Notes on 755 Hank Aaron Dr

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Mets series

After a 3-6 road trip, it was nice to see the Mets on the other side of the field.  The Braves apparently agreed, as they took two of three in the series.

Unfortunately, it looks as though they may have lost Kris Medlen in the finale, possibly for a full year.  He'll be getting an MRI, but "ulnar collateral ligament injury" is not something you want to hear about one of your pitchers.

The logical thing to do, assuming that Medlen is going to be out for a while (which seems certain, even if it's just a strain), would be to put Kenshin Kawakami back into the rotation.  Despite his awful W-L record, he hasn't pitched that badly.  He's not been that good, admittedly, but if you're talking about a fifth starter, he seems fine.  An expensive fifth starter, to be sure, but right now, the Braves are paying him to sit in the bullpen and not pitch, which is insane.  If nothing else, he should be seeing time in blowouts and extra-innings games.

However, Dave O'Brien thinks that the Braves will use Mike Minor instead.  I don't know that I like that.  Minor's not on the 40 man roster.  The Braves do have an opening, having lost Chris Resop to the Pirates today.  But I'd rather that spot be used by Freddie Freeman, since the Braves have a giant sucking wound at first base right now.

Injuries are going to make the difference in the NL East this year.  The Phillies have more injuries than the Braves so far, but they're a better club as well.  We'll see how the Braves patch things together.

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Monday, August 02, 2010

The Deadline Trade

I’m not sure that it will make much difference in the long run, but I do think that this was a slight upgrade. Since the trade included an outfielder and a reliever on each side, it makes sense to compare the players traded directly.

Rick Ankiel / Gregor Blanco:
Ankiel has more power. Blanco has a total of one home run, and only 22 extra base hits, in his major league career. And he only hit 32 home runs in the minors, with about two thirds of those at single-A. On the other hand, Blanco’s much better at getting on base. Ankiel’s career OBP is only .311; Blanco’s is .361. Ankiel’s OBP has been declining over the past three years as well, which is hardly a good sign. Blanco is also younger than Ankiel, by four years. Defensively, I think it’s a wash. Both can handle center field, but neither of them is a defensive whiz.

I think Ankiel’s power is more of a plus than Blanco’s OBP. The danger, to me, is that the Braves get the idea that Ankiel is a long-term solution in CF. He shouldn’t be thought of as such; this is a short term fix in reaction to both Nate McLouth and Jordan Schafer regressing terribly this year. In any case, this is a slight upgrade, or at worst, a wash.

Kyle Farnsworth / Jesse Chavez:
Anything that makes Jesse Chavez go away is a plus. He throws the ball hard, but it doesn’t appear to move at all. The “hard” part seems to enchant organizations, who seem to then discover that for some reason it’s not possible to make his pitches move. The Royals become his fourth organization in the last year. Kyle Farnsworth is hardly an ace reliever, but I expect that he’s less likely to be consistently useless in the bullpen. This is a significant upgrade.

So the Braves seem to have won the trade? In the short term, sure. In the long term, maybe not. Maybe the Royals can fix Chavez. A new grip, a change in mechanics, an added pitch – any of these could turn him into a really good pitcher. Blanco is more likely to be a contributing member of a major league roster in 2014 than Ankiel. (Not a starter, necessarily, but as a guy who can play all the OF positions, I think he’ll stick around for a while.) And the Braves did have to trade a minor league prospect, Tim Collins, in the deal.

Collins was just acquired in the Yunel Escobar deal. He’s a really small lefthander, who somehow throws really hard. I was rooting for him to make it to the big leagues. (In truth, I see no reason to stop rooting for that, until such time as he faces the Braves.) Chances are that Collins will never amount to anything, just like most of the players in AA. But there’s a chance that he ends up having Billy Wagner’s career… That being said, the whole point (well, a major part at least) of stockpiling players like Collins is to use them in trades just like this one.

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