From Ken Rosenthal:

This is an interesting option. I don't quite see how Melky would fit into our presumed one-year-stop-gap plan to man center field until Schafer is ready. He would seem to be a trade option that would open up a different direction for the club - one that would lead to a trade of Schafer. I would also think that Melky would be one of the more expensive, in terms of talent in return, options on the trade market.

In the same article, Rosenthal mentions that the Twins might not be as close to acquiring Coco Crisp as some have reported. He mentions another "unidentified club" which apparently has interest in Crisp, and may be the most aggressive. Anytime I see the words "unidentified club" in a rumor I immediately think of the Braves, since they never let any word leak from their ranks, and other teams might be hesitant to name them.

Crisp would be an affordable and capable replacement. He is signed for $4.75 million next year and $5.75 million in 2009. I look at Crisp as a Renteria-esque acquisition from the Red Sox - someone who had performed well until he went to Boston. I'd be happy to take the devalued Crisp off the Red Sox hands and watch him revert to his pre-bean-town numbers of .300/.345/.465. He still may not be a leadoff hitter, but as an eighth place batter (which is all we really need with KJ and Yuney at the top of the order) he would be under even less pressure to perform.

The real genius of this possible acquisition would be a year from now, when Coco is still under contract at an affordable one year and $5.75 million, and Jordan Schafer is ready to take over the everyday centerfield job. Assuming Crisp undergoes a renaissance in Atlanta, his trade value would likely grow to more than it is now, and with the lean market for free agent centerfielders next year we may get a great return on him - much more than we would likely have to pay Boston for him this year.

The Winter Meetings start Saturday, so we may not see any movement until then, but right now my thinking is that the Braves must be looking at Crisp.

Who was more important to the success of the Atlanta Braves during their 14 consecutive division titles? Was is the master of the one-sided trade, John Schuerholz? Was it the pitching coach, Leo Mazzone, who could take just about any thrower off the scrap heap and make him an All-Star pitcher? Or was it the skipper, Bobby Cox, whom players all around baseball long to play for?

Schuerholz
He engineered the first big acquisitions that radically altered the face of the team before the 1991 season - signing Terry Pendleton, Rafael Belliard, Sid Bream, and Deion Sanders. He always seemed to be able to add the right guy at the trading deadline, be it Alejandro Pena or Fred McGriff or Denny Neagle. Schuerholz kept the team fresh with young talent and veterans in their prime in the midst of the salary explosion, initially riding the wave with a free spending owner and then existing in the world of the constrained budget.

Mazzone
Is it just a coincidence that the streak ended the year Mazzone decided to leave? John Burkett, Chris Hammond, Darren Holmes, Jaret Wright and others all owe Mazzone for revitalizing their careers or remaking them as pitchers. Many people have tried to determine how much of an effect Leo actually has on pitchers, but there is still no way to accurately measure the Mazzone Factor, other than to say that the year he left was the worst year our pitching staff has had since before he arrived..

Cox
Considered one of the top three best managers in the game today, and one of the top ten best of all time, he is the guy who creates the environment for all of these talented players to find success. He fights for his players, not with his players like some managers. He never says anything bad about current or former players - always finding a way to take any bad situation and put a positive spin on it. That's why they play so hard for him, because they know he's behind them one hundred percent. When he was the General Manager prior to 1991, Cox was the one who brought us guys like John Smoltz via trade and drafted the likes of Steve Avery and Tom Glavine.

So who was more important? I think a case can be made for all three and that without any one of them the Braves run of success may not have been as long or successful.

He gets the top spot on this list because of his tenure, longer than Chipper or any other player. He gets top spot even though Maddux and Glavine have more Cy Young Awards. He gets the top spot because of his unselfishness in going from one of the best starters in the game to one of the best closers in the game and back to one of the best starters in the game. But most of all John Smoltz gets the top spot on this list because he is THE FORCE in the postseason; a 15-4 record and a 2.65 ERA, and he was a reliever for four years.

Think about how much further we may have gotten in the postseason with John Smoltz as a starter from 2001 to 2004. Just think if we could have started Smoltz instead of Ortiz, or Wright, or even Glavine, who couldn't win in '02. It could have been Smoltz matching up with the power of Arizona's Johnson or Schilling in 01. Smoltz's 15 career postseason wins are the most by any player in baseball history, of course these days there are a lot more rounds to the postseason and John has amazingly pitched in the fourth most postseason games. Part of what makes him a force in the postseason is his ability to get the strikeout when he needs it. He's a power pitcher and that usually translates well to short postseason series. In fact, Smoltz has the most strikeouts in postseason history - a whopping 194 in 207 postseason innings pitched. Compare all that with Glavine and Maddux who have been good in the postseason, but not great like Smoltz - evidenced by each of them being one and two with the most losses in postseason history, where as Smoltz doesn't even register in the top-20 in that department.

When people talk about Hall of Fame credentials, Smoltz is certainly one of those who took the Dennis Eckersley route. Eckersley may not have been as good of a starting pitcher as Smoltz was, but his career as a closer lasted longer and was at times more dominant than Smoltz. But Smoltz did something that Eck did not; he went back to being a dominant starting pitcher after being a closer, and still remained a dominant strikeout pitcher. With another solid year in 2007, Smoltz could be on the verge of putting up numbers that no one else ever has: 200+ wins, 150+ saves, and 3000+ strikeouts. Those are first ballot Hall of Fame numbers.

This list is all about the pitchers and the hitters who were the most important players to the Braves during their amazing 15-year run, and while there are a lot of great players on the list and while many of you could argue that others deserve to be up here at the top, the point remains that after Glavine and Maddux have gone on to other teams in other cities, Smoltz is still here. He is still here taking a LOT less than he could probably get on the open market. He could have gotten more three years ago when he signed an extension with the Braves. He could have gotten more five years ago when he was a free agent. Others have left, and have gotten more, but Smoltz has stayed and with him the traditions of the Braves pitching staff and its recent and rich history have remained. There is a reason guys like Chuck James and Kyle Davies and Jeff Francoeur and Brian McCann have such respect playing for the Braves. That reason is the John Smoltz.

If there is any one player that has become the "face" of the franchise over the past decade, it has to be Chipper Jones.

Being selected first overall in the 1990 free agent draft, the expectations for Chipper were obviously high from the beginning. Jones burst onto the scene with his bat, but not everything went well for the young star. Chipper struggled early and often at his original position of shortstop. In 1991 he made 56 errors while at Macon. He went on to make 32 errors in 1992. And two years later at Richmond, Chipper reached 48 miscues. The Braves really wanted to get his bat into the lineup, but were concerned they couldn't hide Chipper's defensive deficiencies.

As luck would have it, Jones tore his ACL in 1994 and missed the entire season. If his errors hadn't prevented him from earning the starting nod at shortstop for Atlanta, the ACL injury certainly did. At the very least it gave the Braves an excuse to move Chipper to third base.

While Jones was never a defensive wiz at the hot corner, at least his fielding woes were far less exposed than at shortstop in the minors. The move to third base solidified the Braves infield and Jones settled in rather comfortably.

Chipper Jones brought a confidence to Atlanta that the Braves seemed to be missing. He gave the team a swagger if you will. The Chipper led Braves were feared and sometimes despised, but always respected. And it's no coincidence that the team won the World Series in Chipper's first full year in Atlanta.

As the Atlanta Braves continued to rack up division titles, Chipper Jones grew into an offensive force. In the eight years that spanned 1996 through 2003, Jones hit over .300 seven times, scored 100 runs seven times, hit 25 or more home runs seven times, drove in 100 runs eight times, drew 90 or more walks six times, and never once struck out 100 times.

But the accolades don't stop there. Chipper was selected to take part in five major league all-star games. He won the MVP award in 1999 and finished in the top 10 in MVP voting five times. He posted a .300 batting average with 30 home runs, 100 runs scored, and 100 RBI five times. Only 15 times in major league history has a switch hitter achieved such a feat. While Chipper did it five times, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Murray, and Lance Berkman are the only other switch hitters to do it even twice.

As Chipper matured, he grew into one of the team's most revered leaders. Teammates raved about him, and young players looked up to him. Management adored him, and the city of Atlanta embraced him. Chipper Jones may not say a lot, but he leads by example. Never was this truer than in 2005 when he agreed to a pay cut while voluntarily renegotiating his contract. Jones all but assured the fact that he would play for one team his entire career, something that few players do in this day and age.

Larry Wayne Jones, Jr. will always be known as a gamer, a leader, and a champion. But more importantly, Chipper Jones will always represent the winning tradition of Atlanta Braves baseball.

With the recent trade and signing out of the way, we can get back to counting down to the 29 Most Important Braves During the Streak. Joe "The Hammer" Hamrahi will have the next review for you at the end of the weekend, and then we'll find out who number one will be. Up now is Greg Maddux.

He was already a dominant pitcher when he came to the Braves having just won a Cy Young award with the Cubs, but as if it were almost impossible to do so he continued to get better for the next several years winning three consecutive Cy Young awards as a Brave. In '94 and '95 he had possibly the two best seasons ever for a pitcher in Braves (not just Atlanta Braves) history. His ERA each of those years was 1.56 (in '94) and 1.63 (in '95) - better single season ERAs than any other Braves pitcher. He also holds four spots in the top ten in lowest single season WHIP for the Braves, including '95 which was the fifth-lowest WHIP total for any pitcher in baseball history.

Only three times in his eleven seasons as a Brave did Mad Dog's ERA ever go above 3.00. And while he only won 20 games once as a Brave, he won 19 games four times and never won fewer than 15 games (a streak he kept up for an amazing 17 consecutive seasons). Greg Maddux also has the best winning percentage in Braves franchise history. I could go on and on, but the point is that the seasons he spent in Atlanta and the impact they had on the team far outweighed those of Tom Glavine and just about everyone else (just about).

He was often called the professor and indeed helped many young Braves pitchers mature into great Major League pitchers. He could often be seen with his arm around other pitchers counseling them on the finer arts of how to deceive batters.

There are several other descriptions of Maddux that stick in my memory, descriptions repeated by announcers that were originally said by opposing managers. The first was that Maddux "under whelms" his opponents. He wasn't the power strikeout pitcher that most dominant pitchers were, but he was nonetheless overpowering - overpowering in how he out-thought his opponents in the batter's box. The other tidbit I remember was that Greg Maddux beats you "without ever breaking a sweat" - I always got a chuckle at that one.

While he may have been underwhelming and not a prototypical athlete he was no slouch in the field. As a fielder of his position Maddux must be considered the greatest of his era - 16 Gold Gloves don't lie.

In the postseason Maddux was good, but not great - something that also keeps him at just number #3 on this list. With his mastery of the regular season many expected him to be equally as dominant in all facets of the postseason, but he simply wasn't the overpowering pitcher he was at times during the regular season - especially towards the end of his stay in Atlanta. He did win 11 games in the postseason as a Brave, but he also lost 13 - though many of those losses were in very close games.

Andruw Jones is this high up the list not only for his ability as a slugger, but also for his abilities in center field. From the moment he got to the Majors the impact of both his bat and his glove were felt by our opponents. Only 19 years old in '96, Jones did about all he could to try and help the Braves beat the Yankees in the World Series that year. In game one of the Series he made it so we would never forget him when he slugged two homeruns in Yankee Stadium to help the Braves take game one. Jones has gone on to dominate other postseason series, stepping up especially in the last two postseasons, '04 and '05, compiling over a .500 batting average to try and help the Braves on to victory.

Though he can be dominating at times as a slugger, his defense never seems to wane. Nine straight Gold Gloves don't lie, and while there may have been some growing pains and mental lapses early on, Andruw is now regarded by many around baseball as one of the finest center fielders in the history of the game. We have only to look to what happened to Tom Glavine when he moved from the Braves with Jones in the outfield to the Mets and their collection of boat anchors in the outfield - his ERA when from 2.96 to 4.52 in one year. It is Andruw's ability to chase down balls that for most centerfielders are uncatchable and make it look routine.

Andruw's power potential was always lurking just below the surface of his game. 30-Homer power came easy to AJ, but it wasn't until '05 when he really broke out with a 51-homer season tapping his full power potential. That was also the year that Andruw finally felt comfortable in the fourth spot in the batting order. Five times in the top-16 in MVP voting and five times an All-Star, Andurw has helped the Braves win games and make the postseason year after year. We can only hope that the team can find some way to keep his bat in the lineup and his glove in the outfield for the years to come. No other defender has had more of an impact on the Braves success than Andruw Jones.

For some reason I'm just not the biggest Tom Glavine fan. Maybe it's his ties to the player's union during the strike, or the snobbish attitude he carries around sometimes, or the way he left the Braves for the Mets (all about the money), but all of those things probably contribute to why I only have him ranked at number five - not that everyone above him doesn't deserve to be ranked there, but I'm sure some could make the argument that he deserves to be a bit higher.

Glav was a big part of the worst to first year in '91 when his entire game just about doubled in productivity - his ERA went from 4.28 to 2.55 and he won twice as many games as he had the year before - and the league rewarded him with his first Cy Young. Glavine also struck out more batters that year than in any other year in his career, 192 - and he only once again came within 30 of that number - proving that he wasn't really a strikeout pitcher. The most impressive stat for Glavine is the amount of 20-win seasons he's collected - five of them. Among active pitchers only Roger Clemens (6) has more. The 20-win season has become somewhat of a lost art in today's game with many starting pitchers not going deep into enough games to rack up the wins - it's no wonder then that Glavine is one of only three active members of the 4000 innings pitched club. While that's not a glamorous stat, one has to wonder if any of the pitchers who are coming up in the Major Leagues today will reach those kinds of totals. That is a sign of the changing game, but even Glavine would not crack the top-35 of the career leaders for innings pitched.

In the postseason Glavine was a mixed bag; some years he was virtually untouchable and others he was all too hittable. All of that contributes to his 12-15 postseason record with the Braves. While I have been critical of his record in the past he did nonetheless win 12 games, and his excellence in the '95 World Series - especially his 8-inning one-hitter in Game 6 - got him named the MVP of the Series. But his struggles the last four postseason he was with Atlanta are some of what lingers in my mind (and probably many others); in 2000 and 2002 he absolutely collapsed against the Cardinals and Giants.

At any rate, my bias aside, Glavine was one hell of a pitcher (still is in fact). Ten All-Star appearances, two Cy Youngs, a World Series MVP - twice he finished second for the Cy Young and twice he finished third. Tom Glavine will be a first ballot hall of famer, regardless of whether or not he gets number 300. Speaking of the Hall of Fame, the rest of the top-5 will also get Hall nods when their time comes.

His stats don't blow you away, and guys like McGriff and even Galarraga, Sheffield, or Lopez probably eclipse him in that category, but this list is not just about stats, it's about the whole game. The game on the field when a pitcher needs help to get through a rough inning and encouragement comes from the third base side. The game in the clubhouse when a team is learning how to be winners and a veteran takes the role as team leader - this is what defines TP. Terry Pendleton established the way Atlanta Braves players carry themselves on and off the field. He expected to win, and he did the things to help the team win, and in the end they did win.

Yes, he gets extra credit for being an MVP in the inaugural year of the streak - 1991. And the writers who voted for him that year should have voted for him the next year when he was instrumental in leading the team to one of the best records in franchise history (at that time). Yes, yes, Barry Bonds probably deserved it as well, in both years, but Pendleton made that Braves team. At any rate, he came in a close second to Bonds in '92 and was named an All-Star. His next two years in Atlanta were average, but those aren't what we're concerned with - it's the first two years.

Would the '91 Braves have been what they were without the personality of Terry Pendleton? I don't think so. They had Bream and Belliard, and Lonnie and Liebrandt, but TP was the Captain on the field - as important to those early Braves teams as Jeter is to these Yankees teams. He is one of the few MVP's who was elected based not merely on his presence in the batting box, but more for his status as a team leader. With him lies one of the endless debates about what defines the value of a Most Valuable Player; and when people look back to see what it is that defines value, they will look back at Pendleton and his leadership of the Braves at the beginning of the streak.

It is probably because the streak went on so long that we now know the value of those who began it and wrote the book on how to win year after year. Pendleton set the tone and others followed and that's what puts him so high on this list. The way Chipper acts, the way McCann acts, the way Lopez and Hunter acted - it's because of the way Pendleton carried himself. That's been passed down from one generation of Braves to the next. And while the streak is over, that attitude is still with the club, and the expectation to be winners will still help the team to start the next streak - and it doesn't hurt that one of the guys in that clubhouse and on that bench is the coach, Terry Pendleton.

So we have six remaining spots for the Braves who were the most important to the team during their 14 consecutive division titles. I already have the ranking established on my list, which will be revealed in the coming week(s), but here's your chance to debate and/or vote for the player who you thought was the most important to the team during their historic run.

Time for an extra helping of the "Top Braves during the Streak," and with it we see some of the biggest offensive stars the Braves have had in the last decade and half.

7. Fred McGriff - The day he got here in 1993 was the day the Atlanta Braves caught fire, both literally and figuratively. Before McGriff's first game as a Brave on July 20th, the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium press box caught on fire. And during the game McGriff's sixth inning homerun tied it up before the team went ahead in the eighth. The Braves marched on to a 51-17 record after his arrival en route to the most wins in franchise history (to that point) and another division title. The Crime Dog was about as steady as one could be in solidifying the middle of the Atlanta lineup for the next four years, producing at least 20 homeruns and 90 RBI in each year. He was also an All-Star in each of his first three years in Atlanta.
8. David Justice - The oft-injured outfield slugger will always be remembered in Atlanta for that sweet sweeping swing he had that at times seemed more like a golf swing than a baseball swing. Justice burst onto the scene a year before the streak started and won the Rookie of the Year award in a nearly unanimous vote. As a slugger, Justice possessed great plate discipline which got better as he gained more experience, and he routinely posted more walks than strikeouts. He was a very streaky player, prone to long dry spells followed by bursts of power and production. His best year was in '93 when he benefited from the presence of Fred McGriff in the lineup by posting a whopping 40 homeruns and 120 RBI.
9. Rafael Furcal - Fookey is another player who burst onto the scene in Atlanta. After only getting as high as A+ ball the year before, Furcal won a spot on the Atlanta roster splitting time with Walt Weiss, and took over the lead-off duties half way through the season. With his 40 stolen bases and almost .400 on-base percentage Furcal won the Rookie of the Year award. As the years went on he grew into more power, but he seemed to lose much of his plate discipline and never again came within 40 points of the .394 OBP he put up his rookie year. Furcal also added value in the field with perhaps the best shortstop arm in either league. He was at times error-prone, but he also took away a lot of hits with his range and ability to get the ball to first base a half-step faster than most everyone else. The way in which Furcal solidified the lead-off position in Atlanta was not completely felt until after he left - very few can match him as a 40-steal threat with power.
10. Javy Lopez - Three times an all star and twice in the MVP voting, Javy enjoyed almost ten full seasons with the Braves. Often criticized for his sluggishness behind the plate, and lack of fully realized potential, Lopez was nonetheless the best catcher by far that the Braves had during the streak. Let's also face the fact that anytime a team can get 20 homeruns and 65+ RBI a year from their catcher they should be happy, and Javy did that in five of those ten seasons. With MVP-worthy years in '98 and '03 he built up an average of 28 homeruns and 93 RBI per 162 games played for his career - not bad at all for a catcher.