The Braves Are Going To Be Fine

Scott might you know who Rhyno’s Rebels is in the fantasy league?

With 10 extra wild cards in each league the Braves are bound to make the playoffs in 2012!!

bad b/c we have to face him (and the Nats got a bit better), good b/c it was not obtained by any of the potential JJ suitors

during the middle of last September. Forgive me if I feel anxious.

Kenshin Kawakami is off the books. That saves us $6.67 million. Derek Lowe is gone, that saves us another $5 million. Peter Moylan is gone, he was likely going to get something on the order of $3 million. Alex Gonzalez is gone, and his $2.5 million. Nate McLouth, earning $6.5 million, is also gone-we had to buy him out for $1.25 million. Scott LineBrink is gone, another $2 million gone. George Sherrill is gone, that’s $1.2 million. That’s $25.62 million cut from the payroll.

Brian McCann gets a $2 million raise. Michael Bourn is due a raise since he’s still Arbitration eligible, look for him to get something like $7 million (I’m not sure what the prorated value of his deal last year was). Dan Uggla’s extension kicks in, he’s getting another $4 million. If Jurrjens stays, he probably earns half again what he made last year (if the 40/60/80 pattern holds) and gets a raise of $1.625 million. Martin Prado would also get a raise, something like $1.6 million. Matt Diaz is here for $2 million.

Assuming that we add a few minor leagues making the minimum ($480,000), we should still have about $7.5 million to spend for next year’s roster, at least-probably more since I didn’t figure the prorated costs of Michael Bourn, Jack Wilson, and Matt Diaz on last year’s roster. We have enough bullpen arms that we don’t need to add anyone pricey there-I’m not against adding a veteran (singular), but I wouldn’t spend more than about $1.25 million on the bullpen.

I really hope Frank Wren actually does something with this cash.

But I still have major concerns over the rotation. We have one constant in Huddy who will miss some time but everybody else is a realtive unknown.

JJ seems to be basically out of town. Hanson has shoulder problems and has seen a sink in his velocity since his rookie season. Beachy was decent last year but had problems toward the end of the season. That leaves the rookies, who I’m not 100% in riding down the stretch.

I hope they prove me wrong though.

Wre’s gotta be creative now

And yes we had a nice record last year. However 2 of the teams that we face 18 times a year just got significantly better. Marlins now have a decent 1-2-3 in their rotation with Johnson, Sanchez and Buerle. They also have a legitimate lead off man in Reyes and Hanley is bound to have a bounce back season. Also they aren’t even done spending/trading apparently.

The Nats finished 3rd behind us while having down a down year from Werth and no Strasburg. Those two coming back strong and healthy would already make them a better team but adding Gio has put them on the next level. They also aren’t done spending/trading either.

Phillies have stayed the same which is still good. If anything they might be better by having Dominic Brown instead of Ibanez.

Mets . . . . . have a nice bullpen.

The Braves actually have a ton of question marks in my eyes.

How will Jurrjens and Hanson rebound from their injuries?
When will Hudson be ready?
Will Heyward rebound?
Will Prado rebound?
Can Freeman have another good season or will he have a sophomore slump?
How healthy will Chipper be?
Will Bourn play better throughout the entire season than he did with us the 2nd half?
What can we realistically expect from Pastornicky?

Granted every team has question marks It just seems like we have them for about half our offense and half of our starting rotation.

Obviously, it would have been nice to acquire Beltran, but it just didn’t happen. I’m sure Wren is trying to hold out for a great package for JJ, otherwise he isn’t going to deal him. Have we forgotten how good JJ is when he is healthy and on his game? Honestly during the first half of the year(before he got hurt) this guy was a top 3 SP in the National League. Obviously, I realize everyone is concerned about he may not hold up, and you could be right, but maybe he does hold up, it’s a situation where you don’t just dump the guy for an ok OF, and a prospect that may or may not do anything in the majors. JJ is an asset to us, good young SP is not something that you want to run out of town and take whatever offer, you take an offer that makes sense, nothing that I have seen makes sense in a trade.

Obviously, you can say, well if he gets hurt this year, his trade value is zero, maybe so, but if he stays healthy and pitches great like he is capable of, then we look damn idiots for taking a subpar package. It goes both ways, I’d personally take my chances with JJ.

Prado is a good hitter, I have constantly seen people type trade him and/or trade JJ for a player that is a better LF. Who is better that we could have traded for and that is available and that is a clearly better player than Prado? I wouldn’t mind having Beltran, but he signed with the Cards. The thing is, who are you going to trade JJ for that is clearly a better upgrade LF, and then if you can find someone that can play corner OF, then you need to match up good with the team(s) and hope they want JJ, and even then, you would probably have to deal more, could possibly want Teheran, Viz, Minor, or Delgado(one of the big 4) as well as JJ. If you are going to trade all of that, that LF better be a hell of a hitter, and honestly I don’t know of any that are available, without them making some hell of a salary right now, and isn’t worth it. Prado had a serious staph infection, I don’t know if he ever really rebounded from it during the 2011 season(I don’t think he did). The guy has proven that he can hit and can play. Everyone is entitled to have a bad year, hell most of the hitters had down years, Prado is a very good hitter.

At SS, who were we going to sign? Reyes, ya right, I wouldn’t want that guy anyway with his bloated salary and injury history. It’s nice to rosterbate about trading for Andrus, or Stephen Drew or someone like that, but who knows what those teams would want. It’s easy to say trade Rangers JJ and something else for Andrus, but problem is, why trade a young SS that can play great defense, pretty good offense from the SS position, and that has 4 more years left of team control? Sure they have a stud SS prospect, but that isn’t any reason to trade an established SS in the majors that is very young, just cause they have a prospect that may or may not even do anything in the majors.

Also keep in mind, maybe Wren didn’t want to go after Beltan or others, because he wants to have that money available to try to extend Bourn. If we would have given Beltran what he got from the Cards, likely we would then have ZERO chance to even hope to keep Bourn after the 2012 season. Even though Beltran would have 1 more year left, still not easy just dealing him somewhere(especially if he gets hurt a lot in 2012), Beltran salary with it being $10+ mil, be pretty much impossible to keep Bourn, unless Braves make other big moves in clearing space. Maybe, just maybe, this was a way to give us some hope in keeping Bourn. I don’t know about anyone else, but I would rather us extend Bourn after the 2012 season, than signing Beltran now. I could be wayyyyy off on this, and if so then oh well, but this is what I believe. Again, it’s no guarantee we can even extend Bourn, but I think the no FA moves this off-season gives us reason to at least hope we can extend Bourn.

We have to look at the big picture, and I know the Braves Front Office is doing this. Sure they would love to have gotten Beltran and prolly others, and already made trades, but nothing has worked out. We really do have a good team here, obviously there could be disastrous things that could happen, but it could for other teams as well. There is no guarantees in baseball, that’s why you “PLAY THE GAMES”, otherwise I think most would have given the Phillies the 2011 WS trophy. We have good players in Braves jerseys, Wren is trying to do what he can with limited money available(after arby guys get increases). I know it’s only human nature to be like, come on now, the entire NL East has gotten better but US, well, you just can’t think that way, otherwise you risk signing a FA to a bad deal, and/or not making a sensible trade. I still give Wren an A+ for this off-season, I really believe he is making the right decisions(sometimes no moves is the right decision).