A veteran sell-off of any kind of difficult to picture in Bobby Cox's final season as Braves manager. We'll explore the possibility anyway, even though the 8-13 Braves have 87% of their season remaining.
Though it'd create a vacancy in next year's rotation, you have to think the Braves would like the flexibility of ridding part of the three years and $45MM owed to Derek Lowe. Similarly, the Braves could free up cash by dealing Kenshin Kawakami, owed $13.33MM over 2010-11. What about Nate McLouth? Already forced into a platoon role, he's owed $12.25MM this season and next.
Billy Wagner would be an attractive trade candidate, though the Braves might prefer to have him around for 2011. Wagner has a $6.5MM club option after the season, though it'll vest with 44 more games finished. Setup man Takashi Saito would be expendable, and decent relievers are hard to come by on the trade market in July.
Other rentals include Troy Glaus, David Ross, and Eric Hinske, all eligible for free agency after the season.
remember, anyone who has Hinske makes it to the world series….
I still think the braves do but if they fall out of it, watch were he goes
And I suppose anyone who has Jason Marquis makes it to the playoffs?
just you watch. Braves NL East champs. Nats wildcard….
hahaaha love it!
Troy Glaus is absolutely dreadful. Poor poor defense at first base, a .203 average, with only 3 extra base hits all season. This guy should be in AAA at the most, which is were I saw him play last season with the Albuquerque Isotopes (when he was in the STL organization). He was awful there too.
xBABIP: .349
actual BABIP: .229
Current line: .203/.304/.304 – .608
Adjusted line: .323/.424/.424 – .848
And that’s assuming all extra hits are singles, but we’ve seen doubles and HR robbed from Glaus this year. He’s hitting the ball hard, he just has some of the shittiest luck in the majors right now.
I’m with you on this. He’s been hitting the ball hard but just right at people, or just close enough that they can make a leaping and/or diving play. That will change and his numbers will correct.
Just wanted to let you know that Albuquerque is not part of the Cardinals minor league system. Did you mean “when he was a Memphis Redbird playing against Albuquerque”?
yes, he was in the STL organization playing against the Isotopes, who are the Dodgers AAA club. Sorry for the confusion. Glaus was playing 3rd base at the time
What happened to Mclouth?! He wasn’t always this bad…was he?
yes, he was…PIT has a tendency to put out overrated OFers…case in point Jason Bay
No he wasn’t. He’s got a nice, high LD% and an incredibly low BABIP. They’ll even out and we’ll get production from him.
my comment was more of a shot at bay than at McLouth. I really like him even if he is only a career .257 hitter
Well you answered “He wasn’t always this bad, was he?” with “yes, he was”. Its pretty easy for me (or anyone else for that matter) to make that mistake.
I had a long winded response to your comment but then i realized i dont care. other than the phillies the NL east is a joke
You replied anyway so you must care. If the East is a joke that the 2nd place Phils must be the butt.
Bay has had alot better career than Nate. Whatever point you were trying to make you failed.
no i just like seeing the foolishness people spout. kinda like watching a bad reality show you just cant turn off.
and of course you are right the phils must be the butt i mean they only went to the world series the last two years winning one of them. when was the last time the mets, braves, marlins or nats made the world series?
….right…cuz the mets who have 6 all-stars in their starting lineup ( johan, wright, reyes, bay,k-rod …not to mention serviceable players like francour and castillo…a potential ace in the making in pelfrey..and an injured all-star on the mend in beltran ..they are a complete joke…no reason to think they have a better squad than toronto, baltimore, or boston..
I find it funny how the mets go 9-1 against bad teams and people start talking about how good they are. all-star this, pelfrey is the 2nd coming that. where was all this talk 2 weeks ago when the mets were sitting in the basement? we will see how they do against the phils and for the rest of the year.
the phils are the only team in that division that have sustained. the past couple years the mets have been horrible. they lost 92 games with all those guys you mentioned on the roster (minus bay). they also had a 7 game win streak like they do right now too last year. (just food for thought)
Johan is an ace. Pelfrey is not. he has 4 wins (against the cubs, braves, rockies and nats) not exactly world series caliber teams there. I give him credit for doing what he should against bad teams but wait to call him an ace in the making until he sustains it over time.
the mets have been “horrible” the past couple of years?
they have the best record in the NL from 2005-Present.
please name one team that can have even a .500 record while sustaining season-ending injuries to
1B – Delgado
SS – Reyes
CF – Beltran
thats like the Phils losing Rollins, Howard and Victorino for the whole year…(and somehow only be 1 game out in July)
not to mention Johan playing with a hurt elbow……Oliver Perez spending most of the season on the DL…Maine spending most of the season on the DL…( thats 3/5th of their rotation )…Church was out for some time…Schneider was out for most of the year…and DESPITE all that…they were in 1st place as late as late May / early June…and 1 game out in early July
so as for this year…maybe they’re in 1st place because they’re healthy now ?….I know…this might be a foreign concept to you…but being healthy might equal running ur best players-and/or ur best players playing better…esp when there is a consistency on the field…
the 3B, SS, 2B, 1B, C, LF, RF, are all pretty much playing everyday…
last year, they had everyone playing everywhere all year round…they had a career OF play 1b…( reed )…they had a career IF play LF ( murphy )…they had a 19 year old rookie in CF ( F-Mart)..they had a career minor leaguer starting behind the plate (santos)…
so please tell me u can see the difference between having bay in LF…and having Murphy in LF…or Pagan starting to mature…or having Reyes on the field rather than Cora…or having Ike Davis at 1B rather than Fernando Tatis…plus Chip Hale is 10x better at holding/sending runners than Razor Ramon Shines..the mets led the majors in getting thrown out at home last year…i think razor just flipped a coin everytime he had to decide..
and as for pelfrey…2 of those 4 wins came from shutting down the team with the 3rd most runs in the MAJORS…and the 6th most runs in the MAJORS…
both Colorado and LA have more runs scored than the mighty high-powered Yankees and Red Sox…
there is nothing cute about being an elitist
umm…cuz averaging over 30 HR’s and over 100 RBI’s makes u over-rated…since when did Jason Bay get confused for Barry Bonds ?!!
the buccos definitely dumped him at a good time. now in return we got charlie morton, who has all the upside in the world, but hasn’t put it together yet, and maybe never will, gorkys hernandez, who is supposed to still be a nice prospect, but i’ve never really understood why, and jeff locke, who could turn out to be a pretty nice pitcher, but he’s years away. obviously morton and locke will determine who won the trade, but i don’t think nate’s slump is just a slump, think he’s one of those guys that has 3 nice years and then falls off the face of the earth, he’s fallin now.
More like one nice year really.
There’s zero cause for panic on the part of the Braves. The difference in their xBABIP and their actual BAIBP is .033, meaning if they didn’t have such shitty luck they’d have a .260/.360/.370 – .730 line as a team and instead of being almost last, they’d be middle of the pack. Not to mention that normalizing their batting line assumes that all extra hits would be singles, and anybody that’s watched the games has seen doubles and HRs robbed from several Braves players. There’s no need to panic, Braves fans.
Not all that worried about the team so much as I am the confidence of the players right now. Any time you are on a losing streak like this it hurts your confidence as a player. Some of these guys have been here before, but some like McLouth, Heyward, etc… have either never been in this situation where they have struggled (Heyward’s case) or are used to being on loser teams (McLouth’s case)
That’s the part that worries me, is that their confidence gets wrecked before it gets turned around and then it is too late.
no, its definitely time to worry…
I agree. It’s a little early in the season to freak out. Not to mention the Braves lead the NL in walks. They’ve been getting people on, just not in. That will change.
Braves offense has like 5 guys in the lineup hitting under 200. You’d think they’d actually get a bat one of these years. Instead, they trade for a guy like McLouth who is way overpaid for a guy like this.
McLouth is cheap for now.
You overlooked Melky Cabrera–giving him away would be addition by subtraction.
The Braves’ offense will get it turned around. They’re 15th in the NL in runs right now– there is no way that will continue. If I were a Braves fan I’d be more concerned about starting pitching, considering Lowe looks finished and Hudson’s K rate is rapidly approaching zero. With the exception of Hanson all the starters have pretty poor K/BB numbers so far. Hard to sustain that without an outstanding defense behind you.
I’m not worried about Hudson at all. He hasn’t started striking batters out yet, but I think that will come in good time. Right now he’s focused on not giving up any runs, and he’s done a pretty good job of it. Lowe scares me, however. His last start was encouraging, even though he gave up 5 runs in 5 innings (I think). He was getting a lot of groundball outs which are key to his success. I really thought he was going to bounce back and have a decent year, but aside from that one start he’s giving me no reason to. Kawakami is looking pretty bad as well, but judging from how he started last season it is assumable that he will straighten out. Jurjjens gave me a real scare today; he had to come out after 1 IP with a hamstring injury. I’m not sure how serious it is, but if he goes down then that forces Medlen into the rotation. Not that I don’t like him, but if he’s going to be replacing someone, I’d LOVE for it to be Lowe.
Who are two of the worst teams in the NL at the moment? The Braves and Dodgers. Both teams have lots of talent and it’s only a matter of time before they get it turned around and start hitting the ball again. The Nationals do this same thing every single year and people always say that they have a chance but then it all just crashes for them. The Braves will go back to contending soon enough. They are a quality team that just happens to be playing like trash lately. It’s already starting to happen, has anyone noticed that Melky has started hitting a little better? And when we are finally blessed with a hitters park one of these days these long fly balls that Glaus keeps hitting will be home runs. I think Escobar might be one of those guys that needs his first home run to take a little pressure off of himself and just relax. Same with Diaz. Heyward needs to stop taking so many pitches (there’s a story on the braves website about that). What’s wrong with McLouth? Beats me, probably just in a slump. Braves fans should be happy that this is happening now and not later because every single team goes through slumps like this at least once a year. It could 7-8 losses in a row or win one then lose two, win another then lose three more and so on until something good happens. I’m not worried and noone else should be.
There may be teams with worse records, but the fact that Pittsburgh blows everyone else away in run differential, with an astounding -77, speaks volumes about how terrible this team is. I really don’t think anyone in the National League, or in all of MLB for that matter, is as bad a team as my beloved Buccos are.
At least we’ll have a good shot at drafting Anthony Rendon next year.
My friend, my hat is always off to true Pirates fans. There is nothing more loyal than you guys anywhere in baseball. A team that’s been struggling for so long yet you still love them. Amazing. Simply amazing.
We appreciate the kind words, brother, especially coming from a fan of the team that officially put the nail in the coffin of the Pirates franchise.
As a whitesox fan this hurts a bit, but I would not mind a carlos quentin for nate Mcclouth deal. The braves shed the money and get a right handed power guy to take a ton of pressure off of chipper, hayward, and glaus and the whitesox get a gold glove left handed all around good hitter, a guy who hits for avg, power, and has speed who is having a bad year right now, maybe both of them need a change of scenery. Nate gets to go to a more hitter friendly park and can either lead off or bat near the middle for the chisox. And carlos goes to the “easier’ league
Troy Glaus’s time with the Braves so far reminds me of the Raul Mondesi experiment a few years ago.
Most Braves fans don’t want to hear this but I think I’d be best for the team and would get max return. The Braves should trade Brian McCann. Now before Braves fans get bent all out of shape just think about what the Braves could get for him. The Rays and Rangers need a catcher so what if the Braves could get one of these packages for BMac as a Brave fan would you do it?
Rays get:
Brian McCann – C
Braves get:
Desmond Jennings – CF
Jeremy Hellickson – SP
Alexander Colome – SP
Dioner Navarro – C
__________________________________________________________________
Rangers get:
Brian McCann
Braves get:
Martin Perez – SP
Mitch Moreland – OF
Chris Davis – 1B
Jarrod Saltalamaccia – C
I think no way. Especially not the Rangers trade. There is a sub-zero chance McCann gets traded, although I actually see where your coming from.
That may be the single dumbest thing I’ve ever read on this website, and that’s saying something.
HaHa Yeah OK! McCann is a great offensive catcher but behind the plate he just not that good and I’m a Braves fan who watch the Braves EVERYDAY. If trading McCann would make this TEAM better then why not? Heck I’d trade any player on the team if the deal was right. No player and I mean NO PLAYER is above being traded especially if the right deal comes along.
Both of those packages are horrendous. In the first one we get a pitching prospect that will be blocked because, like it or not, our rotation is essentially locked up for at least the next two years. We’ve got commitments to Lowe, Kawakami, and Hudson that we have to honor. There’s also Colome, who I do like. As well as the pitchers, we get someone useful in Desmond Jennings, and a catcher that was almost non-tendered this offseason. Color me unimpressed.
In the second package we get Martin Perez and Mitch Moreland, a couple prospects that I genuinely like. Chris Davis is useless to the Braves because he’s a shitty defensive 3B and we’ve got this kid named Freddie Freeman that had a really slow start but is currently in the middle of an absolute tear in AAA and is our 1B of the future. We’d also get Jerrod Saltalamacchia, a failed former Braves prospect that can’t hit, nor can he throw baserunners out. Another package that falls very short of coming close to acquiring the second best offensive catcher in baseball.
Trading McCann is overall a bad idea, especially for a package like either of those. If we’re concerned enough about his defense behind the plate, he needs to go to 1B or LF because he’s a homegrown .850-.900 OPS bat that already is, and will continue to be one of the anchors of our offense for years to come.
Ok you just said we have Freeman which is why the Braves don’t a 1B but you turn around and say move McCann to 1B lol! And have you actually watched McCann run? He definitely would be a candidate for LF and neither would Freeman who may be slower than McCann if that’s possible.
On both of the packages, they were just examples but you’d be a fool to turn down that Rays package. Jennings a RH leadoff batter with 80 speed and decent pop that is something the Braves desperately need. Hellickson you say like it or not our rotation is set, well Tom Glavine also thought he had a spot locked in the rotation as well but the Braves were smart enough to give his spot to a young guy who has been lights out for them since so if a trade like this were to happen Lowe or KK would be bullpen bound or traded. And Colome compares to the likes of Teheran, Delgado and Vizcaino so he’d give the Braves even more depth/trade pieces in the minors. Navarro would be a decent backup to Ross.
The Rangers package you may be able debate more but Martin Perez is a young top pitching prospect that would be comparable to a Tommy Hanson for the Braves and he’s LH which the Braves really need in their rotation especially in the NL East. I’m quite sure the Braves would ask for far more than what I proposed from the Rangers though.
Trading him would not be as bad an idea as you think. Plus the Braves have a up and coming phenom in Christian Bethancourt who’s better than McCann defensively right now at 18.
You’re crazy if you think Ross is a starter.
McCann is vastly superior to Chris Davis, and Freeman is athletic enough to play the OF, he was drafted as a 3B and moved to 1B not long after he started playing pro ball.
There’s a difference between Lowe/Kawakami and Glavine. Tommy was guaranteed only $1MM, Lowe/KK are guaranteed several million.
I’m a big fan of Bethancourt too, but he’s only 18. You don’t make a move with him in mind until he forces the organization’s hand. More than likely, he’ll be the one traded because of the commitment that the Braves already have to McCann. It happened with Max Ramirez, Saltalamacchia, and Tyler Flowers.
Ross’ bat is serviceable at C but his defense is what the Braves would need behind the plate more than his bat.
Are you a Braves fan? Have you actually seen Freeman play? He’s not that athletic and I’ve sen this kid several time up close many times so 1B is basically it for him. In HS players play many positions but that doesn’t make them athletic.
Glavine’s contract was a base 1 mil and there were several incentives that would’ve made it around 5 mil as well.
I definitely see your point but we’ve had bad experiences with both teams concerning trades. With the Rangers we gave up half the farm system for a guy that didn’t perform (to his standards anyway) and had him only for a year. We traded a good closer to the Rays for a simply solid middle reliever. I wouldn’t say either team is a good idea right now. I do see your point though.
If the Braves trade anyone it should be Escobar. He would get them prob just as much if not more value than McCann.
+1 and I really think they will trade Escobar although it wouldn’t be wise with NO replacement for Esco. Infante is OK but he’s no Esco and Infante’s only signed through this season as well. What FA SS will be on the market this off-season? All I know is Escobar’s act IS getting old in the A.
Braves have been trying to trade Lowe for a year now. I doubt they find much for him
They would have to add alot of money to the package. At some pint they need to consider doing so. Subtracting him from the rotation might be worth it.
I personally think the Braves will turn it around there is no way the entire offensive core has forgotten how to hit.
not a braves fan, but i hope the F.O. wakes up and takes TP out of that role as hitting instructor..its not a coincidence that Francour and Johnson look like completely different hitters now.
Francour has already matched his BB total from last year…and Johnson has already passed his HR total from last year.