BRAVES NEWS
Coherent offense leads Braves to 10-6 win over Blue Jays
The Braves got big contributions from Freddie Freeman, Matt Kemp, and Dansby Swanson on Monday, as the Braves beat the Blue Jays 10-6. Bartolo Colon was much better in this start than his last, giving the Braves enough to cement a win as he allowed three runs in five innings of work. Jason Motte pitched well in relief, though he was followed by rough outings from Ian Krol and Josh Collmenter. But the Braves won, and that means there is plenty to be thankful for given their recent struggles.
Is now (finally) the time to trade Julio Teheran?
Our own Scott Coleman posed the question yesterday of whether or not now is the time for the Braves to trade Julio Teheran. Several factors have to be taken into account when discussing the potential trade of your ace, and as Scott writes, there would certainly be pros and cons to either outcome:
My biggest concern is the mileage on Julio’s arm. No matter how durable, just about pitcher breaks down eventually. Even the most durable of durable pitchers get hurt at some point, with a couple Hall of Famers being the exception.
We can’t predict when a pitcher will suffer an injury. But at the age of 26, Teheran has already logged 867 big league innings, including 841 over the last 4+ seasons. He’s on pace — barring injury, of course — to eclipse 185 innings for the fifth year in a row.
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Trading proven starting pitchers with team-friendly contracts is risky business. We’re seeing now how trading Alex Wood in 2015 could come back to really sting. The guy’s been better than Clayton Kershaw so far. That’s a small sample size, of course, but it’s always risky to trade proven talent for unproven prospects, especially when the objective is to compete for championships in the somewhat near future.
Braves still adapting to use of DH
Mark Bowman of MLB.com writes that Braves manager Brian Snitker is not fond of the designated hitter, and feels that the Braves are at a disadvantage when having a player who is accustomed to playing full-time be relegated to strictly batting.
"It's like Bobby [Cox] used to say, 'You can just sit on a bag of balls and watch the game when you're using that DH,'" Snitker said. "Then there's also that mindset where our guys aren't conditioned to DH. These American League teams have a DH with a guy who has been around a bit. That's what they do. Our guys are used to staying in the game the whole time."
Braves, Tribe, Phils dominate Prospect Team of the Week
The Braves placed three prospects on this week’s MLB Pipeline Prospect Team of the Week, and get this: none of them are pitchers. For an organization so rich on pitching talent, the Braves managed to have three position players (Rio Ruiz, Travis Demeritte, Ronald Acuna) stand out above their peers this week. This minor league system is so much fun.
MLB NEWS
Indians’ Francona pranks Rays’ Cash, his former bullpen coach in Cleveland
.@RaysBaseball is in town, meaning another chance for Terry to take a swipe at his old pal -- and our old bullpen coach -- Kevin Cash. pic.twitter.com/XoG2EwM0h7
— #VoteTribe 5x a day (@Indians) May 15, 2017