Offseason Approach

Since the season is over, at least in the sense of making the playoffs...

If Tim Hudson weren't hurt, I would say that the Braves should approach the offseason with the goal of contending in 2009. Does Hudson's injury change that? I think it does.

Without Hudson, the Braves rotation (assuming no acquisitions in the offseason) is:
Jurrjens
Campillo
Reyes
Morton
James

That's bad. Jurrjens is fine, although he's young enough that there should be some concern about how good he really is. Campillo is not young, and while I really like him (what's not to like?), I don't think he's a #2 starter. Reyes, Morton, and James have so far all proven that they're not reliable.

So, in order to make that a contending rotation, the Braves would need to sign (or trade for) two starters. That would basically use all the money they theoretically have available in the budget. And would leave the current positional lineup intact:

McCann
Kotchmann
Johnson
Escobar
Jones
????
Blanco
Francoeur

And the bench would be Prado, Infante, Sammons, and someone else.

Ugh. McCann is a star, as is Chipper - despite the fact that you can assume that he'll miss 20-40 games next year. Johnson and Escobar are better than average. (Escobar may be more than that, depending in part on how his shoulder heals.) Kotchmann isn't bad, but he's certainly a downgrade from Tex. And the outfield is brutal.

Even worse, the free agent market isn't that promising. But that's another story. This story is just that there are more holes to fill than there is money to fill them. Depressing, isn't it?