Some Big News as Opening Day Draws Closer

Only 2 days til Sunday night, and a some big things have happened in the Braves organazation. First off the Braves signed Chipper Jones to a three-year 42 million contract extension with an option for 2012. I like to say subjective here at Bravo Braves but YES! Finally a great decison for the Braves. We lock up Chipper til the end of his career, meanwhile boosting team morale and Chippers at the same time. Love it! Then we traded Josh Anderson to the Tigers to open up a spot for the future Jordan Schafer, and also Gregor Blanco. Two moves I like, and I feel like we're really gaining momentum leading into Sunday nights big game which I will preview on Sunday when I will then go daily. Until then, HALLELUJAH!

Spring Training position battles

Spring training keeps rolling on, and some very unique situations within the Braves are coming up.
1. Center field- Josh Anderson vs. Jordan Schafer. Anderson was the favorite going it, with the ability to steal 30 bases, but the younger but all around better player Schafer, hitting 319. in Spring Training, could very well win the job.
2.Left field-The only question in left is whether or not Garret Anderson will be the full time starter, or if he will platoon with Matt Diaz. I think it should be a platoon, with Anderson coming off the bench as a much needed lefty. Anderson crushes righties, Diaz crushes lefties. Simple enough.

3.5th Starter-Assuming Glavine is hurt and or ineffective, which I totally expect, It'll be between Campillo, Parr, Hanson, and Bennett. I think it should be Hanson, but I doubt we bring him up till June. I really like Campillo here for now. He got wacked the second half of 08, but I think he can reinvent himself and come back strong. When Bobby calls you "Like Greg Maddux", you've gotta be in the starting rotation.

Offseason Wrap-up -Time for Spring Training

I conclude my offseason review with part 3 of the series, where I focus solely on the Junior Griffey and Garret Anderson sequence.
I'll start with Griffey, who seemed to be a heading to Atlanta for about 24 hours (ala Fookie) before being steered the other direction by a number of reasons. One of them being reportedly that he had heard of an article about him picking the Braves by Dave O'brien(Braves beat writer) and took it the wrong way. (O'brien would later reportedly get in a shouting match with Tim Hudson over this, and personally I thing O'brien's bigger.) The other reported reason was that Griffey got persuaded away by Willie Mays calling him and persuading him to return to where it all started. I thing this had much more to do with his decison than the O'brien thing.
With us getting the cold shoulder by Jr., we moved on by saying we were going with the kids and then turning around and signing Garret Anderson to a 1 yr. 2M deal. What a bargain. A higher average, OBP, RBI, and just about as many homers, the consistent Anderson will bat cleanup, drive in a ton of runs, and makes us an instant playoff contender. He is as good as it gets for that price.

Review of the offseason Part 2

Sorry for the delay, I've been a little busy. I talked in last weeks post about Peavy and Vasquez, so I thought I'd talk about Lowe and Smoltz today. It is, all about pitching, ya know.

So here's my deal with Smoltz. Great player, hall of famer, whole career with Braves, just fantastic. And as far as walking down memory road, (and pleasing Chipper) it was a horrible move. But as far as winning ballgames, which is what it is all about, I'm cool with it. He projection for him in 2009 is about 5 wins, 50 innings, and a high morale in the clubhouse(as well as ERA). To be blunt, I don't think he's worth 10 million, heck, he may not be worth 5. Now he is a great clubhouse guy, but you really gotta be a good pitcher too in this economy, and I no longer think he is.

As much of a hit we got from Smoltz in some people's mind, we got it back with Lowe. We used the money we saved with Smoltz to blow away Lowe with a 4 year $60 million dollar deal he couldn't pass up. We got our ace. The best part? Lowe's front runner before the Braves stepped in? The Mets. See ya next time

Review of offseason (so far) Part 1

Since I'm just starting, I thought I'd go over what I missed as far as the offseason goes.
It all started in early November with the Jake Peavy signing- I mean debacle. Yeah, we were that close to Peavy, but just as the thing seemed in the books, Peavy for Yunel Escobar, Gorkys Hernandez, Jo-Jo, and Blaine Boyer, fell to the ground faster than one of Peavy's curveballs. So let's take a look at the Braves Post-Peavy Part 1

1. So with Peavy out of the way, we turned to the next great thing in A.J. Burnett, Derek Lowe(you'll hear more about that later), and of course the everlasting struggle for a power hitting outfielder(that too). So what do we do? Burnett, Lowe, heck, we'd take Niekro and a bucket of balls, instead, we get Javier Vasquez. Javier Vasquez! Yup, we got Javier Vasquez and Boone Logan for Tyler Flowers, Brent Lillibridge, Jon Gilmore, and Santos Rodriguez. The sad part this deal STARTED with Boone Logan and Javier Vasquez was put in as an add in. Nuff said about his value. Part 2 Coming Wednesday
   

Welcome to Bravo Braves!

Welcome to Bravo Braves! Great to see you found me! I'm new in this whole blogging thing, but I've been a huge Braves fan since I was 3! I'm looking forward to meeting fellow Braves fans, informing everyone on Braves news and rumors, and being a place Braves fans(and baseball fans in general) can come get information and opinions on all things Atlanta Braves. I hope to also have a forum up soon as well, to open up discussions and theories. Hopefully this will be a long and exciting journey, so please join me for the ride!

Jon