Revolving Door at First Base Finally Stopping
Fred McGriff, Ryan Klesko, Andres Galarraga, Rico Brogna, Wes Helms, Matt Franco, Julio Franco, Robert Fick, Adam LaRoche, Scott Thorman, Mark Teixeira, Casey Kotchman, Adam LaRoche again, Troy Glaus, and Derrek Lee. These are the players that have manned first base for the Braves since their last World Series title in 1995.
This list is a combination of great, good, average, and bad players. The Braves have not had a legitimate first base prospect near the Majors in what seems like forever. Even Fred McGriff and Andres Galarraga, the two most prominent names on that list were acquired by the Braves and not brought through the system.
Finally, the revolving door may stop.
Freddie Freeman has arrived in Atlanta and is in the starting lineup tonight. He won’t be the every day first basemen this year, but for the next six years after he may be. Freeman is a 20-year-old minor league monster who is a finalist for Minor League Player of the Year. His buddy Jason Heyward won the award last season.
Freeman’s combination of great bat control, power, and defense make him a player with great potential at this position. He has the ability to bat in the .300′s, walk a decent amount, and hit for some power. He may not reach these goals next season, but he has a great opportunity to improve each and every season.
The Braves first base woes have been a reason for their struggles the past few seasons, aside from when the had Mark Teixeira. Casey Kotchman, Troy Glaus, and Scott Thorman all greatly under-produced on teams with playoff aspirations. With a sure-fire first basemen both offensively and defensively, the Braves may finally have that reliable option for the foreseeable future.
Braves May Not Have an Active Winter
The Braves are heading straight towards their first playoff berth since 2005 and by the looks of it, they may get a few more in the coming seasons
Bobby Cox and Billy Wagner are retiring, with an expected departure of Takashi Saito and Derrek Lee. Eric Hinske will be a free agent as well, but the Braves may opt to keep him around next season on a one or two year deal.
On the manager front, I fully expect Fredi Gonzalez to be named as Bobby Cox’s successor. I would actually be rather surprised if it were anyone else.
The replacements for Wagner and Saito will most likely be internal options. Michael Dunn and Craig Kimbrel have had effective seasons in triple-A this season and also had some success with the major league club. The way it looks now, Jonny Venters would assume the closers role with Kimbrel and Dunn moving into middle-relief positions. Peter Moylan, Eric O’Flaherty, and Kyle Farnsworth will remain with the team, barring any unforeseen trade or injury — a Farnsworth trade is certainly feasible. The Braves could opt to sign a reliever to set-up or close next year, but they probably do not need to. Christian Martinez and Stephen Marek are also very reasonable internal options as low leverage relievers next year.
Offensively, the Braves will likely stand — at least close to — pat. The exception may be a left-handed outfielder to platoon with Matt Diaz, but that may be Hinske once again. I do not expect it to be a top flight player, but I sure hope the Twins don’t pick up Jason Kubel’s option next season (I expect that they will and so do Twins bloggers). A centerfielder may be looked at, but I imagine they are willing to let Nate McLouth and Rick Ankiel battle for the spot with the hopes that one ends up being productive. A salary dump of McLouth may happen as well, but his value is at an all-time low — a trade of him this offseason would not net much.
The rotation will also be unchanged, with the possibility that one of Derek Lowe or Kenshin Kawakami is dealt. I expect the latter but hope for the former. Lowe has an awful contract while Kawakami just has a fairly bad one. Kenshin can pitch in this league and is less expensive, so he is the obvious choice to keep in a vacuum. I don’t know if any teams would be willing to take on Lowe’s contract — possibly not even anything more than half of it. Even so, he isn’t absolutely terrible and you can live with his production as a fifth starter.
The Chipper Jones injury is something to worry about. He may or may not return, which will hinder the team’s flexibility this offseason. If they knew one way or the other, they could focus on acquiring a new third basemen through trade and dishing out money to a top flight outfield option like Jayson Werth or Carl Crawford. With his return in question, they cannot really do this. Optimally, they would sign a left-handed hitter who can play both left field and third base who could either platoon with Diaz or play third in the event that Chipper cannot return to baseball. Omar Infante may keep the Braves from signing this type of player. His production this season probably gives them hope that he can fill in if Chipper retires.
Freddie Freeman will almost definitely take over at first base. He is another left-handed bat — which may be frustrating considering that right field, center field, and catcher are already left-handed. Regardless, lefties are more valuable than righties due to the amount of right-handed starters in the league. A team full of lefty bats is better than a team full of righty bats. Freeman should produce well since his triple-A numbers have been so impressive.
Overall, the only real options for signings would be left field, center field, and possibly another utility player. If the latter two were to occur, other moves would likely be in store as well — most likely a few trades. There is a possibility that you see almost an identical team plus a few rookies and minus a few veterans next season. Given the Braves’ current record and performance, that may not be a bad thing at all.
Mildly Interested in Brad Hawpe
Brad Hawpe has had a rough season compared to his normal standards. His on batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage are all down from his career numbers. Even so, his OPS+ remains 100 — he’s been a league average player this season. Despite being league average, the Rockies decided to release him from the team. Colorado has some good young corner outfielders who have been more productive than Hawpe, so you can understand why they decided to move on. The Braves aren’t in that same position.
In 17 more plate appearances, Hawpe has the same amount of extra base hits as Eric Hinske. My quarrell with Hinske is that his on base percentage has dropped in each month since May.
Eric Hinske’s OBP:
May – .406
June – .329
July – .300
August – .286
The .300 and .286 marks over the past two months are unacceptable. This team has not received much production from first base or center field for a while now, but left field seems to be just as much of a problem.
Melky Cabrera has been solid for a few months, but his potential is very low and he has still yet to win me over. Most of his value to this team lies in being able to play each outfield spot and bat from both sides of the plate, not starting a majority of the games in left field.
Hawpe’s home and road splits for the year do worry me. He has a .931 OPS at Coors and a .577 mark in away games. His splits for his career are not nearly as drastic, as he has a .891 OPS at home and .840 outside of Colorado — his OBP is above .369 in both home andd away games.
Hawpe and Hinske also have the same 1.0 Rally WAR this season. Hinske is the player with less overal potential to succeed, given the history of their careers. The Braves could still use some more offense, especially if they make the World Series where Hawpe could reasonably be used as a DH. The Braves do not need to make this move, but it could upgrade the club.
This situation reminds me of the Pat Burrell situation earlier in the season. The Giants took the chance to sign him and he helped their team.
Offensively, Hawpe will most likely outproduce Hinske from here on out. Defensively, they are both bad, so I am not sure that is a deal breaker. The Braves were willing to take chances on Alex Gonzalez, Rick Ankiel, and Derrek Lee since the end of the first half, and this player won’t cost any prospects. Signing Hawpe gives the Braves a marginally better chance to win the World Series, and that’s why I am marginally interested in the Braves acquiring him.
Braves Ranks in Baseball America Tools Ratings
Baseball America did a coaches poll on best tools for each league and here are the results.
Martin Prado was named the third best hitter, third best hit-and-run artist, and second best defensive second basemen.
What this tells me is that coaches love his bat control more than anything. The two guys ahead of him are Joey Votto and Albert Pujols, two guys who do everything well offensively. While Prado doesn’t have nearly the power that Pujols or Votto has, he does have excellent bat control. Even still, I would be hard pressed to name Prado the third best hitter in the National League.
For his defense, I am fairly confident that he would not have received that ranking if he was having an average hitting season. Coaches vote on the gold glove too, and most of the time the votes aren’t very accurate nor statistically based. These managers see players play every so often and a lot of their judgement is by word of mouth. Prado, while solid defensively, is not in the top three of +/- nor UZR at second base.
Brian McCann was voted second best defensive catcher.
There is definitely a problem with this as the main defensive priority of a catcher is to throw runners out, and McCann is certainly not the second best at catching base stealer’s in the NL. I, again, credit this to the managers not seeing the players play very often and just going with who they believe is good rather than who actually is good.
Bobby Cox was voted the best manager.
I have no qualms with this, he probably is the best aside from LaRussa. I don’t particularly like a lot of his in-game management decisions, but I don’t like many of the manager’s decisions either. Most run too often and try to be more a part of the game than they need to be. Since Cox writes up semi-decent lineup cards and leaves the team alone a majority of the time, he is probably one of the better managers out there. In the clubhouse, there probably isn’t anyone more well liked than Cox. He gets a ton out of his players, specifically the bench players, which is a big factor in rating how well a manager does his job.
Braves Deal Lopez, Harris, and Lorick For Derrek Lee
To start, I don’t like this trade.
Robinson Lopez was my eighth ranked prospect, which included Mike Minor, so basically my seventh. He was not having a tremendous season, but he projects to be one of the better pitchers in the system.
Here’s a video and scouting report on Lopez by Scouting The Sally.
Giving up just Lopez for Lee would have been a mistake in my opinion, due to how good Lopez can be. The fact that they gave up even more is also a bit frustrating, despite the other two pitchers not being too valuable. The potential for the 19-year-old Lopez is simply through the roof and to give that plus more up for possibly only a month and a half of Derrek Lee is very short sighted.
Tyrelle Harris and Jeffrey Lorick can be good relievers, but relief prospects are usually expendable, especially with this team and their crop of live arms in the high minors.
I do like that Lee was acquired as it gives the Braves a better opportunity to win this season, but with the health risk involved with Lee’s back and all of the potential in Lopez’s arm, I think this is a move I would have rather not been completed.
Remembering A Great Performance
Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times sent me over an article about a great pitching performance which occured 50 years ago today.
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/a-half-century-ago-today-8-18-10/
Chris recaps and summarizes why and how pitcher Lew Burdette’s performance on that day was so special and it is a good read for any Braves fan, especially ones who are interested in the team’s history.