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Billy Wagner could wind up in an Atlanta Braves uniform next year.

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Keith Law ranks the top-50 free agents at ESPN Insider. Some interesting notes:

• He lists Mike Gonzalez 16th, ahead of Rafael Soriano, saying they are the two best relievers on the market, but he considers Gonzo healthier and more valuable from the left side.
• Rafael Soriano is 19th, and the thing that jumped out at me is that Law says he should be looking for K-Rod type money in a contract. Francisco Rodriguez got a 3-year, $37 million deal after leading the AL in saves, Soriano has been a full-time closer for less than a year, and as my 2009 review of him showed, he regressed throughout 2009. I can't see a team desperate enough to give Soriano that type of money, or even close. Maybe I'm misjudging the market for relievers.
• Billy Wagner is ranked 23rd, and Law says of him that the biggest concern is if he can handle the closer's workload, and that an incentive-laden contract for games finished would make sense for the signing team. I can see the Braves being open to something along those lines.
  
• He mentions a Japanese reliever named Ryota Igarashi, and I can see the Braves taking a chance on him if he chooses to come to the States.
• Adam LaRoche is listed 29th, and while the review is not glowing -- pointing out his overall averageness and his first half swoon -- Law seems to think that some team will still pay him like a regular first baseman in both salary and years. This could easily put the Braves out of the running. I still think our best option is to offer him arbitration and act excited if he accepts, keeping him around for one more year.
• I noticed that there were a lot of free agent second basemen. Teams needing a second baseman and not wanting to give up the draft picks to sign one of the free agents may create a market for Kelly Johnson.

Good overview of the free agents by Law, if you're an insider you should check it out.

After an outstanding 2008 for Myrtle Beach, Ernesto Mejia missed the majority of 2009.

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The list of Six-Year Minor League Free Agents has been released and the Braves have 12 players on that list:

Pitchers: RH Bobby Brownlie, RH Jerome Gamble, LH Mariano Gomez, RH Moises Hernandez, RH Lance Niekro, LH Juan Perez

Catchers: Jose Camarena, Alvin Colina

Infielders: 2B/SS Chris Burke, SS/3B Kody Kirkland, 1B Ernesto Mejia, 3B Antonio Perez

In addition to these players, RHP Jorge Campillo, RHP Buddy Carlyle, RHP Vladimir Nunez, and OF Reid Gorecki were previously announced as Minor League free agents after being removed from the Braves' 40-man roster.

Brownlie was one of the top amateur talents when he was drafted in the first round by the Cubs in 2002 but his career has been sidetracked by a series of injuries. He joined Gwinnett in the middle of the season and had a fairly effective run as a swingman, going 5-2 with a 4.13 ERA and 1.35 WHIP in 56.2 innings. If the Braves find they need more depth at the upper level he could be re-signed.

Like Brownlie, Gamble has missed large parts of him Minor League career to injuries, but he's been effective playing for Mississippi and Gwinnett the last two seasons. He spent the majority of 2009 with Mississippi, mostly as a reliever, going 2-1 with a 3.05 ERA and 1.28 WHIP in 44.1 innings. Gamble is a good influence on younger players, so it's possible he could return.

More analysis after the jump...

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An interesting note from the Japanese Yahoo baseball rumors site, via NPB Tracker:

Daily Sports has a report saying that the Braves have some interest in signing Hidetaka Kawagoe, who was release by the Orix Buffaloes at the end of the season. Kawagoe, 36, moved from the rotation to the bullpen during the 2009 season, and profiles better as a reliever regardless of which league he next plays in. The Chiba Lotte Marines have also been kicking the tires on Kawagoe, and appear to be his most likely destination if he stays in Japan.

I have no idea why we'd be interested in him. Here are his career numbers in Japan, not very impressive. He's been a middle-of-the-rotation starter most of his career until last year. Could the Braves see something in him that no one else does? Are they trying to pull off another Mike Remlinger-esque switch from the rotation to the pen? Let's see how long it takes Mark Bowman to shoot this rumor down.

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The official announcement of Tim Hudson's contract extension with the Atlanta Braves has finally arrived. David O'Brien tweets that the extension is official, and that it is a three-year deal with a fourth-year option. More details here as they become available.

The financial details are in the Braves favor. Hudson took a hometown discount for his three-year with a fourth year option contract at $9 million a year. The club can buyout the fourth year for $1 million. Fantastic contract for the Braves, especially since Hudson is still in his prime.

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Was it Divine intervention that prevented the Atlanta Braves from signing Rafael Furcal... or just his agents.

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Last off-season the Atlanta Braves announced they had come to terms with free agent Rafael Furcal on a three-year contract... but less than 24-hours later Furcal had signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. In the aftermath of that episode, Braves President John Schuerholtz stated that the Braves would never again do business with Furcal's agents, the Wasserman Group, headed by super-agent Arn Tellem.

As a side note to this, if we had signed Furcal, then we would have moved Kelly Johnson to left field, we never would have signed Garret Anderson, and Martin Prado may never have emerged as a bona fide major league starter at second base. And we might have traded Yunel Escobar somewhere. Things tend to work out for the best sometimes, as Furcal layed an egg in 2009.

Here are the free agents this off-season who are represented by the Wasserman Group, and are therefore off-limits to the Braves (courtesy of MLBTR):

Wilson Betemit
Aaron Boone
Nomar Garciaparra
Jason Giambi
John Grabow
Rich Harden
Shawn Hill
Reed Johnson
Jason Kendall
Hideki Matsui
Jason Michaels
Guillermo Mota
Vicente Padilla
Wily Mo Pena
Joel Pineiro
Matt Treanor
Randy Wolf
Omar Vizquel

I must say that there's no one I really want on that list, so for this year at least, no harm, no foul.

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There's no official rumor on this, I just wanted to throw it out there and let it marinate, and I've seen it brought up here and there in some comments. J.J. Putz could be a good fit at closer for the Atlanta Braves, as he and the Mets are likely to part ways, but are we ready to take a chance on another injury-plagued reliever?

He had surgery to remove bone spurs on his throwing elbow last year, but then during his rehab he re-injured that same area that was described as "fraying and a slightly torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow." He is supposed to be fully recovered from that by the time spring training rolls around, and when healthy he can be a shutdown closer.

The positive spin here is that because he is coming off of an injury he could likely be signed to an affordable one-year contract, and perhaps even an incentive-laden contract that would protect Atlanta against him re-injuring the elbow. The obvious downside here is that we really shouldn't be counting on a guy coming back from injury to be our closer. We might make the same mistake with the bullpen that we made with the starting rotation two years ago -- relying on injury-prone pitchers.

Ideally we'd want to bring in someone else who could potentially close as insurance against Putz breaking down. Perhaps re-signing Mike Gonzalez could be that insurance.

Again, I'm looking for low-cost players with potentially high upside, and Putz falls into that category. That, and we're Irish twins.

The Atlanta Braves had four of five eligible players file for free agency yesterday. First baseman Adam LaRoche, outfielder Garret Anderson, pinch hitter Greg Norton, and reliever Mike Gonzalez all filed for free agency, leaving only reliever Rafael Soriano yet to file.

The two relievers, Gonzalez and Soriano, are both type-A free agents, meaning the Braves would receive two first round draft picks (1 and 1S) is they offered either arbitration and they signed elsewhere. Because they are expected to draw interest from several teams, the Braves will likely offer arbitration to both players, though they may only seek to actually try and re-sign Gonzalez, seeing him as the less costly of the two.

LaRoche and Anderson are both type-B free agents, and Atlanta would receive only one first round (supplemental) draft pick as compensation were they to be offered arbitration and sign elsewhere. It depends on how the Braves plan to approach this off-season and the stated goal of adding right-handed power bat as to whether they will offer LaRoche arbitration.

For the record, I'd like to see the Braves offer Gonzo, Soriano, and LaRoche all arbitration. If they did sign elsewhere with teams that had one of the 15-best records in baseball last year then the Braves could find themselves with 3 first round draft picks and 3 supplemental first round picks -- possibly 6 of the first 50 selections in the draft. By having extra picks, the Braves may also be less fearful about going after other type-A free agents and losing their own first round pick.

From MLB.com's Mark Bowman, here is the latest on the Atlanta Braves efforts to re-sign Tim Hudson:

Tim Hudson has passed his physical and essentially made his three-year contract extension a done deal.  But the Braves may wait until the conclusion of the World Series to formally make this announcement.

Hudson and the Braves agreed to the terms of the three-year extension last week and then had to wait to find a doctor that the insurance company would approve.

David O'Brien reported a similar note this morning

The delay on Hudson extension resulted from the team having to find a doctor the insurance company approved of to do the physical. But they got the doc and Huddy passed the physical, from what I’m told. If so, it shouldn’t be much longer before they sign this deal and it gets announced.

Good. Signing Hudson is the right move. Now we get to endure a swirl of rumors about who the Braves will trade from the rest of the starting pitchers.