Brave new world?

We’re not 48 hours removed from the end of the World Series, congratulations to the Yankees are due, and I’m already thinking what’s ahead for the Braves in 2010. This has been a constant on my mind since the end of our play off push this year but seeing as today players filed for free agency and I got my e-mail trying to sell season tickets today I got thinking. Well number 1 this, officially for a change, will be Bobby Cox’s lat year as Atlanta Braves manager, this is plain emotional for anyone involved with the organisation, especially for the people who have had the chance to be involved over the last 2 decades. There is no doubt Bobby will one day be smoking his victory cigar in Cooperstown, NY of that there is absolutely no doubt, there will be no asterix alongside his name he’s just plain earned it.

This brings me to my first big unknown, will this also end up being Chipper Jones’ last season with the team? Chipper has never known anything in the majors except for Bobby Cox, hell Chipper could well be the Braves next manager, but that’s a half baked idea for another time. Chipper, as everyone including him knows, stunk last year, I mean good old fashioned stunk. In 12 months Jones dropped 100 average points, he has only been that bad 3 times in his career, 1995, 2004 and this year. The injuries are well reported as well as Chipper himself saying he would call it quits if he’s that bad again, so he’s already thinking about it. I just can’t think of a more fitting way for Chipper to go out than at the same time as the manager that brought him up way back in 1993. Of course this would involve Chipper having to boycott his last year of his contract and walk away on his own accord, not exactly the easiest thing to do, there is also the possibility that if he gets his production back to where it has been he will happily see out the contract and hopefully continue helping out the Bravos. Jones is purely me speculating on an idea that I’ve been thinking about for some time, however there are some other things about the Braves that make me a little nervous about next year.

The first is that we have over half our payroll hooked up in only 9 players: Javier Vazquez, Tommy Hanson, Jair Jurjenns, Derek Lowe, Tim Hudson, Kenshin Kawakami, Chipper, Brian McCann and Nate McClouth, one of those (knock on wood Lowe or KK) will be traded, that however still leaves a lot of money being spent for not many bodies however talented. Those 9 were almost exclusively, with the exception of Martin Prado and Matt Diaz, where our best players last year so where in the payroll do we have enough financial movement to bring in players to improve our team. Nowhere, that’s the answer.

Second, we have almost twice as many contracted starters as we do competent relievers. JJ, Vazquez, Tommy, Hud, D-Lowe and KK, in case you can’t count, that’s 6. Eric O’Flaherty, Peter Moylan, Boone Logan and Kris Medlan are the only relievers under contracts who you would want in a game. Medlan could possibly even start the year as a AAA starter, which personally I want to see, but it was certainly interesting to see the developing trust in Medlan from Bobby through the season but maybe not to the point that he becomes the Braves Phil Hughes. There guys like Luis Valdez, Todd Redmond and Stephen Marek who there seems to be some belief in, especially Valdez. Even in both Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez re-sign (and it’s unlikely both will) then that’s still a weak bullpen, and this is even without mentioning it was by far the most burdened in 2009. So even if our 6 starters are able to carry the team in each and every game how can we ask the bullpen to finish the job. Soriano’s meltdown at the end of the year is evidence enough of how hard the ‘pen worked throughout the year and even now there is very little help. The signing of Scott Proctor to a minor league contract is intriguing in that it happened before there was any attempt to sign back Gonzo or Rafa, and used money, even just a little bit, that could have gone towards either of those deals. Unless the starting rotation turns out to have 3 or 4 Cy Young candidates (which it could) this bullpen could end up churning out bull-something else by the end of the 2010 season.

The biggest concern is the Arizona Fall League. Last year Tommy Hanson went and became the first pitcher to win the winter league MVP and this year was supposed to be the year of Jason Heyward. Instead the AFL became a pain in the ass for Heyward, literally, the gluteus strain putting him out of the league. Then there was Freddie Freeman slumping like a rollercoaster, luckily he seems to be bouncing back but the start was worrying. Luckily Mike Minor, our number 7 draft pick, is throwing nicely, maybe not Hanson nice but promising nice. The worrying about the AFL is that it’s made me realise that the next generation of Braves superstars are maybe a little further away from Major League service than we hoped. Heyward will likely be starting the year in Gwinnett at AAA, Freeman at AA in Mississippi and I have no idea about Minor, I don’t even know if the Braves management do.

By the start of Spring Training Frank Wren may have made some of the kind of moves he did last year with the starting rotation and made me have a little more faith. I’m running on hope heading into the cold, dark winter months but does anyone else see this year being anything but a passing the torch one? All every Braves fan in the world asks, and we don’t care how, give Bobby the best baseball year of his life in his last one.