Braves-Nation.com

Going into the winter, most Braves fans would have agreed that if one player (other than Derek Lowe) was going to be traded, it would be Jair Jurrjens. As the winter began, we heard a lot of chatter about Jurrjens with a lot of Martin Prado rumors mixed in. As Winter Meetings came and went, we heard even more talk about the two players. Some reports had 8-10 teams as being interested in Jurrjens.

The Braves are said to have left Winter Meetings after making a lot of progress in discussions with other teams. One would think that with C.J. Wilson and Mark Buehrle now off the free agent market that Jurrjens will begin to attract more interest. The Rangers and Twins are teams outside of the NL East that had interest in Buehrle before coming up empty, while the Rangers also came up short on C.J. Wilson. The Reds and Rockies are other teams that have been linked to Jurrjens throughout the winter. ...

Through the first 92 games of the 2011 season and the All Star Break the Braves amassed the second best record in their league, will begin play on Friday looking for the 10,000th win in Braves franchise history, and with a five game lead over the pack for the National League Wild Card. The playoffs seem to be a clear destination and they appear to have the goods to compete for a National League crown when October begins.

They’ve largely done it with pitching. They enter the second half with the second best ERA (3.02) and xFIP (3.34) in baseball, and the third highest K/9 ratio (7.86) and FIP (3.19) in the game. The question is whether the staff can keep up that pace. Jair Jurrjens surpassed not only his career numbers in the first half but put up both win and ERA totals that don’t appear to be realistic over a full MLB season. The bullpen has been amazing, but eventually depth may become an issue due to overuse of the bullpen in the first half. I wrote back in May about concerns over bullpen use and those paces haven’t significantly diminished. ...

Welcome to 2011 (in the world of OOTP)!

We're almost to July in real life but the newest version of Out of the Park Baseball has recently been released! We have a good relationship with the guys over at OOTP Developments and they decided to shoot us a copy of the newest installment of Out of the Park Baseball, OOTP12. And what I've gone ahead and done is simulated the 2011 Season and will present you the results! I'll cover how the season went, the 2011 award winners, and the major accomplishments that occurred. Of course since we're a Braves website we'll focus on the Braves especially. Here we go! ...

Disclaimer: This is merely an idea I've been thinking on for a few days now. This idea comes from the realization that we will not be acquiring a top flight CF any time soon, nor will we be developing one. If our options are to either stick with what we have or acquire a project/average/affordable CF, I would much rather take the latter. Here's why:

So far in 2011 Jordan Schafer has posted a slash line of .211/.294/.303. It has become painfully obvious that his value is limited strictly to outfield defense, and baserunning. Which, is a problem if he struggles to get on base. The outlook for Jordan is grim at this point. There are no signs that would support an argument that he will begin to get on base more often than he does now. ...

Braves fans have had much to celebrate in the month of May, rebounding from a 13-15 April to begin May with a 12-4 mark. They’ve slowly crept up the standings in the NL East and looked poised to make a run at the division lead in 2011 just as they took the divisional lead on Memorial Day 2010. While these are all exciting things, perhaps the best part of it all is the next part.

Unlike May of last year when everything from Chipper Jones’ retirement to Troy Glaus’ knees seemed to click, the Braves have still not played their best baseball yet. While the pitching staff has obviously held their ground in compiling the lowest Team ERA in the National League, the bats have remained inconsistent and have left plenty of room for improvement.

Martin Prado, despite winning NL Player of the Week last week, is still below career averages in all three stat lines. Jason Heyward has fallen into a sophomore slump, possibly due to a right shoulder injury. Dan Uggla’s troubles have been well documented – an unpleasant .645 OPS – and Freddie Freeman has been nothing more than consistently inconsistent while putting up a .678 OPS. Lest we forget Brian McCann who, while putting up a strong batting average, doubled his season homerun total yesterday in two innings. ...

I'm not one to worry or panic early on in the season. I know it takes around 40 or 50 games to really tell how players and a team are really going to produce during a season. But Tommy Hanson's first two starts coupled with his spring stats has me a bit concerned.

In 2009 Tommy averaged 92.2 MPH on his fastball. In 2010 it was 92.7 MPH. So far in 2 starts (small sample size I know) it's dropped to 90.9 MPH. While the drop isn't dramatic it is still significant. Watching on TV it's clear to see his days of pumping it up to 95 on a regular basis are probably behind him. Obviously this could be an attempt on his part to control his fastball instead of being wild. But whatever it is it's resulting in less missed bats.
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