As part of season reviews for major league players and top prospect rankings for minor league players, we here at Talking Chop thought it would be a fun idea to get all of our bloggers together with the help of Google Docs and debate the various aspects of each position in the Braves organization.

The participants are, yours truly (gondeee, indicated by MG), yondaime4 (indicated by MF), royhobbs (indicated by DH), and cbwilk (indicated by CBW).

The round table for relievers in the Braves organization is after the jump.

MG:  If you had to pick one to keep, would you keep Rafael Soriano or Mike Gonzalez, and why?
MG:  I find this a tough question. Both were dominant at times, but both were very hittable at times. Both seem to do better in the closer's role than the setup role. I would go with Mike Gonzalez. He just seems like more of a thinking man's closer, but he still has a killer fastball. That, and a lefty closer in the NL East is a nice luxury to have. ...Okay, I'm coming back to this answer after having done the Soriano writeup, and I'm hedging towards Soriano now. Ughh, I'm so conflicted.
DH:  To me, it's an easy choice - Rafael Soriano.  When he's on, he epitomizes dominance.  He has a swagger about him on the mound and his body language often is saying to the hitters that "you can't really hit me."  He's lost some velocity since his injuries, but he's still got the ability to shut down the tail end of a game effectively.  The fact that Mike Gonzalez might be considered a thinking-man's closer, might actually work against him.   Too much thinking can never be a good thing.  He's exhibited an alarming amount of inconsistencies at times, and he doesn't inspire the confidence that Soriano does more often than him.  Gonzo also seems to need the adrenaline from a close game to be at his best; and even then, he's still apt to give up the longball more than Soriano would.  Going through his game logs throughout his Atlanta tenure, he converted his first 16 save/hold chances, but since coming back from TJS, into the end of 2009, in about 1.5 seasons worths of appearances, he has blown nine saves and absorbed seven losses.  Those are not horrific numbers by any mean, and the save/hold stats are pretty merciless, but he's not quite the lockdown closer that a team really needs sometimes.
MF: Tough choice for me too. I think I would go with Gonzalez here because he has gotten better and better since his injury and he was great before it too. Soriano worried me a bit at the end of the season as he was tiring down, which isn't his fault. The funny thing about these two guys is statistically they are probably the two best closers coming onto the Free Agent market this fall. I think I am going to switch gears and says Soriano. When I think about someone closing a game for us I just think Soriano. He was so good in the first half I'd rather bank on that than on the fact he is tiring. I am just worried all the innings he put in this year could hurt next year.
CBW: I've always gone with Gonzalez on this one. I may be biased in the fact that he's one of the nicest guys in the game, but I liked him when he was with the Pirates and always wanted him to be with the Braves and now that he is, well, I want him to stay with the Braves. Soriano has been great when he's been healthy for Atlanta, but that's the thing, I have this hunch he's going to blow that arm out again, probably in 2010. Even barring that, he's always struck me as a guy who just goes out and throws the ball without really having a plan. I don't care what position it is, I want a guy who's a pitcher, not a thrower.

MG:  The walks that Craig Kimbrel has been giving up are quite alarming to me. He's got to fix those before he can be an effective major leaguer. I still think he's a year away from making his debut, but if he suddenly sorts out the walks, then he'll get called up quickly.
DH:  Hey, a minor leaguer that I can chime in on somewhat—given the current situation, I can suspect that we'll see Kimbrel sooner rather than later, which might not be a good thing if he can't figure out how to keep the walks down still.  I agree that a full year would be nothing but beneficial to his development, but with the possibility of our two top tier relievers bolting, and only guys like Peter Moylan and Eric O'Flaherty to potentially close by committee, I can see the team dipping quickly into the minors and bringing Kimbrel up, if they also can't snag a guy like Billy Wagner.
MF: We will see Kimbrel next year I don't have any doubt about that. His effectiveness is what I worry about obviously. he has been lit up in Arizona and its been mostly because of his walks. He doesn't even have to be good at maintaining his walk level, he just has to be a little better than he is now because his stuff is so nasty. Remember this guy did lead the minors in Kp9 this season at like 14 or 15 per 9. The walks do need to come down, but I think he can still be fairly effective even if they don't. And he did show improvement this year so there is no reason to expect he can't improve more.
CBW: To me, the walks are a direct result of his stuff. He gets insane movement on his pitches, which leads to the huge strikeout totals, but it also leads to the walks. A lot of pitchers have had this problem and the solution is usually to back off the speed a little, something hard for a young pitcher to do. I really believe the Braves have the best minor league pitching coaches in baseball and with their help I see Craig being able to solve things a little, maybe never to Maddux like numbers, but to a level that's still acceptable. And remember, even with all the walks, he's been able to keep guys from scoring.

MG:  I'm kind of getting more excited about David Hale than I was during the draft and shortly thereafter. The more I read about him the more I see that he's a smart kid who never really dedicated himself to just pitching. I think he can be a good one, and fast.
MF: I have liked Hale since we took him. He kind of remind me of Bobby Parnell of the Mets, a guy I knew in college. Bobby was terrible in college for the most part, but he threw a heavy fastball and the Mets liked that and saw something they could fix in his mechanics. They brought him in and sure enough they fixed him and now they refuse to trade him. I see Hale in a similar light. The Braves think they can fix his mechanics and get him focused on baseball. And if that happens we have another fast moving reliever.
CBW: I honestly wasn't overly impressed with Hale when I saw him with Danville, but it was just 2 innings and it was just his 2nd pro game, so that's not really a reasonable thing to judge him on. I will say that before the game several of his teammates were raving about him to me, making sure I knew that he was going to be pitching and I was in for something. That, at least to me, is more telling than what I saw, especially since most of the guys telling me about him were hitters. Hitters hate talking positively about pitchers, even their own teammates, so if they were willing to tell me how filthy his stuff is, he must really be something.

MG:  Jeff Lyman came out of nowhere this year once he was moved from the rotation to the pen. Who else in the Braves system do you think can succeed more by moving from the rotation to the bullpen?
MF: Well maybe not succeed more, but I think Osuna and Ortegano have a better shot at the majors long term with a move to the pen. Maybe Richard Sullivan, but I like his big frame for eating innings as a starter. David Francis has logged more games as a reliever though I don't think the Braves think of him as such yet, but his stuff would play well as a reliever.
CBW: Jeff's been a guy I've thought highly of for a while and I was pleased to see him start getting things going in the pen. Some guys you can just tell are going to work better out there. He's one and Deunte Heath, who also spent most of his time in 09 in the pen, with increased success, is another. I mentioned guys like Redmond and Cofield in the writeups as players who could probably succeed more with a move to the pen. Paul Clemens sort of focused on relieving this year and I think his big, lanky frame is just going to play better there. Everyone keeps wanting to make Jose Ortegano a LOOGY but I saw his last start of the season and the guy was throwing his fastall at 98 in the 8th inning and still getting good break on his offspeed stuff. Once you see this guy you realize that yeah, he could be a dominant lefty reliever, but it'd be kind of a wast of his talent.


MG:  The recent article by David O'Brien about Lee Hyde validates my ranking of him in the middle of my relievers list. I've long had my eye on him and I really believe he's someone who will be able to help soon.
MF: He has been looking good, but I don't think anyone can expect anything from a guy that appeared in 16 games over two seasons. I had pretty much forgotten about him until this year when he came back and pitched well. He still only put in 35 innings during the regular season so its hard to guess what he will do next year, but he did put himself back in the Braves plans.
CBW: I didn't put him on my list and I don't really feell like that was a mistake, even with his recent success. Lee obviously has talent, he was a great college player, got drafted highly, and performed well before he got hurt. But yeah, the injury worries me. I think he's fully recovered and he seems to have regained his velocity, so it'd be a great story if he can establish himself in the bullpen at some point in 2010 or 2011. Lefties are always a premium and smart lefties who throw in the mid 90s just don't exist.
MF: John Rocker is an excellent example of CB's final statement.

MG:  Cory Gearrin is a guy who continues to fly under the radar. Can anyone tell us more about him?
CBW: I'm not gonna lie, I have a man-crush on Cory. Of all the players in the system, nobody is more of a lock to be a Major Leaguer to me. And yes, that includes Jason Heyward. At worst, he'll be a highly effective ROOGY or double play specialist, at best, he'll be Peter Moylan, a dynamic arm out of the pen who can pitch in a ton of games. Either way, I see him having a nice career. He's one of the smartest players in the system and he puts a lot of work in to study the game. He throws sidearm, which is always valuable and gets great break on his stuff. I expect him to get a chance sometime in 2010, and possibly be a fixture in the pen in 2011.