What a turn of events in the last 24 hours for our Atlanta Braves. Moves days weeks months perhaps even years in the making have just come to pass on JUNE 3rd no less. The future of this ball club has come into much better view with both of these moves.
As much as this move annoys me as a fan and I find it distasteful to say the least…the right move has been made with Tom Glavine. The Braves essentially refuse to state publically that many of their moves are about money but subtly Frank Wren will admit it as he told a radio show this morning… “Of course everyone knows about the roster bonus and if we were to bring him up for nostalgic reasons that just wouldn’t make sense.” The Braves essentially have made a business decision and it’s the right one… my issue is… it was the right decision 4 months ago before he did all this rehabbing. If it’s about winning now… why not bring up Tommy Hanson and Medlin a month ago? Why did we even see Jo Jo Reyes? The answer yet again is the money. Specifically the super 2 money even though they stayed away from that too. They stand to save perhaps 5 million bucks if Tommy Hanson is everything they believe he is. Medlin and Jo Jo are being shopped of course.
The distastefulness of all of this being that they cast off both Smoltz and Glavine two sure fire hall of famers and two of the best players in club history in short order not to mention Glavine might as well be a talking duck saying Aflac because he was nothing more than an insurance policy this year in case Medlin or Hanson didn’t pan out. This happens, I get it.. it’s business, but the bulk of his 305 wins were with this team including a WS victory and he was sent off for a measly 1 million dollars which means the Braves again are quite tight with the money. In the long run Tommy Glavine wasn’t really in their plans long term and instead of giving him another couple weeks of rehab they just decided to be future oriented now. Frank Wren has not deviated from the plan it seems that was begun last fall in earnest and even though I hate this for Tom Glavine it is the right move for the team. People upset with the way this was handled or the way Smoltz was handled will be back when the Braves start winning in bulk again and the way it’s setup that could be as early as this fall, but probably next year because of the way Frank Wren has handled this team.
Releasing Glavine, calling up Hanson and sending down Schaffer would be Ok, so all that done the braves sit at .500 and 5.5 back with still a whopping talent gap in the outfield are they really going to have enough to get out of the 3rd spot in the East? The answer of course without modification is no but it’s June 3rd no moves usually get made for another month so this year is done right? Not so fast my friend. Being the trend setters we were on EVHEI show we’ve been following the better outfielders in baseball for the last several years with hopes the Braves might fill the gaping holes they have in the outfield sooner rather than later. Jason Bay was the biggest target, but they wanted Hanson for Bay so Bay ended up going to Boston and we saw how that played out. Xavier Nady was another excellent Pirate outfielder but he was snagged up by New York. The guy I personally never thought we had a chance at getting was Nate McClouth who is an All Star and one of the better young (Gold Glove last year) center fielders in baseball. The Braves have dealt their future potential stud CF in Gorkys Hernandez along with a decent potential 4th or 5th starter (not on this team) in Charlie Morton and up and coming lefty Jeff Locke from the Mississippi AA squad. This is tremendous for this year’s club and in the years to come as he is signed to a very reasonable deal 15 million over 3 years. It also likely in my mind spells the end of Jordan Schaffer’s tenure with the big league club unless he moves to left and he could be expendable should he find his hitting stroke. Perhaps he’s good enough to find us a future third baseman when Chipper is unable to perform to the same level.
All in all, I love the forward thinking from the Braves and Frank Wren. They are making sound financial decisions along with good sound club decisions it’s just as a fan it hurts my heart to cast out a guy who won a world series and cy young for you but as a GM you have to know when to let them go and youth is going to win out over age most of the time. If the stuff isn’t there, it’s not there and hopefully Hanson is lights out.
The new question of the year. What will they do in Left Field and how soon will they have to make the call on Francouer with Heyward waiting in the wings. That said, having two gold glove outfielders and a pretty nice Garrett Anderson and Matt Diaz platoon if all is well gives them a much better chance to compete this year especially with McClouth’s lead off ability, power, and speed on the base paths.
This was a spectacular move for Wren. He didn’t fleece the Pirates by any means, but he found an All Star Centerfielder who no one really dreamed was available, and he got an extra month and a half out of the deal doing it on June 3rd. Well done with this one FW.
Braves fan for life, Paul Mac was the former co-host of Extra Innings on Sports Radio 790 the Zone.
1 comment:
Maybe I'm just not nerdy enough to get the whole defensive matrix deal... but the idea that X player is better than Y player because X gets to more balls is a little silly to me in justifying or dissing a trade. Did the guy get to every ball... no. ok but how is it broken down via the size of the ball parks and the skills of other players around them?
McClouth is a Gold Glover... because he didn't commit errors in Center. Put a rangy Schafer in Center he might get to a few more, the baseball dorks though always seem to overrate the hell out of Jim Edmonds.
McClouth is hopefully a good enough base runner and hitter to play a corner outfield spot if Schafer ever recovers. If Francouer doesn't pick his crap up and start becoming a professional hitter.... he's relegated to defensive utility outfielder. I really hope Heyward and Freddie Freeman are as good as advertised.
I still think they need one more good solid bat to make the playoffs, and that's not likely going to pop up this year without divine intervention with Francouer who should never again hit above 8th in the lineup.
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