Latest Braves Rumors: Glavine, DeJesus, Dotel

The braves don't need to overspend on a free agent cf or give up valuble prospects to get one. They have several internal options in Brent Lillibridge, Schafer, and Blanco. Andruw gave the Braves close to nothing offensively last year and the Braves still scored a ton of runs. Save the money and prospects to improve the rotation. The bullpen and offense are very solid in my opinion so now the braves can concentrate on getting starting pitchers. Tom Glavine is a wonderful idea because he brings stability to the back end of the rotation which was nonexistent last year. People can talk all they want about him not being a front line starter anymore or being over the hill and all the garbage but the fact remains that he still gives his team a chance to win just about as often as anybody. He pitched over 200 innings last year and made 23 quality starts, if the braves had the last year with the years Hudson and Smoltz had the Bravos would have been in the postseason. Enough said. I would like the homie upstairs to exaggerate the problem a little bit though. While I do think the the addition of Glavine would be enough to get the Braves back in the postseason they can't take any chances, and they should get someone in addition to Glavine like Blanton. It would be much like last years ofseason in which the Braves needed 1 proven bullpen arm but went out and got two. (Soriano and Gonzalez) Do the same thing to the rotation this year.This would be my opening day lineup.
Lillibridge CF
Escobar SS
CJones 3b
Texeira 1b
Mccann c
Francoeur rf
k johnson 2b
diaz lf

smoltz, hudson, glavine, blanton, hampton, jurrjens, , reyes

bullpen: soriano, moylan, mahay, devine, acosta, ring, gonzales

btw, to acquire blanton I would offer BJones, Chuck James, and a few other prospects that I may not even know about right now. Yeah, that might not be enough but the A's did trade Hudson for close to nothing a few years ago so it'd be worth a try. I just wouldn't give up valuable pieces to the braves future like lillibridge, schafer, kjohnson, or the boys the braves got from the tigers.

They need a stop-gap in CF. None of the kids are ready to play everyday.

Trading for Crisp makes a ton of sense. It allows the Braves to take their time with the CF prospects. If the prospects play well and are ready to come up they can flip Crisp like they did Renteria.

Crisp adds virtually nothing to your payroll and won't cost you and arm and a leg.

not to mention he is from the area

I am on board with the Blanton idea. From everything i have been reading and seeing the package would start with KJ which i am not exactly in favor of. maybe james, jones, prado,+ a prospect. i would like to keep lillibridge around so we could then move yunel to 3rd when chipper does hang them up. IF we can extend tex we would have tex,mccann,francouer for a long time ( think francouer gets long term shortly). ou

I could live with DeJesus in CF and a platoon in LF, maybe even Diaz full time.

Heyward or another OF could be converted to 1B should Tex depart. Spend that money on pitching.

What's the story with Kobayashi? This rumor came out of nowhere.

i agree in lettin young talent have a chance to play in the majors, and obviously, bobby cox is one of the best in helping young players adjust to the majors, but, we do have Teixiera this year, we are going to sign glavine, so the need for a centerfielder that will give major league production is needed because it is beneficial in that it allows for the youngsters to have more seasoning in the minors without pressure to quickly develop, and it also benefits the major league club in that we have a reasonable option that will help us win now, which with smoltz, glavine, teix, and chipper, that is the mode we are currently in

As far as the blanton trade goes, i agree, use the prospects that are in the majors now and see if you can acquire him, and save the younger prospects with higher ceilings, B JONES, Liilibridge, Chuck James, Martin Prado, all seem ready to contribute at the majors and are blocked or in a log jam, so why use quantity in an attempt to get quality

The center field question definitely shifts to the person of dejesus, now, crisp is better in center, but dejesus is an intelligent player who shows reasonable abilities at the position, and he also is a better hitter, and can show some speed when needed. The reasons i say go after dejesus is that we have control over him for longer (three years), he is cheaper over those three years, and I think has better ability to hit at the top or bottom of the order than crisp, in terms of consistient production

Also, as was pointed out earlier, dayton moore will probably be easier to deal with, so dejesus will be cheaper in terms of contract obligations and a prospect

Should be a hell of an offseason, we will see what happens

Ok, first of all, say no to Coco. The Braves don't need Willie Harris 2.0. That's all I will say about that.

DeJesus is 1. infinitely more usable, 2. cheaper, and 3. when the prospects are ready he will be infinitely more trade-able (see points 1 and 2).

While I agree to a point about getting another starter, I have to wonder why everybody here is ready to sell the farm for a guy who probably isn't for sale. Why, after all, would the A's trade a 26 year old ace who is only costing them about 400gr. Here's a little secret, they won't. After everyboyd says that they don't want to block the young talent in the Braves system, why block that talent with a starter they don't need and can't get anyway. The Braves have a bunch of starters (mostly lefties) in the farm who are putting up fantastic numbers, at least one will be a can't miss (Cole Rohrbough, Jeff Locke, Tommy Hanson, etc.).

Getting rid of Chuck James at this stage would be foolish. Can you imagine how much he will learn this year with Glavine around to teach him? I mean, the two have such similar styles, who knows what Chucky will pick up, and how far that new knowledge could take him.

Andy Braves Fan - Agree that Glavine would be the mentor and sending Chuckie away now would be a waste. Chuckie really needs to add that third pitch slider/curve to really be effective at the MLB in order to pitch 200+ innings. Saying that he will be much more valuable pitching as a #4/#5 SP. I believe Dejesus will be traded for the CF and sign Glavine. Call it an off season with the picture bright in 09 10 and beyond with out trading away the farm.

Rotation
Smoltz
Hudson
Glavine
Jurrgens
Chuckie/Hampton/Bennett

KJ/Dejesus
Escobar
Chipper
Tex
Mccann
Frenchie
Diaz
Dejesus/KJ

Andy Braves fan, i tend to disagree, I think that if Beane were to get three players who were ready to contribute at the major league level in B Jones, Lillibridge, and James, he definitely would listen to that offer for blanton, and probably would do it. His objective is not to gain players who maybe superstars but may be four years away, his goal is to gain prospects who are ready to contribute in the majors now that he can control for 4 years or more, as is the case with B Jones, Lillibridge, and James, this is evident from the fact tthat he prefers college players over high school players, it takes them a shorter time to develop, thus he can get good production at a cheap price during those players early years in the majors.

For these reasons, that is why liillibridge, Bjones, and James are more attractive than putting together our lower level prospects. But, however, the more i think about it, the difference between james and Blanton i a braves uniform would not be worth both B Jones and Lillibridge, so maybe we can find a better option than blanton or go out and get even stronger at a position. However, i hope we do not trade all of them and have some depth in our system.

First why trade James. Don't trade him. First his mechanics are absolutly horrible. They can be fixed in no time that's why theres spring training. Second he needs that third pitch to keep hitters off balanced. The way he throws which is over the top i think having a curveball will extremely help. Elevates the ball too much. No better to learn from than Glavine. Now for Blanton i think it wouldn't cost the barn. FA this year and his last two contracts were only 1 year deals. Either they don't like him or there gonna sign him to a longterm contract. As for CF can't tell you but we shouldn't trade our prospects for stop guys. McCann and Franceour came up when they were young so why can't this years guys can. What happened to Willy Abbar? Know drinking problem.

I think too many people are discounting Coco Crisp. He is a better player than he has shown recently. As long as the Braves didn't pay a King's ransom he would be my first choice as the next CF.

My dark horse candidate for CF would be Ryan Spilborgs. I don't know what the Rockies would want for him though. While DeJesus has a decent OBP, he has neither power nor speed. He is not an attractive choice at all.

Wren said he'll most likely trade for CF. Nobody has mentioned Dave Roberts from SF. Can steal bases has a good OBS and is paid 6.5 mill for 08,09 each year. Might come cheaper than Crisp. Good leader for younger guys when they come to learn from him. We needed a leadoff hitter ever since Furcal left.