Braves need wholesale changes

[TennesseeAtlanta24gordon]

If the Braves wwant to contend for a world championship, they need to make these changes.

Get rid of: Orr, Villarreal, Woodward, Paronto, Davies, Lerew and Redman.

The Bullpen: Gonzalez and Soriano have been sensational and Wickman has been decent. Yates, Moylan, and the rest of the guys can be a bit shaky at times. I think the bulpen is fine.

The Starters: By far the weakest part of the team. Smoltz and Hudson are lights out but it goes down in a hurry from there. James, Davies, Lerew and Redman just are not cutting it. We need to trade Salty or some other pieces for a 3 and 4 starter. If Cleveland falls out of the race, which they probably are out already anyway, C.C. Sabathia would be very intruiging.

The Lineup: One of the best lineups with the weakest clean-up. Johnson, Renteria, and CJ get on base all of the time but Andruw strands them too much. Francouer, McCann, Thorman, and Harris are very good.

Prediction without changes: 83 wins 3rd NL East
Prediction with changes: 92 wins 1st NL East

[TennNC]

Originally Posted by TennesseeAtlanta24gordon

If the Braves wwant to contend for a world championship, they need to make these changes.

Get rid of: Orr, Villarreal, Woodward, Paronto, Davies, Lerew and Redman.

The Bullpen: Gonzalez and Soriano have been sensational and Wickman has been decent. Yates, Moylan, and the rest of the guys can be a bit shaky at times. I think the bulpen is fine.

The Starters: By far the weakest part of the team. Smoltz and Hudson are lights out but it goes down in a hurry from there. James, Davies, Lerew and Redman just are not cutting it. We need to trade Salty or some other pieces for a 3 and 4 starter. If Cleveland falls out of the race, which they probably are out already anyway, C.C. Sabathia would be very intruiging.

The Lineup: One of the best lineups with the weakest clean-up. Johnson, Renteria, and CJ get on base all of the time but Andruw strands them too much. Francouer, McCann, Thorman, and Harris are very good.

Prediction without changes: 83 wins 3rd NL East
Prediction with changes: 92 wins 1st NL East

Dude, how pessimistic and incorrect can you be? The Braves are playing lights out. They had a bad series and lost a couple of close games at Washington. Other than that, they're one of the top 5 teams in baseball.

You can't just get rid of players. Each one of those guys plays a role on the team, and sometimes you don't realize that until they're gone.

Of course starting pitching is going to be down when you lose a top-caliber starter before the season (Hampton). But Davies, James and Lerew have all shown they can get the job done on a good day.

The bullpen is better than good. It might be the best in baseball when healthy. Gonzalez, Soriano, Wickman - that's a nasy combo for 3 innings of relief.

Cleveland is nowhere near out of it. Do you even follow the standings? They're in first place. Nobody's picking up CC Sabathia.

Andruw may be off to a slow start, but he has picked it up in recent games, and when he starts to hit 3+ hrs a week, don't act like you knew he would.

[TennesseeAtlanta24gordon]

Andruw will not hit 3 homers a week because he is trying to hard to hit homers. Every single at bat he is falling down trying to crush it. That is not how you hit homers. I think Andruw should take some lessons from Chipper.

[TennesseeAtlanta24gordon]

What is the point in having woodward and orr when you have young guys with potential like Martin Prado and Yunel Escobar tearing it up in the minors?

[GAVol]

Originally Posted by TennesseeAtlanta24gordon

What is the point in having woodward and orr when you have young guys with potential like Martin Prado and Yunel Escobar tearing it up in the minors?

Because young guys who are tearing it up in AAA do not equal quality guys coming off the bench.

[Vercingetorix]

Originally Posted by TennesseeAtlanta24gordon

What is the point in having woodward and orr when you have young guys with potential like Martin Prado and Yunel Escobar tearing it up in the minors?

Orr and Woodward are known mediocre quantities. They're backups, so they ought not to be getting a bunch of plate appearances anyways. You're better off getting guys like Prado and Escobar regular playing time in AAA, just so you can better figure out how good they really are than bringing them up to provide some incremental benefit for five or six at-bats a week.

Now if Chipper goes down for awhile, then yeah. You know Orr and Woodward can't give you much, so IMHO you should bring up Prado or Escobar and give them a few games, just to see how they do. That's not really how Bobby plays it, though.

[TennNC]

Originally Posted by TennesseeAtlanta24gordon

Andruw will not hit 3 homers a week because he is trying to hard to hit homers. Every single at bat he is falling down trying to crush it. That is not how you hit homers. I think Andruw should take some lessons from Chipper.

Let's see. Andruw has 348 homeruns in 10 seasons, avg. of 35. Chipper has 396 in 12 full seasons, avg. of 33.

I think Andruw knows how to hit home runs.

It makes me frustrated when Andruw swings for the fences all the time, but the point is that by the end of the season, most likely he will hit 35+ home runs.

[GAVol]

Originally Posted by wbarron

It makes me frustrated when Andruw swings for the fences all the time, but the point is that by the end of the season, most likely he will hit 35+ home runs.

Exactly . . . He didn't suddenly forget how to hit at age 29. He'll have a hot streak or two and by the end of the year he'll be at 30+ HRs 100 RBI and hit around .260.

Personally, I've never liked him all that much hitting cleanup because of how streaky he is, but his numbers are what they are.

[TennNC]

Originally Posted by GAVol

Personally, I've never liked him all that much hitting cleanup because of how streaky he is, but his numbers are what they are.

Now that's worth discussing - his spot in the order. His best average was in the early 2000s, and I think he was hitting 5th after Sheffield, right? But his best HR and RBIs were 2 years ago, and he was hitting cleanup, right?

I'd love to see McCann in the cleanup spot - such a smart hitter, and can drive in runs. What about this lineup?

1Kelly - 2B
2Edgar - SS
3Chipper - 3B
4McCann - C
5Andruw - CF
6Francouer - RF
7Thorman/Salty - 1B
8Willie Harris - LF
9Pitcher

I like Willie at 8, b/c it kickstarts the top of the order again with some speed, and he's a worthy man for the P to bunt over. But I think we also could be looking at a lot of strikeouts in order with Andruw, Frenchy and Thorman.

thoughts?

[kkep48]

Originally Posted by wbarron

Now that's worth discussing - his spot in the order. His best average was in the early 2000s, and I think he was hitting 5th after Sheffield, right? But his best HR and RBIs were 2 years ago, and he was hitting cleanup, right?

I'd love to see McCann in the cleanup spot - such a smart hitter, and can drive in runs. What about this lineup?

1Kelly - 2B
2Edgar - SS
3Chipper - 3B
4McCann - C
5Andruw - CF
6Francouer - RF
7Thorman/Salty - 1B
8Willie Harris - LF
9Pitcher

I like Willie at 8, b/c it kickstarts the top of the order again with some speed, and he's a worthy man for the P to bunt over. But I think we also could be looking at a lot of strikeouts in order with Andruw, Frenchy and Thorman.

thoughts?

you are right, there would be TONS of strikeouts with the middle of that lineup. Franceour has become more patient but he would get nothing to hit with thorman/salty batting behind him, so he would be swinging at everything. It's better to have McCann behind Franceour just so he'll get something to hit, and because McCann is a better pure hitter who can drive it to all fields, and he'll need that with those guys hitting behind him. The lineup is about as good as it can be the way it currently is.

[TennFan]

While I agree that some changes need to be made, the Braves are competing. I think their toughest competition is the Mets. The Braves will either be 1st or 2nd in the NL East this season. Braves have a very good nucleus with McCann, the Jones, Franceour. I think Andruw needs to do better. Concentration is the name of the game.
Starting pitching after the first two (Smoltz and Hudson) is questionable. They may have one other decent starter to keep. Bullpen needs to get better.

Florida gives teams fits every now and then. I think the winner of the NL East will have between 90-95 wins with the 2nd place team having in the high 80's to low 90's in wins.

[GAVol]

I'd like to see McCann; not Saltalamacchia be the one to get moved out from behind the plate. I hate to see a good hitter like that get beat up behind the plate.

[GAVol]

Originally Posted by TennFan

Bullpen needs to get better.

The bullpen has been pretty much light's out so far this year.

[kkep48]

I would love to see McCann out from behind the plate, but he's such a good catcher, his defense is an asset. Salty has some work to do.

The back-end of the bullpen has been excellent. Soriano and Wickman are great, Gonzalez has been shaky and he's on the DL currently with an elbow problem. He was supposed to have an MRI yesterday to see how it was so, we'll see about him. Any updates on him GA Vol?

[GAVol]

Haven't heard anything yet.