Braves Should Trade For Nick Johnson

Written by Colin on July 31, 2009 – 8:29 am

Here’s the deal. Jeff Schultz of the AJC wrote earliera bout how the Braves haven’t made a move and yet all the contenders are making deals. Right now the Marlins – one of the only other contending teams that has yet to make a move – is reported to have offered a minor league pitcher for first baseman Nick Johnson.

The Braves need to move. They need a bat. Standing pat will, mark my words, leave us at home and out of the playoffs. Pitching alone wins – but not enough for the Braves – as far back as we are and as upgraded as the contenders look to be – we need a bat to augment our pitching staff.

Here’s the deal: Braves trade for Nick Johnson. Offer Jo-Jo Reyes. Kris Medlen. Hell, give ‘em Casey Kotchman. Johnson plays for a few months, propels the Braves to the postseason, and splits in free agency (bound to happen). Braves play Barbaro Canizares and Martin Prado at 1B next season, give youth their chance to shine, and bring up Freddie Freeman either late next year or the 2011 season. That’s the plan to get to Freeman, who is one of the Braves’ top prospects.

But we want to win. We’re so close. We just need to win a LOT really FAST. And we need a bat to do it.

Nick Johnson is the man. Let’s rent a first base slugger for a few months. Let’s do it. I want to play postseason ball in Atlanta again. With a staff like this, we’re hard to beat in the postseason, but we have to get there first.


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Braves’ Pitching Abounds

Written by Colin on June 2, 2009 – 10:01 am

The Braves starting pitching continues to excel this season – and while Frank Wren searches for some more offense to back up the staff, the Braves are not lacking in starting pitching depth.

Derek Lowe is 6-3 with a 3.49 ERA (8 quality starts), Jair Jurrjens is 5-2 with a beautiful 2.59 ERA (7 quality starts), and Javier Vazquez is doing ok – he has an even 4-4 record with a 3.58 ERA (7 quality starts). Behind that, Kenshin Kawakami appears to be struggling at 3-6 with a 4.73 ERA, but you’d be having trouble too if you only got an average of 1.7 runs scored per game when you were pitching. With such lousy run support, it’s a wonder Kawakami has three wins.

Glavine is ready to come to Atlanta and start. Whether or not he’ll be good, we’ll see. He’s ready though. Kris Medlen had two rough starts but was great in his last start as he struck out nine in six innings of work. He may just have a chance to stick around and prove he has the stuff he needs to excel in the majors. And of course we have Tommy Hanson honing his skills in Gwinnett, waiting to make the 45 minute drive south and show us his stuff. Oh, and Tim Hudson is on track for a return in August or September.

So what happens now? We’ve got Tommy ready to pitch, Medlen to give some playing time to, Hanson to fit in, and 2 pitchers that are doing alright.

I think the odd man out, interestingly enough, is Javier Vazquez. He has a high strikeout rate, but the Braves give him the most run support while he’s on the mound (5.5 runs per game) and yet he’s only 4-4 – and the Braves are only .455 when he gets the ball. To give you an idea of how bad that is, the Braves are .400 with Jo-Jo Reyes starting. Kawakami needs more run support, but with that run support he’ll likely be much better. He could end up being the odd man out too.

Who’s the odd man out? What does our rotation/bullpen look like at the end of the year?


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Medlen Called Up

Written by Colin on May 15, 2009 – 5:44 pm

Kris Medlen, a right handed starting pitcher from AAA Gwinnett, is being called up to the big leagues. Medlen will make his major league debut Tuesday against the Colorado Rockies. He’ll replace Jo-Jo Reyes in the rotation – Reyes will be moved to the bullpen and a reliever will be moved from the roster. The Braves have not yet announced who that will be as of the time of writing.

Medlen, 23 years old, is 5-0 with a 0.96 ERA for AAA Gwinnett. He received the call over Tommy Hanson, whom I’m sure we’ll see in time. Hanson is 1-3 with a 1.99 ERA. Medlen will do quite alright, hopefully. He’s currently in the middle of a 21 inning scoreless streak. Bobby Cox assessed Medlen as a player with “three plus pitches” and “quick as a cat.” Medlen has apparently picked off a handful of runners already this year.

Medlen reacted with “I’m completely and utterly shocked.” Apparently he thought Hanson was first in line for the bigs too. We’ll see Hanson with time – but no need to rush him when we’ve got stock like Medlen waiting for prime time.


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Posted in Roster Moves | 13 Comments »

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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