I'm just partial to Mallex because he's faster, he's American (yeah yeah, sue me), he's from Braves Country, and most importantly, he's going to be a guy who can hit about 15 HRs a season according to those in the know. I'll absolutely take that from my CF. Inciarte......he'll hit 5 or so. That's not good enough for me.
Yeah I think highly of Mallex and I think he's (finally!) going to be our next great leadoff hitter. People really think he's going to hit 15 homers? I don't see that, but I'll gladly take it if he does.
I didn't see that either, but a guy on the radio here in Atlanta who's been covering the Braves for 20 seasons dropped the number 15, so I'm basing it on that.
Oh same here. IMO, the Braves come out the best in that trade and it isn't close. We give up a 1B that would soon cost us $20m a year and admittedly an almost-elite, young, cheap SP, but.....1B is easy to replace, relatively, and pitching is our minor league strength so we can hopefully replace from within.
Yeah I don't mean to beat a dead horse here but it's terrifying to me that the Braves have (or at least it appears they have, based on Coppy's moves and comments) hitched their wagon to Freeman. I know you know how I feel about him. I do agree that he could excel in a stacked lineup, but so could a lot of hitters to be perfectly honest. Freeman would be an excellent piece for us as a complement to an already power-filled lineup, but that's not what we have here. Also, here's another huge issue when it comes to Freeman and Coppy and Hart are acutely aware of this
I live in Atlanta and listen to sports talk radio here (uhh, sorry NCers, but y'all don't even know what legit local sports talk radio is.....it's godawful in Charlotte and Raleigh) every single day, and trust me when I tell you that Braves fans LOVE Freddie Freeman. I couldn't tell you why they do, but damnit they do. So many callers called in after all our big trades last season and the season before and said something to the effect of "I'm angry about the trade(s) but I guess I understand it. But that being said, we BETTER not trade Freeman, or so help me I will just give up on being a Braves fan." The fanbase just loves Freeman to death. And like I pointed out in my quoted post, Atlanta's media is notorious for being way too soft and lenient with high-profile players who aren't performing up to the level they should. It took until about May of this year for radio hosts here to FINALLY start vocalizing "well, maybe the Braves should look at moving Freddie Freeman too...."
I semi-agree with this. Definitely could be part of it.
He can repeat the HR portion of that (he got 23 in 2012 as well and has 14 so far this season), but I do not think he can ever get 109 RBIs again, nor can he ever hit .319 again (his next best season avg is .288).
True, I'll revise my range to 31-36. I think that's more reasonable. I'm willing to bet 12 NLers reach that range this season. No reason the Braves shouldn't have one of those ~12 players.
Just got the Bleacher Report update for the game and immediately came here to see if you posted. Did he look as good as his stats suggest? 7 IP, 0 ER, 10 Ks is an amazing line.
Best I've seen him, by far. He was making make hitters look foolish all game.
Let me expand on this a little more since my phone was at 1% when I was trying to get this out the other day. He had 96-99 with movement on the corners, an outstanding curve, his changeup was working and diving away from lefties, and the slider was pretty good as well. Easily one of the best pitching performances of the year by anyone in the rotation. I will say he made a couple of mistakes like hanging a slider every now and then and, for whatever reason, throwing an 0-2 fastball straight down the middle, but since so many of his pitches were working, all they could do was foul them off. He had them off-balance and out of sorts all game long. It was one of the few times I actually saw him pitch with a gameplan rather than just throwing stuff up there. I'll be interested to see if he builds off this outing or goes up there next time and gives up three homers. Homers are always going to be an issue with him, but as long as they are solo homers and they don't come in bunches, I'm fine with it.
Hmm, interesting. Has he been catching Folty all along? I can't remember our catcher splits because there seems to be no rhyme or reason of who catches whom.
Not sure. I wonder if there's somewhere I can look that up. I know Flowers tends to be the guy for Teheran, but that's the only set battery that I know of.
Yeah I've been concerned for awhile now. It's a BAD sign that he's getting drilled in AAA ball. Usually when prospects haven't quite figured it out in the majors and get sent back down, they sorta get in limbo because they'll go back to AAA and dominate but then go back up to the majors and get roughed up (a la Folty). Not the case for Blair. He's straightup bad right now.
Agreed. Sticking Jenkins in the bullpen before he even got a shot as a starter was a ridiculously dumb move. So guys like Williams Perez, Ryan Weber and Joel De La Cruz get to start for Atlanta, but your reigning minor league pitcher of the year gets thrown in the bullpen in AAA before being promoted because it's the best way for him to get to the majors? What the hell? What kind of message does that send?
I don't really get it either but I *think* they were trying to give Blair and Folty as many chances as they could before demoting one or both of them. I guess. Idk. I hope they come back from the All-Star Break with Jenkin as a spot starter at a minimum. So what if he doesn't have elite velocity? Tons of hall of fame pitchers didn't either.
Yeah Boston already made one trade for a pitcher, and Vizcaino is on the DL so that may hurt his trade value (well that and his suckiness the last few weeks.)
His stock will never be higher. I still say trade him.
I will counter that with.....look at the Mets. Just 12 months ago, those arms were seen as an unstoppable force that would dominate the NL East and the NL and even MLB for the next 5+ seasons. Now look at them. Harvey is a shadow of his former self. Look at Shelby Miller in Arizona. It is very, very, very dangerous to build your team around dynamic pitchers in 2016 baseball. Everyone throws too hard and there's too many arm injuries. Pitchers are becoming the running backs of baseball. Ride them as hard as you can and then draft a new one. You don't typically see great hitters, on the other hand, suddenly stop hitting. Yes, it happens, but not nearly as often as great pitchers suddenly flame out.
I think the trade for him was fuggin dumb and I think he's not worth NEARLY what we are paying him, but yes he deserves a second chance. I know, he hit a woman. That sucks and I would never wanna be friends with the dude. But at the same time, the Braves FO has a responsibility to the fans (a loyality, if you will) to give the team the best chance to win. If Olivera can figure out how to hit for power in the bigs, call him up IMO.
I understand, but the Mets were filled with power arms who threw in the upper 90s and so did Shelby Miller (Miller's struggles have more to do with his mechanics being all screwed up than anything). Teheran doesn't throw hard, and he has a reputation of being very durable. Teheran gets people out by movement and location while the Mets starters were blowing people away. There's a difference there. Medlen and Beachy weren't hard throwers either, but they had injury history, and Teheran does not. That's not to say that he can't/won't get hurt, but because of his durability and reputation, if there is a pitcher you can feel good about keeping around, it would be him. If we were talking about trading someone like Folty or something, then I would agree, but I don't think that applies quite as much to Teheran, if that makes sense.
Tom Priddy/Four Seam Images/AP Images
Yeah, I was gonna post about this today. Wisler has steadily gotten worse with each start. And that is concerning because he was seen as pretty much a guaranteed part of our rotation for, a minimum, next season.
