2010 Outfield

Yeah, as usual, not a lot of posts here...  So this will be something between a preview and a review, I guess.

Melky Cabrera started out even worse than I expected, and has managed to progress all the way to "almost useful baseball player".  To be fair, the "almost" is probably not necessary, but he just doesn't look like he should be even useful, so...  He looks like he's out of shape, and doesn't hit enough for that to work.

Eric Hinske has ended up playing a lot more left field than I would have expected, but he's been useful, nothing more.  Omar Infante has also gotten a few games in the outfield.  As to why there have been infielders getting significant playing time in the outfield...

Matt Diaz was hurt, tried to play through it, and then spent most of the first half of the season recovering from thumb surgery.  Since he came back, he's been doing what I would have expected him to do.  That's good.  Unfortunately, Nate McLouth started off even worse than Melky did (really!), got a concussion, and then came back worse than ever (really!).  He's just been sent to AAA to try to work things out.  I'm not optimistic, but after seeing him answer questions about the demotion, I am definitely pulling for him.

Jason Heyward has been everything that could have been realistically hoped for, and then some.  Of course, he missed a few weeks as well, with a thumb injury.  And worse, he had tried to play through it, and hurt the team while that happened.  I had my doubts about starting him in Atlanta this year (I preferred the idea of him going to AAA for a month or two), but the Braves were right about that.

With the injuries, Gregor Blanco has had an opportunity to ressurect his career.  He'll never be a full-time player, but he does have skills.  Somehow, despite a complete and utter lack of power, he can get walks...

2010 Infield

So, with Spring Training just around the corner (and it's about time, too), let's look at the Braves roster for 2010.  (And maybe, just maybe, I'll get through the whole thing this year!  I am on a roll.)

The team has two apparent strengths going into 2010 - the infield, and starting pitching.  We'll get to pitching later, but I want to start with the infield.

I'm going to include catcher in the infield, because it seems silly to have a whole post just for Brian McCann.  The good news is, McCann is the best player on the team.  The bad news is, McCann is the best player on the team.  It's good, because he's still young.  It's bad, because he's a catcher, which means that he's going to miss at least 30 games a year, and he's likely to wear down as the season progresses, and he's likely to only last until he's 30 or so.  Even so, that's another five seasons, since he's only 25.  Last season he was a little below his career averages, but only a bit - and catcher offense overall must have been down, because his OPS+ was almost exactly on average at 120.  Dave Ross is the best backup catcher the team has had in years.

First base is a big question mark right now.  Troy Glaus has been signed to man the position, but he's only played six games there in his major league career.  Even more of a concern is the fact that he only played in 14 games last season.  He hit 122 home runs in the four seasons preceeding that, so if he's healthy, he could be a big help in the power department.  But that's a big if.  Eric Hinske will be backing up here, there, and everywhere, or at least everywhere there's a corner.  Hinske suffered power outages in 2007 and 2009 (6 and 8 HR, respectively), but hit 20 in 2008.

Second base belongs to Martin Prado now.  Last year was, by far, his best as a major league player.  It will be interesting to see what he does this year.  He doesn't walk much, but he also doesn't strike out much.  If he's the .300 hitter he was last year, he's an extremely valuable player.  If he sinks down to .270 or so (which I kind of expect to happen, for no good reason), he's still a good player.  (The value largely comes from his pre-arbitration contract, of course.)  Omar Infante will back up here and at shortstop, as well as sharing fifth outfielder duty with Hinske.

Yunel Escobar is probably the second best player on the team at this point.  He doesn't always concentrate enough in the field, and makes some really annoying, boneheaded baserunning mistakes.  But he's a plus defender at shortstop, and has a .375 OBP and some reasonable pop in his bat.

We can only hope that Chipper Jones returns to form in 2010.  If 2009 was the beginning of the end, the team is in big trouble.  There's no one in the organization to take over.  Certainly Chipper's power isn't what it used to be; he hit 18 HR last year, but he hasn't hit 30 since 2004.  (He did hit 29 in 2007.)  He managed to play more games last year (143) than he had since 2003, but he lost 100 points off of his 2008 batting average.  To be fair, that 2008 batting average was .364, but a .264/.388/.430 line isn't anyone's idea of a good season.  That .818 OPS was the lowest since his rookie year of 1995.  His defense also appeared to slip some.  He's 38 years old - which seems impossible, since it can't have been that long ago that he was a rookie - so it's not out of the question that he's done.  If he doesn't bounce back, the Braves will probably be in the market for a new third baseman in 2011, as he's repeatedly expressed an unwillingness to embarass himself by hanging on.

Like so much of the team, there are a number of question marks here, but overall, I think this is the strength of the team.  If too many injuries happen, though, there's not much after these guys.  Clint Sammons will be the first catcher up from Gwinnett.  Brooks Conrad is scrappy and fun to watch, but not actually that good.  Unless he got the pictures from Keith Lockhart, he's not going to get much playing time above AAA.  Joe Thurston would probably be called up if Hinske or Glaus goes on the DL.  Diory Hernandez has done well through the minors, but looked horribly overmatched in Atlanta last season.  Barbaro Canizares is already 29, so he's unlikely to develop from what he is now, which is nothing special.  If Glaus and Hinske both bomb out, we're more likely to see Freddie Freeman everyday than Canizares.

That's it?

To say I'm disappointed in the offseason moves the Braves made would be an overstatement.  On the other hand, I've been anything but impressed by them.

First, the good.
1)  They didn't give up any young players.  OK, they let KJ go, but while I like him, I don't think that it makes sense to pay $4 million or so for a guy without a starting job, and limited defensive versatility.  But they didn't trade any of the young guys in AA/AAA to try and make one last run for Bobby.  That's a serious plus.
2)  They let LaRoche go.  OK, he had a good half-season for the Braves, but what are the odds he could do that for a whole season?  Again, good financial sense was shown, as with Kelly Johnson.
3)  They made a couple of nice value pickups in Hinske and Glaus.  Neither costs too much, in money or time commitments, and both look likely to be useful stopgaps.

Too bad that's all the good I can come up with for now.  #1 is the key to this not being a really bad offseason.

OK, now the bad.
1)  Melky Cabrerra.  Ugh.  The Braves front office has had a fetish for this guy for years.  (Remember the talk of trading Andruw for Melky?)  Now they've got him.  Too bad that during the years they've been dreaming about him, he's been exposed as yet another over-hyped Yankees prospect.  A fourth outfielder at best, just like the rest of the Braves starting outfield.
2)  Salary dumping Javier Vasquez.  Trading him wasn't so bad.  After all, 2009 was the first year he put everything together, and even so, the results weren't quite what they seemed like.  Anyway, I'm fine with the idea of trading Lowe or Vasquez, and understand that Lowe was pretty untradeable.  But still, the return was blah.  (OK, the pitching prospect is nice, but he's a pitching prospect.)  And even worse, the money they're saving appears to be going into Liberty Media's pockets instead of the team.  Not a happy development.
3)  Lack of big moves.  There were a number of players out there who might have been useful additions to the team, especially when it comes to power.  None of them appear to have been seriously approached.  Jason Bay sure would have looked nice hitting in the middle of the lineup.  (Not so nice out in LF, nor is he worth $16 million...)

It boils down to an offseason where the front office did little to improve the team.  Instead, they replaced the parts that left with similar parts.  That's better than some alternatives, but it sure doesn't fill me with enthusiasm for the 2010 season.

Maybe Heyward will actually be ready to play RF out of spring training.  Maybe Prado really is a .300 hitter.  Maybe Chipper can bounce back.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Too many for me, but maybe that's what being a Braves fan is about these days.

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?

Not really a season "preview" as such, part one

J:
Well, I guess we should consider doing a season preview thing for the blog. It's pretty much traditional, right? But let's try something a little bit different. You had mentioned trying to do some back-and-forth stuff like Rob and Rany do, but we obviously haven't gotten around to that yet. So how about if we try the preview that way? We could try taking turns on players on the 25-man roster (plus, I suppose the guys on the DL)... One makes a comment, the other responds, then picks the next guy to discuss. Since I'm proposing this, I can start.
Chipper Jones:
I think I've seen the usual articles about how "this year he's going to be healthy again and play 150 games". I don't believe it, unfortunately. I think his body's just not going to let him play more than 120 games a season any more. It's possible that could change if he moved to first base, but who knows? And he doesn't seem interested in moving, so we'll probably never know. In any case, he's played 109 and 110 games the past two seasons. His rate stats have stayed in line with his career averages, but the decreased playing time means that his counting stats are down. I see no real reason to expect that to change. So we can look forward to 110-120 games, a .300 batting average, .550 slugging percentage, and about 25 home runs.

byrd:
I view Chipper the same way I had been viewing Hampton this year, as someone not to count on (note: this was written after Hampton went down for the season, but the sentiment developed over the last 2 years). It's like having a dad who's always on business trips. Sure, having him home is great; he hangs out with you, takes you to baseball games, grills some streaks, your general quality of life is better. But, you know in the back of your mind that you only get to have him for a short period of time. Something will probably take him away next week. If Chipper is able to stick around the whole year, he could help this team run away with a division crown. He's not as streaky as Andruw, who can carry the team offensively for a month, and usually does, but he gives the team a much better chance to win every night that he's in the lineup. A player who doesn't help you win every night, just every fifth night, is Kyle Davies, the pitcher who seeks to replace Hampton and Cormier long term. Like probably every other Braves fan, I remember his game against Boston on Friday night two years ago, and remember thinking that we might finally have another good homegrown pitcher. I still have high hopes for him, in a way that I never did for Terrell Wade. I've heard he thinks too much, and that holds him back, but that seems like a lesser issue than being crappy, like Mark Redman.

J:
I'm less excited about Kyle Davies than you are, I guess. I think he's a good bet to be a back-of-the-rotation level starter, but I'm not holding my breath for him to turn into an ace. He still has too much trouble with control, plus he tends to give up too many home runs. I'd love to be surprised. On the other hand, if he can be a solid #3 or #4 for the team this year, that would be a step up for him.

Since you brought him up, I guess I'll move on to Mr. Redman. I think "crappy" may be a bit of an overstatement, but only a bit. On the other hand, ChadBradfordWannabee thinks that his arm action is terrible. In any case, I think that his first start is probably the best that can be expected from Mark Redman. He'll keep the Braves in about half the games he pitches, probably. He's not likely to win any games 1-0 though. As rotation filler, he's not bad. And maybe the Braves catch lightning in a bottle again. Do you remember John Burkett?
Feel free to respond on Redman, but I'm guessing that you've already covered him as much as you really want to. So let me also bring up Scott Thorman. A lot of people seem to think he's going to be a stud first baseman. I'm not thinking that's too likely. His career OPS in the minors is 794. If he puts up the same number in the majors (a big if), that's Shawn Green v.2006 territory. Not completely awful, but certainly not "stud 1B" either.

byrd:
It's been a little while since you wrote that rubbish about Redman, so maybe you've come around to my way of thinking by now. I hope to not see him start another game, but I’ve felt that way for a while now, so I have little faith that a reprieve is in sight. I certainly remember John Burkett, and Redman is no John Burkett. I know very little about Thorman. I'm glad you're digging up these numbers, because there's no way I would. I deal in conjecture and assertions, emotion and eloquence (though that is up for discussion). I haven't seen him bat, because I haven't seen a single inning of Braves baseball yet this year on TV, but I hear that he's big, and a little old. I was a big LaRoche fan, as you may remember, and didn't want to see him leave. I don't like trading everyday players for relievers. Maybe that's the longtime Braves fan in me talking, but I think that counting on performance from a reliever is like counting on my omelettes to fold properly. I can gather the best ingredients in the world, but I won't know how it's going to turn out until I get them in the pan. . . Too much?Of course, last year all of the eggs were rotten, so maybe a major change was needed, if only to imbue the team with a greater confidence.Speaking of confidence, there are a few Braves players I have the utmost confidence in. McCann. I have never looked forward to someone's career with as much excitement as I look forward to his. There is no ceiling in my mind. I first started reading stats in the newspaper when Chipper came up. Before that I just watched the games and listened to them on the radio. Chipper was the first player who I watched in the box score every day, so you could say he was my first baseball hero, but I was never as excited about him as I am McCann.Andruw. I expect him to carry us for a month or two at some point, as he and Chipper move up the list of teammates who have homered back-to-back.Kelly Johnson. I won't claim him for myself, but he deserves to be someone's favorite player. The Braves have needed someone like him for a long time now, it seems, someone at the top of the order who isn't scared to see a pitch, and will stay out of Furcal-like slumps due to his ability to draw a walk.

J:
I’ll answer your last few here, and then post this as part one. Eventually, maybe we’ll get some more done… Oh, and I have changed my mind on Redman, sort of. At the very least, I don’t want to watch him pitch. He’s too frustrating. It’s like watching Horacio Ramirez, except without the hope – faint as it might be – that maybe, just maybe, he’ll figure it out. At least he’s on the DL for now…
If Brian McCann can just stop getting banged up, he’ll be the best player on the team. He’s young, he’s generally a consistent performer, and he plays a premium defensive position. What’s not to like?
I agree with you 100% on Andruw. Someone over at BravesJournal (I think it was Mac) pointed out that while Andruw is tremendously streaky during the season, he’s also amazingly consistent from season to season. I’m hoping that the recent Smoltz extension is a sign that Liberty is going to up the budget, and that maybe Andruw won’t be gone next year.
And I may end up being the one who makes Johnson their favorite player. I can’t imagine that he’s going to continue to put up the numbers he has so far (no way can he keep an OBP near .500, can he?), but I think something along the lines of 300/400/500 is certainly not impossible.