were Wren, I’d look at Bobby Abreu for this role.

Extending Chipper’s Contract

Please, Braves, do this now. Smoltz didn’t retire here, but Chipper needs to. We’re starting to get a reputation for getting the best years out of our players, making this their home, and sending them elsewhere to die. See Aaron, Murphy, Justice, Maddux, Glavine (though he left of his own free will), and now Smoltz. Don’t let it happen to Chipper.

A Backup Catcher

Done. It flew under the radar, but the Braves signed Dave Ross to a two-year deal to back up Brian McCann early in December. He’ll make ~$1.5M each year he’s here. The Braves have been resting McCann once a week or so to try and save his knees, so we’ll see some time out of Ross. Ross hit .225 with 3 HRs and 13 RBI last year for Cincinnati and Boston in 142 at-bats in 60 games.

Summary

The Braves will now turn to signing a bat for the outfield, extending Chipper’s contract, and re-signing Will Ohman. Once that’s done, I’d say we’re set for this offseason. I don’t think we’ll see the Braves sign any more starting pitchers. Setup arms in the ‘pen will come via Campillo and our farm system. Think I missed anything? Made bad assumptions? Make a comment and we’ll have some discussion about it.

Ignoring The Bad

By the way, I’m ignoring everything that didn’t go right. Rather not talk about it – no reason to dwell on it!


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Mailbag: Jason Heyward

Written by Colin on May 29, 2008 – 10:18 am

Cameron recently wrote our mailbag with a question about one of our top prospects.

I’ve heard a lot about Jason Heyward, and with comparisons like Ryan Howard on one site, I was wondering how long before he could see time in the Bigs, and what position he would play, in your opinion at least, Ive heard 1st and LF, but I thought I should ask someone with at least some inside knowledge.

Jason Heyward is one of the Braves’ brightest prospects, ranked just behind Jordan Schafer by Baseball America as the Braves’ #2 prospect this year. Jason was the Braves’ top draft pick in 2007 (14th overall) and is playing the 2008 year at Class A Rome – just a little more than an hour north of the city, if you want to go see him play. In his early days with the team, he’s already making an impact and stands out. The man is 6′4″, 220 lbs, but he has extraordinary athleticism for a man his size.

I haven’t heard any comparisons to Ryan Howard (though they do seem to come from the same mold), but Braves’ GM Frank Wren compares him to a young Cliff Floyd – and hopes that Heyward can stay away from the injuries that torpedoed his career. “They look very similar. They’re great athletes who are strong and imposing. They’re very different than most guys.”

Heyward will probably be to the bigs in the next two to three years. He’s in Baseball America’s projected 2011 lineup for the Braves, playing next to Schafer and Francoeur, but if the Braves are unable to resign Mark Teixeira, there is speculation that Heyward may make the transfer to first base.

Heyward is ranked as the best power hitter in the Braves’ farm system, as well as the player with the most strike-zone discipline. He bats left and is working on being even more disciplined at the plate. Heyward will be a pleasure fo Braves fans when he makes it to the bigs. In 203 at-bats so far this year in Rome, he’s batting .340 with 7 home runs and 15 doubles. He’s only walked 14 times and struck out 35 times, so he needs to be a little more patient.

Overall, Heyward will be a very special player and I’m excited to see him develop in the coming years. He’s going to be an important key to the Braves of the future, whether he’s playing outfield or first base.


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