Readers of this blog may assume that my favorite subject is the Atlanta Braves notwithstanding the 2010 FIFA World Cup. That would not necessarily be a correct assumption, but the Braves play a prominent part in Atlanta life and it’s only fitting to write about them. The baseball season is long, arduous and if you’re a fan quite often turgid. The regular season kicks off in late March and concludes at the end of the September covering 162 games. Teams fortunate enough to make the playoffs will continue to toil away until a World Series Champion is crowned around Halloween.
The Braves did reasonably well last season to make the playoffs only to fail at the first hurdle against the eventual World Series winners, San Francisco Giants. A play off berth was made more impressive by the absence through injury of Chipper Jones and Martin Prado, two of their more potent offensive weapons.
One has to take the cap off to Chipper. He suffered a serious potentially career ending injury in August and chose to have surgery immediately. Seven months later, and fast approaching 39 years of age, he has enjoyed a great Grapefruit League campaign during spring training and is raring to take his place at third base for the 2011 season. Martin Prado who filled in admirably for Chipper and also played a stellar 2nd base is also healthy but has been moved to left field to accommodate Chipper and the new signing Dan Uggla.
Uggla will help the batting order since he has registered 30 plus home runs for the last five consecutive seasons. Unfortunately, he is a bad defender with 47 errors over the past three seasons which is a lot for a second baseman.
Every American schoolboy knows that the defensive strength of any baseball team is down the middle: catcher, short stop/second base, and center field. Brian McCann is only OK; Alex Gonzalez turns 34 next month and was a major defensive disappointment last season. Dan Uggla is the 2nd baseman and I have already touched upon his defensive frailties. That leads me to the center fielder, Nate McClouth who spent most of last season at Triple AAA Gwinnett and finished the regular major league season with a batting average below the Mendoza line, 0.176.
It was noteworthy that Rick Ankiel was the Braves’ starting center fielder in the Division Series even though McLouth was on the active roster. The Braves thought so little of Ankiel they let him leave after the season, and now they plan to run McLouth out there again. The new manager Fredie Gonzalez believes he has helped McLouth rediscover his swing and confidence, but my thought is you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
In the remaining outfield positions, rookie Freddie Freeman will be playing first base and consequently the jury will be out on him until the all star game by which time he could be jettisoned back to Triple A in Gwinnett. Justin Heyward is entering his second season which can be a difficult one since pitchers have had a season to assess your strengths and weaknesses.
The bench looks reasonable with the return of Hinske, back up catcher David Ross, and Brooks Conrad. But for goodness sake don’t let Conrad have a regular run in the line up following his abject fielding in the post season.
Despite the new manager’s efforts to instill some basics into his squad during spring training such as bunting, stealing bases, producing squeeze plays, this team still has no speed. The Braves ranked 14th in a 16 team league in stolen bases last season and their new position players are not Olympic sprinters by any stretch of the imagination. Uggla, for example, has 19 stolen bases in five big league seasons.
The Braves have lost Troy Glaus, Omar Infante, Matt Diaz, and Billy Wagner from last year’s regular line up. Glaus was a converted 3rd baseman playing first base and one could argue his wheels fell off following the all star break. Nevertheless in the month of May he transformed the Braves season with his sensational hitting. Infante made the all star team as a utility player but by all accounts was a disruptive influence in the club house and the franchise was happy to trade him.
The starting rotation looks fairly solid, but Derek Lowe was roughed up by the Mets in his last spring season outing before appearing as opening day starter, and one wonders which Derek Lowe will show against the Washington Nationals. However, alarm bells were ringing when Jair Jurrjens was sidelined with yet another injury. The Braves management has not decided whether to place him on the disabled list, but it does not augur well for a player with a history of niggling injuries causing him to miss a substantial number of games in the last couple of seasons.
Near rookie Brandon Beachy will claim the No. 4 spot in the rotation in the opening weeks of a new season and Mike Minor will be called up into the No. 5 spot; neither of whom looked impressive in spring training. Surprisingly, the rotation does not include a left hander which may come back to haunt them down the road.
The bull pen appears to be fairly efficient, and Craig Kimbrel is projected to be the closer following Billy Wagner’s retirement. He has everything you’d want in a closer except….. control. He walks people as he made patently apparent in the devastating ninth inning of Game 3 of the National League Division Series. You can’t walk people if you want to close.
When the Braves play Thursday in Washington, D.C., it will mark the first time they’ll work for someone other than Bobby Cox since June 23, 1990. I’m not the only one in Atlanta who thought Mr. Cox should have retired at least five years ago, possibly even earlier. Yes, they won 14 consecutive division titles under his tutelage, but one solitary World Series win (1995) is a meager return when one considers he had one of the best starting rotations (Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz) in the history of baseball for over 10 years at his disposal.
Ironically, division rivals Philadelphia now enjoy the best starting rotation (Halliday, Oswallt, Lee and Hammels currently in baseball which should be more than enough to win the division leaving the Braves fighting off the best of the rest to claim the wild card. As usual, a lot will depend on Chipper Jones’ fragile body withstanding another long campaign. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Prado reclaiming 3rd base thirty games into the season. Who from the current staff will be playing left field then? Please don’t mention Brooks Conrad.
