Sounds like we need someone to stand in the bullpen to stand in the right-handed batter’s box for throwing sessions?

His 2007 and 2008 seasons were pretty damn good, but his last year was abysmal. Was he hurt?

last year for Omaha. I wouldn’t expect too many bombs.

But we now have a QB to sling it around with Wagner.

Why do we keep refering to Mitch Jones as a AAAA guy? I thought cbwilk did a good job of breaking down his career path so far, and it has been nothing like what we are making him out to be. He has never been given a chance at the big-league level.

The tag of AAAA should be assigned to those players like JoJo Reyes who have been given plenty of opportunity, but never put it all together at the big league level, but continue to play well at the AAA level. Mitch Jones does not fit into that category.

This may sound like crazy talk, depending on the results of ST, I would not be extremely surprised to see MJ holding down the fort for JH until June or so…

Sweet! JR is the man. I got to see him a lot early in his career when he was in A ball for the Pirates and at that time I thought he was one of the better hitters in the minors. Unfortunately he hurt his elbow and (by some reasoning I still can’t fathom) quit baseball and went to West Virginia to play football. The way he got back into baseball is kind of funny; he and a friend jumped a fence and snuck into the Astros spring training complex. They hung out for a while and even got Craig Biggio’s autograph before they were kicked out. JR decided he wanted to come back and hooked on with, wait for it, the Astros.

He spent all of 2007 playing here in Norfolk so I got to see him for pretty much every home game (and a few on the road). He’s a top notch hitter with a great idea of the strike zone, though his power is mostly all in doubles. He really doesn’t get enough lift to hit many homers, but he’s aware of it and doesn’t try to play outside his game. He was originally a catcher but has never been very good at that position, especially after the arm injury made it so he could barely throw to second base. However, at first he is a very capable defender with soft hand. Above all, JR is a Braves kind of player, he’s a smart, conscientious person who excels more off the field than on it. He’s the perfect kind of guy to have on a AAA team to mentor the young players.

I don’t know what he’ll give to the team, I’d guess something along the lines of his typical AAA line, .293 avg, .809 OPS, 13 or 14 homers, 30 doubles, 60 RBI, but I’m personally very excited about this signing.

and I really need to come up with a new moniker.. JMHO FW is going to look like a freaking genious this year with his off-season moves..especially in the whole aspect of things and the bigger picture.

basically FW is going on an allout pursuit of making Omar Minaya look like an idiot by building up so much depth its ridiculous

That makes 2 of us. Huzzah!