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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, November 12, 2009
ATLANTA (AP)—Tim Hudson agreed to a $28 million, three-year contract with the Atlanta Braves on Thursday, giving the team a wealth of starting pitching and setting up a likely trade to bolster the offense.
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The Braves now have six starters under contract for next season: Hudson, Javier Vazquez, Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson, Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami.
I like it; you can never have enough pitching, especially when the team has glaring holes that might be addressed via trade.
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It's not everyday your 5th starter is going to make 15 million a year. What a rotation. They need to do something about the bullpen though with both Gonzalez and Soriano free agents.
Given his history, I think he's only got one really good season left -- for the Braves' sake, I hope it's 2010.
Why? What history?
As for having six starters, I seem to remember other teams with a surplus of starting ending up with a deficit through injury and ineffectiveness. Still, they probably still want Medlen to eventually be a starter, so he could #5 if they trade someone and someone else gets injured. What could they get in a trade that they'd want, though? Are any first basemen available who won't cost too many prospects and won't block Freeman when he's ready?
This Jays fan nods in agreement.
You can't sign and trade, right? Once a new contact is signed, you can't trade that player until ... June 1st? I forget, but something like that.
Anyway, if we're looking long-term, Vazquez is the obvious trade candidate, if there's a team out there in win-now mode, and has a first baseman or reliever to trade. Unless they're resigning both LaRoche and at least one of Soriano/Gonzalez, I think the sixth starter is better used as trade bait than as depth in case someone gets hurt. Medlen as the swingman/sixth starter is just fine by me.
I've never seen The Wire but I'm sure I've heard the phrase for a long time.
Now, what's left? 1B and a real outfield? Hmmm.
Since the eighties, right?
EDIT: thanks, Greg.
What the hell is wrong with you?
I laughed
I use lots of Omar quotes out here in Ozland - people have no idea
What does it have to do with drugs?
re-up
"to re-enlist," re-sign up, that is, to enlist again.
1906, U.S. armed forces slang, from re- "back, again" + up "enlist."
On "The Wire", it was used as a noun meaning "the new shipment of drugs". As in "Man, when's the re-up gonna get here? We've been dry for weeks!"
1) Extend Hudson, extending the team's current strength (depth of starting pitching - which also includes Kris Medlen at seven.)
2) Work the trade market for Lowe, Kawakami and Vazquez and see what the best return is.
3) Trade one of those starters to improve the offense. The primary need is RH power at either 1B or LF.
If the Braves had no holes in the offesne, they'd be smart to go into 2010 with all seven of their starters available. Sliding Kawakami in as an emergency starter is better than sliding Jo Jo Reyes in, when needed. But they don't have that luxury. They need a starting 1B and they need RH power. They could use an upgrade on one of the corner OF slots but don't necessarily have to have that to succeed.
Current options/rumors include:
1) Trading Lowe for salary relief and signing a major free agent (Holliday, Bay.) The risk there is having the FA sign elsewhere.
2) Trading Lowe in a salary exchange for someone else's "bad OF contract." Names like Milton Bradley and Magglio Ordonez surface here.
3) Trading Vazquez for a quality RH bat. I'm not sure who matches up nicely there, but the MLBTR.com "idea" of flipping Vazquez for Dan Uggla is a non-starter. You'd have to get a lot more back for Vazquez coming off of last year.
4) Trading one of the younger pitchers - Jurrjens or Hanson - for Adrian Gonzalez. I personally would send anyone not named "Jason Heyward" to SD for Gonzalez.
5) Minor deals for someone like Uggla.
It is more or less assumed in Atlanta circles that Heyward will be called up by June of 2010 - a la Hanson this year - if he doesn't pull a Schafer and break camp with the ML team.
The Braves have more options in the OF than they do at 1B, for the record. They wouldn't be sucking air if they went into 2010 with the players they have - Diaz/McLouth/Church - with Schafer and Heyward in the wings. They need to address 1B, and they're rightly skeptical of Adam LaRoche as a long term solution, his sick second half production notwithstanding.
LaRoche isn't a superstar but he is a perfectly average 1st baseman and has been for a few years. He definitely could be the solution for a few years.
I'd be fine going into 2010 with LaRoche at 1B, Uggla/Church in LF and Diaz holding down RF until J-Hey comes a'callin. You could probably do that without moving a pitcher at all.
I'm sure Ollie Perez is available.
You'd think Uggla would be cheapish because of what Willingham/Olsen went for last year.
Ideally, Chipper would move to 1st, Prado to 3rd, and Uggla could play 2nd. I really wouldn't mind giving KJ another chance, but that's not in the cards.
I think of him as injury-prone. But at this moment, I'm not sure precisely why I think that.
I probably just started thinking "Hudson = injury-prone" without really thinking about it.
Carry on.
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