Your thoughts on the Braves so far

[AHF]

Escobar had an awful season for us, but try to understand just how bad a philosophy it is that you trade or release young players with an established track record of success when they've had a bad half season. We did that with Kelly Johnson, too. Mid-20's players who've had one bad half season, tend to rebound to their career numbers the next year. It happens all the time. When you trade them, you're getting the absolute lowest return for fairly valuable players. Even with the 6 homers Gonzalez hit for us, he posted a lower OBP than Escobar did at his worst and played worse defense. Not only that, he tended to make errors on easy plays when the game was on tied in late innings. All the "professionalism" and "winner" talk was basically garbage. We were and still are a worse team with Gonzalez.

Now, the merits of the trade were never supposed to be that we got a better shortstop. It was that we got an above average middle infield prospect, Pastornicky, and a dynamite LH RP prospect in Tim Collins in exchange for downgrading at SS. We ultimately flipped Collins for the worthless Ankiel. And Collins is the LH RP I was referring to, as he is dominating for KC out of the pen at 21 years old, striking out 13 in 8 innings. We, meanwhile, had to waste a little over a million to sign Sherrill, a one-dimensional pitcher coming off an awful season. As for Dunn, I love that guy, but I think the trade for Uggla had to be made, given our miserable offensive situation. I loved trading Infante when his value was at an all-time high, which is a welcome change of pace to what we've been doing with other young players.

Great post.

Let me also applaud Fredi for moving Heyward up in the lineup. With his OPS compared to McLouth, it was hard to believe we were giving McLouth so many more at bats over the season.

[lethalweapon3]

Braves becoming a media spectacle in 3,2,1...

~lw3

[WraithSentinel]

That West Coast trip helped out a lot. Started off bad and ended on a high note. It might be time to start resting Chipper 2-3 days a week. They said his non-surgery knee was giving him some problems. I saw a sign of that in his at bat yesterday.

[Eddielives]

I'm so glad to see the Braves rebound after that Dodger 4 game series. This is how we're supposed to play. Now if Uggla can get his average up and McClouth just be competent, we will be serious contenders.

[jhay610]

Great post.

Let me also applaud Fredi for moving Heyward up in the lineup. With his OPS compared to McLouth, it was hard to believe we were giving McLouth so many more at bats over the season.

Sorry I am late to this thread. I think CBA should get his own custom title on this board like others have -- I nominate "Resident Baseball Expert" or similar.

At least A. Gonzalez has been phenomenal on defense this year, from what I've seen.

Fredi G. has been ok but he has made some bone-headed mistakes in managing the pen that have cost a couple of games. The Braves should cut Linebrink; he is a disaster.

I still think this should be a 90 win team and it looks as though they are starting to get hot. Starting pitching has been consistently amazing and that has been the basis of the blueprint since '91. It is now nearly June, however, and we are still talking about waiting for the bats to heat up.

[WraithSentinel]

B-Mac came up big for the Braves today. I wish Chipper would go ahead and have the surgery on his knee. It is a minor procedure that will cost him a few weeks to a month at most. Have it now and get it over with.