Hello fellow baseball fans. I'll get straight to it. Who are some of the guys snubbed by the Baseball Hall of Fame that you believe deserve their just due, and enshrinement among baseball's elite?I'm sure most of you have your own list, some more in-depth than others, but a snub is a snub.Every year we fans argue over who was left to watch the All-Star game from home, but the HOF is a totally different animal. It's the culmination of one's career, a defining moment, if you will. When their playing days are over, and their stats are Hall worthy, yet their sitting on the sidelines, has got to be a horrible feeling.Don't get me wrong, some players are more deserving than others, but a few names should definately be added to the Hall of Fame roster.

I have put together a list of (15) Fifteen offensive players who played from the 1970's,80's,90's, and early 2000's who I believe deserve at least a second glance. All of the upcoming players are deserving to be members of the Hall of Fame, in one aspect or another. I am currently looking in to pitchers who have been left out in the cold by the BBWA, but, without further ado, let the debating (arguing) begin. (Editors note: This is only MY opinion. No offense is intended in any way. Also, the list is in alphabetical order... Enjoy)

Player 1. Harold Baines: .289 Career Avg., 1299 Runs Scored, 2866 Hits, 488 Doubles, 384 Home Runs, 1628 RBI, and a (6) six time All-Star..... Hall of Fame numbers? Looks like it to me!!!

Player 2. Bill Buckner: .289 Career Avg., 1077 Runs Scored, 2715 Hits, 498 Doubles, 174 Home Runs, 1208 RBI, 183 Stolen Bases, and more career walks than strikeouts.....I know, I know, Buckner is the goat of all goats. He also never had any "Great" season, but when you look at his career numbers, you have to start thinking about him in the Hall.....

Player 3. Brett Butler: .290 Career Avg., 1359 Runs Scored, 2375 Hits, 131 Triples, 558 Stolen Bases, 1129/907 BB/K rate, and a Career OBP of .377.....The bad news for Butler is the fact that he had absolutely NO power. That being said, behind HOF Rickey Henderson, Butler was the next best leadoff hitter of his time. Come on Veteran's Committee, give Brett a spot in Cooperstown!!!!

Player 4. Dwight Evans:.272 Career Avg., 1470 Runs Scored, 2446 Hits, 483 Doubles, 73 triples, 385 Home Runs, 1384 RBI, 1391 Walks, and a .370 Career OBP.....How is Dewey not in the Hall of Fame? Eight (8) career Gold Gloves to go along with his offensive numbers should help. Yeah, he was only a (3) three time All-Star, but you can't blame him for that. He put up the numbers, it was the fans who didn't choose him, much like the BBWA.....

Player 5. Steve Garvey: .294 Career Avg., 1143 Runs Scored, 2599 Hits, 440 Doubles, 272 Home Runs, and 1308 RBI..... Garvey was the 1974 National League Most Valuable Player, had (5) five 200 hit seasons, won (4) four Gold Gloves, and was a (10) TEN time All-Star. Really? He's not in the Hall of Fame? Come on, Man!!

Player 6. Keith Hernandez: .296 Career Avg., 1124 Runs Scored, 2182 Hits, 426 Doubles, 162 Home Runs, 1071 RBI, more BB than K's and a career OBP of .384..... Hernandez was the 1979 National league Co-MVP with Willie Stargell. He was a (5) five time All-Star, and won (11) ELEVEN, yeas I said ELEVEN Gold Gloves. Unlike HOF players such as Ozzie Smith and Luis Aparicio, Hernandez was an above average offensive player and the best defensive first baseman of all time. He should, without a doubt, be in Cooperstown.....

Player 7. Bill Madlock: .305 Career Avg., 920 Runs Scored, 2008 Hits, 348 Doubles, 163 Home Runs, 860 RBI, 174 Stolen Bases, and more BB than K's..... I expect most people to laugh when they read this selection of Madlock for the Hall, but before you do, answer this question for me. How many (4) four time batting champions are NOT in the Hall of Fame? Give up? One, and his name is Bill Madlock. Enough said!!!!!

Player 8. Don Mattingly: .307 Career Avg., 1007 Runs Scored, 2153 Hits, 442 Doubles, 222 Home Runs, 1099 RBI, and 588/444 BB/K rate.....From 1984 to 1989, Mattingly was the best Average/Power/Run Producer in baseball. He was the A.L MVP in 1985 and finished in the top 7 in MVP voting from 84' to 87'. He was a (6) time All-Star, (3) time Silver Slugger Award Winner, and most impressively, he won (9) Nine Gold Gloves. He did all of this in only (14) fourteen seasons.....

Player 9. Dale Murphy: .265 Career Avg., 1197 Runs Scored, 2111 Hits, 350 Doubles, 398 Home Runs, 1266 RBI, and 161 Stolen Bases..... Murphy won back to back N.L MVP's in 1982-83, won (4) Silver Slugger Awards, (5) five Gold Gloves, had a 30/30 season and was a (7) seven time All-Star.Murphy began his career as a catcher, which makes his (5) GG in the outfield even more remarkable. He was the 1985 MLB Lou Gehrig Award Winner and the 1988 MLB Roberto Clemente Award Winner. To say Murphy is a NICE guy would be an understatement, and to deny him his rightful spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame would be a travesty!!!!!

Player 10. Al Oliver: ..303 Career Avg., 1189 Runs Scored, 2743 Hits, 529 Doubles, 219 Home Runs, and 1326 RBI..... Oliver was a (7) seven time All-Star and he won (3) Silver Slugger Awards. Sure, he never got the single season accolades as most Hall of Fame players, but Oliver was a really good player, and his career line shows that. He should be in the Hall.....

Player 11. Tim"Rock"Raines: .294 Career Avg., 1571 Runs Scored, 2605 Hits, 430 Doubles, 113 Triples, 170 Home Runs, 980 RBI, 808 Stolen Bases, 1330/966 BB/K Rate, and a .385 Career OBP.....Rock Raines got a little closer in 2012 with 48.7% of the HOF votes, but he should already be in the Hall of Fame. he was a (7) seven time All-Star who knew how to get a hit, take a walk, steal a base, and score runs. 808 steals and 1571 runs scored are 100% HOF WORTHY!!!!!

Player 12. Ted Simmons: .285 Career Avg., 1074 Runs Scored, 2472 Hits, 483 Doubles, 248 Home Runs, 1389 RBI, and 855/694 BB/K Rate..... Simmons has really good numbers, and if you take into account the fact that he was a catcher, then he should be a no doubter for the Hall of Fame. When you compare his stats to those of catchers in the HOF, Simmons' numbers stand with the best of the best. However, it looks like, once again, that his career stats alone aren't going to be enough. It's not fair for Simmons not to be in the HOF!!!!!

Player 13. Rusty Staub: .279 Career Avg., 1189 Runs Scored, 2716 Hits, 499 Doubles, 292 Home Runs, 1466 RBI, and 1255/888 BB/K Rate..... 2716 hits, 1466 RBI and a BB/K rate that good are Hall Of Fame numbers. He put up those numbers while playing for some Horrible teams, which should help him, not hurt him.....

Player 14. Alan Trammell: .285 Career Avg., 1231 Runs Scored, 2365 Hits, 412 Doubles, 185 Home Runs, 1003 RBI236 Stolen Bases, and 850/874 BB/K Rate..... Trammell, along with "Sweet" Lou Whitaker were a dynamic duo up the middle of the Tiger D from 1977 until Whitaker retired in 1995. Trammel was a (6) six time All-Star who won (3) Silver Slugger Awards and (4) Gold Gloves. Along with Whitaker, this double play tandem deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Player 15. Lou Whitaker: .276 Career Avg., 1386 Runs Scored, 2369 Hits, 420 Doubles, 244 Home Runs, 1084 RBI, 143 Stolen Bases, and 1197/1099 BB/K Rate..... Whitaker was a (5) five time All-Star who won (3) three Gold Gloves and (4) four Silver Slugger Awards. The 1978 A.L ROY, Whitaker teamed with SS Alan Trammel for 19 seasons as the double play tandem for the Detroit Tigers. They should go into the Hall together.....

At the beginning of this piece I said I would mention 15 players who I believe should be given more consideration for the Hall of Fame. I did not mention Pete Rose because, well, everyone knows why. I do, however, want to mention one more player. This player, I believe, is the more deserving of all of the previous 15 I mentioned. His name is Dave Parker: .290 Career Avg., 1272 Runs Scored, 2712 Hits, 526 Doubles, 75 Triples, 339 Home Runs, 1493 RBI, 154 Stolen Bases..... Parker was the 1978 N.L MVP, finishing in the top 10 of the MVP voting 6 times. He was a 7 time All-Star, won 3 Gold Gloves, and 3 Silver Slugger Awards while winning to NL batting titles. I don't know what the "Cobra" did to make the BBWA mad, but if anyone deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, it's Dave Parker!!!!!!!

As I mentioned before, this list is only my opinion on the matter of Hall of Fame snubs. All of the players I listed proved, on the field, that they could, and quiet honestly should,be in the Hall of Fame. I hope the Veterans Committee will put at least some of these deserving players in their rightful place. Cooperstown!!!

Do we really even need this? Looking at the mess that's become the old one, maybe. Well here goes, rosterbate to your heart's content. It's pointless anyway, like all rosterbation, because the roster is set. Maybe someone finally steps up with that miracle Greinke-like offer for JJ, otherwise, here is your 2012 Atlanta Braves. C-Brian McCann 1B-Freddie Freeman 2B-Dan Uggla 3B-Chipper Jones SS-Tyler Pastornicky LF-Martin Prado CF-Michael Bourn RF-Jason Heyward C-David Ross 1B/UT-Eric Hinske IF-Jack Wilson OF-Matt Diaz? BN-Drew Sutton, Jose Constanza, etc SP-Tim Hudson SP-Tommy Hanson SP-Jair Jurrjens SP-Brandon Beachy SP-Mike Minor (or Julio Teheran or Randall Delgado) RP-Craig Kimbrel RP-Jonny Venters RP-Kris Medlen RP-Eric O'Flaherty RP-Christian Martinez RP-See below RP-Pick 2 from JJ Hoover, Anthony Varvaro, Cory Gearrin, Peter Moylan, Erik Cordier, etc.

So the Braves are sitting back making the predictable moves and things are starting to get boring. So....music thread? I recall I found Tech N9ne from a thread like this last year, so to someone on this site: thankyou. But for whoever wants to, lets share what we are all currently listening to. Not like we no lifes or bored office workers have anything better to do.

For me I recently came upon Funk Volume the past weeks, its currently only three artists but I can't get enough of two of them. Fans of hip-hop/rap should definetly check them out.

Hopsin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bULBnef6w6k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPHHudm0NTY

Dizzy Wright

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iGkYh9Yylc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWwXKVmlN18

3pm EST 1/17/12, Jim Bowden, Casey Stern hosting <strong>Inside Pitch</strong> on Sirius/XM. This is a stream-of-listening paraphrase of what I hear, in semi-real-time. Wasn't a lot of ground-breaking info.

---------------------------
Nice intro - Jim Powell highlight calls from games in 2011.

1. Busy day for you.... lots of signing/agreements. Last one JJ, done about 5 mins before the slary-figure-exchange deadline. Credits his staff for good work over the weekend.

2. Is avoiding arbitration advantageous? It's a right the players have; it doesn't typically have a lot of holdover effects. We try to avoid it, but are not afraid of the process.

3. Jim Bowden - argues that 'doing nothing' is a great off-season given the organization. "Thanks for giving me that, Jim!" We have a huge fanbase, hard for them to understand not doing much. We basically made the whole roster available if we could make the team better. Had several inquires on several players. We underperformed last year; hoping these guys will bounce back. We'll have some time to see if that happens. If there's something that's a clear winner for us, we'd do it, but not otherwise.

4. Where's the one spot in the field where you would want to upgrade? Well, that's the trouble -- no clear spot (went through all positions and explained). We need to be open-minded and such, but none of the discussions we had with other teams got very close.

5. How important was it to retain Prado (for sake of covering for Chipper) vs. getting a LF hitter? Great point Jim, because if we had traded Prado, it would mean multiple changes to our team.

Note: Mentioned Chipper in town hitting in the cage.

6. Depth of Rotation. Casey gets the sense that you like Minor as the lefty. How do you handle Delgado and Teheran. You're right - we prefer to have that lefty, but Teheran and Delgado are definitely "ready". If Hudson, Hanson, JJ, Beachy are ready, then there's probably not a spot for those guys yet. Left a hint that maybe Hanson and JJ might not be 100%

7. Do you see Medlen and Vizcaino in the bullpen? Yeah... Medlen has this swing-n-miss changeup - could pitch anywhere in the bullpen. Vizzy a little behind in maturity and pitching.... will be an interesting spring training (kinda curtailed discussion of Vizzy).

8. Fredi managing bullpen. He changed in the 2nd half, but the real problem in the bullpen was the offsense not swinging the bats well enough to allow the starters some room to go deeper in the games.

9. Fredi more: your assessment of Fredi - is he on the hotseat, or the long-term answer? "No, Fredi - we love Fredi". It's tough to follow Bobby, but Bobby's one of his greatest supporters and is there for advice. Handled the transition well.

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Atlanta Braves!
Chipper: 14 million
Uggla: 13.2 million
McCann: 11.667 million
Hudson: 9 million
Diaz: 2.125 million
Ross: 1.625 million
Hinske: 1.5 million
Wilson: 1 million
Prado: 4.75 million
Jurrjens: 5.5
O’Flaherty: 2.5
Bourn: 6.85
*Lowe: 10 million

Total: 83.717 million for 12 guys

Signing 13 more at an average of 500k (thx, Bronn for reminding me about the Major League minimum increase) brings the total to approx. 90.5 million.

There should still be some money available. If there really is a payroll increase from last year's 94 million (after trades and partial salaries to both Diaz and Bourn), then there should be at least 4 million to spend. I expect the Braves to try and low-ball an offer to Cody Ross to finish the offseason. We still have no backup CF.

I am a loyal fan to the end. No matter how my allegiance was gained by a team I never turn my back. However, 2011 and the start of 2012 have ended in particular disaster for my sporting soul. So, I decided that maybe others would want to share their own particular sporting woes regardless of team or league. For instance, here is the glorious? list of teams I support according to my profile:

Atlanta Braves

Washington Redskins

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Maryland Terrapins

USA!!!!

Arsenal

DC United

Washington Capitals

My gripes after the jump....

Continue reading this post »

I have been working hard to get my Braves Room (AKA Mancave) ready for the 2012 season. I am going to use this thread to post pictures of projects I'm working on that will visually make it look better. The first thing I want to show is the Braves retired number plaques I have been working on. So far I have only finished Murphy. I have Glavine, Aaron, and Mathews almost ready to go.

Dale Murphy

Next I want to show off the Braves tomahawk A logo that I made entirely out of wood. It's almost 3 feet long!

Wood Tomahawk A

Next are a couple of pictures of the actual room. Below the TV is my Jason Heyward Shrine. There are also autographed balls there from Greg Maddux, Brian McCann, Dale Murphy, Chipper Jones, Steve Avery, and Hank Aaron. I have 7 Heyward Autographs in all.

The second picture is what is on the wall behind my couch.

TV area

Behind Couch

I'll add more pictures as I complete stuff.

As trade rumors have died down with Adam Jones and Seth Smith (thankfully) and with the majority of our moves this offseason complete, I figured it was time to look further down the road: Midseason.

Assumptions I'll make based on last year:

1) Uggla stays healthy and puts together a similar season, albeit a more consistent season starting off, pencilling him in for 30+ HRS and a power bat in the middle of the order.

2) SP remains a strength, even if we have a SP or two go down during the year due to a shoulder, leg, tendinitis, or whatever injuries you can think of.

3) Freeman produces a similar year, maybe better, maybe a little worse, but remains a consistent force in the lineup

4) McCann stays McCann

5) Bourn is Bourn

6) O'Ventbrel stays dominant

Now for the question marks..

Continue reading this post »

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7452132/manny-ramirez-teams-take-chance-role-model

Could it be a possibility to take Manny on, if as nothing else than a 4th OF and an extra bat off the bench? I'm sure he can still hit it...what do you guys think about that? Why not?

If we don't trade Prado &/Or JJ, this might not be the worst idea in the world and won't cost much, right?

Here's some interesting fodder from the worldwide leader. Freddie jumps out as a nice surprise at #1. Beachy and Minor get the nod at the best #4/#5 starters too. Other than that, nothing too controversial I don't think. Reading it does kinda hammer home how few holes we have on paper though, I mean, heck, they even have Prado as the second best left fielder.

Link: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/19843/nl-east-showdown