Burnett, Braves Have Mutual Interest

Hopefully we can sign 2 of the 3 and keep all of our prospects and my boy YUNEL

Good move for the Braves. Signing 2/3 would set their rotation up pretty nicely with Burnett/Hudson/Lowe or Dempster

Hopefully they don't get one of these guys. =)

I have to agree with you. I think it makes more sense for the Braves to pursue Burnett and Lowe and not have to give up any of their talent. They fill 2 holes that way, instead of filling one with trading for Peavy then creating more holes from the players that would be going to SD.

exactly, yunel is only 25 and trading for peavy would leave us without a SS. and signing a FA like furcal would be ok, but the guy was injured alot last year

Offer Lowe and Burnett 4/64 contracts.

pass on peavy sign burnette and perez and trade for maggs or dye. I think perez would be a better option for the braves than lowe for a couple reasons, first he is yonger and will still be in his prime when Atlantas next wave of talent comes up, second the 2010 rotation projects 3 righties already on the team in Hudson, jj, and hanson, also I would think he'd be a bit cheaper than lowe...

Yeh it might be hard to get two out of three and thats why we were trying to make the Peavy deal. I say we should begin downgrading the offer to SD. They had their time and the braves are in the drivers seat, they DO NOT need this trade. If the Padres get desperate and accept a lesser trde then great, but that probably wont happen. Either way the braves dont need this deal and should just pursue free agency. Id say a 4 yr/ 60-64 mil deal is reasonable for burnett and prob the same for lowe.
For some reason i dont feel great about dempster. He had one good season, so it seems most likely to backfire.
Lowes era has been under 4.00 since 2004 so you know what your getting.
There are lesser options. If the braves only get one pitcher of the three, they could try a short term deal for Sheets or Randy Johnson.
So the options are there. It should be interesting.

I'd be fine with Burnett or Perez. They seem kind of like the same sort of pitcher - great stuff but somewhat inconsistent. Perez could be cheaper, but I think we've already seen his best. Burnett, though, if he can be consistent (and healthy), could be absolutely dominant. Maybe he'll put it all together, knowing this is likely his last big contract?

What about Sheets on a 3 year deal? Whats he worth?

"What about Sheets on a 3 year deal? Whats he worth?"

Braves made it clear, they do not want Sheets. Don't pay attention to my offers for Burnett above.

My new offers: 4/56 - 14 million/year.
or
5/67.5 at 13.5 million/year.

I would rather the Braves sign Lowe, Burnett or Dempster (2 of 3) than trade away Yunel and the other prospects for Peavy. We can then go after a power OF like Dunn or Ibanez and maybe even Manny.

Hurricanestephen,

Honestly, trading for Peavy, then signing Burnett and Furcal would take just about all of the extra money the Braves have to spend this offseason. Peavy's an additional 10 million next year and Furcal and Burnett combined will probably come in at close to 30 million a year. Throw in some guaranteed money for Smoltz and resigning guys like Norton and Ohman and there is absolutely no money left to fill the hole in LF.

What do braves fans think about 4 years 64 million for burnette??

1. Peavy
2. Burnett
3. Hudson
4. Jurrjens
5. Hanson

Good talented rotation but too "righty heavy"

I think 4 years and 64 million is about as high as the Braves will be willing to go, but I have serious doubts about whether it will be enough.

Braves should offer 5/70 or 6/81.

are you kidding me? 81 million? You realize Ted Turner doesn't own the Braves still, right? No way they get two starters.

"are you kidding me? 81 million? You realize Ted Turner doesn't own the Braves still, right? No way they get two starters."

If you read one of my other statements, you would of read to not pay attention to those offers.

I think you have a better shot at Lowe, since he is a Boras client and will take his time signing. AJ will get an offer from the Yanks in a day or two, and you are compete with them, and if they cant get CC signed quickly they will push hard for AJ. I think a 5 year deal will get offered by someone also. But its a crapshoot, no one can really know what kind of money someone is will throw around.

They still need to have money in the budget to pay for the salary of the LF they trade for though. Where is that money going to come from?

The trade centering around a Kelly Johnson package for a Ludwick package would cost no extra cash because both players make the same amount of money. Prado is the in-house replacement for Johnson so 2B will be cheap.

The Braves do have 40-45M to spend and there is no use leaving some of it to rot. We can outbid anyone (Well not the Yanks) for Burnett if we so chose and still have enough to get anothe SP as long as the KJ-Ludwick deal goes through.

so am I the only one whose a lil warry of ludwick?? The dude had one great seasonand has had injuries in the past, why would the cardinals want to trade him unless they know something and just want to sell high, also prado will never be half the player Kelly is imo

KHelmstetter
first of all they have atleast 45 to spend and it is probably closer to 50..so you are saying to just spend about 30m on two pitchers and put anderson in left?

They have money to pay for a guy like Ludwick, but that would limit their options. While I'd love to be able to pull of a KJ Ludwick trade, I'm somewhat doubtful it happens without something else pretty valuable coming from the Braves. If we can't pull off a deal for Ludwick though, what other good, cheap options are out there? Can the Braves really afford to spend 40 million, when theit entire plan is contingent on a deal that hasn't happened yet?

Even if you could just get Lowe and Wolf, and trade Johnson and change for Ludwick, I think you are pretty good. Might even be save some money for next year, or for an impact player at the deadline if you are competing.

The loss from Johnson to Prado is probably only a win, I think Johnson is over rated. If you keep Escobar, thats pretty solid.

Another option is KJ for Ankiel...but Ludwick is more than just a stopgap. He put up a .950 OPS last year! Thats approaching MVP territory...and far from "stop gap".

Aduncaroo

How is KJ overrated? and do you really see Ludwick in the braves outfield for more than 2 years?

one thing i think will help the Braves sign Burnett is this love afair that players have with playing for Bobby Cox.

I believe if the Braves push hard enough maybe 4/64-68 range they can land him.

after that i disagree with all the other suggestions of signing lowe and dempster etc. I believe after that the Braves need to get a lefty starter because if we dont our whole rotation will be Righties.

So how about Randy Wolf or Oliver Perez? Wolf is more likely being that he is a little older and cheaper and he could prob be inked around 10 mil.

So rotation of

Burnett
Wolf
Jair
Hampton
Smoltz/Morton/Reyes/Campillo/Hanson etc....

Also i have a couple of questions. why does everyone consider Gonzalez the closer when the Braves already had the intention of Soriano being the closer if he was healthy which he should be.

also why smoltz in the bullpen?

speaking of bullpen we should pursue a couple of lefties since Royce Ring is garbage and we prob wont get ohman back

I think Magglio Ordonez and Jermaine Dye are some pretty good trade options for the Braves. Either would fit in nicely as a right handed bat in the middle of the order.

I think the Yankees get Burnett because they need another starting pitcher after Sabathia and they've seen he's pitched well against the Red Sox...I think they offer him 4 year,$60 million and he takes it.

aduncaroo lowe, Wolfe, and ludwick equals 3rd place if not 4th if wren does that I might shoot myself. The braves need to be targeting younger players so they can mix them with the " next wave of talent" to come to atl. I.e. Heyward, hanson, shaefer, freeman,andcole r. Lowe and Wolfe would be goneby then!!!!

i dont know about maggs he might be a little too pricey salary wise but i think dye would be a great fit.

drumzalicous gonzo=better than soriano that's why...

Burnett and his agent have said that the years are more important then the dollars. they said they want a 5 year deal. probably 5/75 is the aim.

Being 31, i dont know why it would be about the years and not the money. if he takes a 4 yr deal then he'll be 35 and prob still on top of his game and could recieve anothe big contract like lowe is. However with a 5 or 6 yr deal, Burnett will be 36-37 and may be fadeing.
Kinda Strange.

Valid point. Another point to my own observation would be that Boras is not his agent and is not trying to milk every penny out of each client

Yeh it seems like there isnt a pitcher with a drawback in FA this year.

If you could sign Burnett, and Furcal then the possibilities become almost limitless because there will still be a good market for Esco and KJ. The Peavy deal could still be out there, there have been grumblings about the Twins giving up Young for Esco, the Cards and Ludwick maybe for KJ, but I still like the idea of dealing with the Rays. I may be in the minority but I really like Edwin Jackson, I admittably only watched him pitch twice last year but he was good both times I saw him. Young and very talented I just don't know what we would have to give up for him they seem kinda content with Aki and Bartlett up the middle, maybe a package with Brandon Jones or Flowers? I'm also not against maybe signing Sheets to a 2 year deal, not sure if that would be good enough for him but after hearing Mike Maddux campaigning for Texas to sign him and looking back at his innings the last couple years he's not to far off of Burnett(2002-2004 over 200 innings and almost 200 this year). Definitely a last resort but the idea has grown on me a bit.

I prefer

1 Lowe/Burnett
2 JJ
3 Edwin Jackson
4 Hampton
5 Campillo (until he implodes like Jorge Sosa did)/ Hanson

I think Jackson could be like Ervin Santana this year , I really think he's poised to break out.

Just to throw out another SP name as someone who might be available and could be productive in the NL - Javier Vazquez. Kenny Williams appears willing to move him and he'd probably cost a whole lot less than Peavy. He's under contract for 2 years at $11.5M, he's s decent mid-tier SP who logs 200 IP pretty regularly. If I'm the Braves, I then take a solid shot at one of Burnett or Sheets (pass on Lowe - he's Hudson but 3 years older) and have some money left for a LF.

I know Wren has discounted Sheets but that was when Peavy looked like a reasonable option.

Where is all the opinions from Cubs fans on this blog? I'm disappointed in Aduncaro and Teetz, where are you boys?

I hate arroyo he sucks, I'd much rather have vazquez, although I'd rather sign perez than have either one...

Passing on Peavy made sense for Wren as they were already about to give up too much. If the Padres want to come back and take it -- fine -- otherwise good to move on. However, don't for one second think that the FA crop will come anywhere near what we need. More than that, I don't see how any of these #2 and #3 (thats what they are!) starters are going to sign with Atlanta:
Lowe (Boston or NY)
Dempster (he's going back to the cubs -- and really, do you want to give him 50 mil after having 1 good year)
Burnett -- maybe - he wants to play closer to home - so maybe - we surely won't offer the most and he's a good #2 pitcher. But his elbow problems put Peavy's elbow to SHAME.
You really want to give 15 mil to a guy who hasn't pitched more than 30 starts but once in 5 years?
I expect we settle for John Garland and we can just skip to 2010 when maybe Hanson and Morton will be of real value.