Catcher’s Blog

First, I’d like to mention (and congratulate) our 3-time All Star catcher on his winning the Silver Slugger Award for the second time in his young career. There was a conference call with the man himself, which you can listen to here, in which a few people ask McCann a few questions. DOB from the AJC posted a few quotes from this conference call in this article yesterday. Here are a few quotes from that article:

“You don’t play the game for awards,” McCann said, “but it still makes it nice to know you ended the season on a positive note and everybody noticed the numbers that you put up.

…

“If you had told me that [three years ago], I wouldn’t have believed you,” he said. “I put a lot of hard work into getting my swing where I wanted it. Now I’m working on my defense, trying to make myself a better all-around baseball player.”

Don’t you just want to hug him?

To view the rest of the Silver Slugger Award winners, go view the official press release. It’s very surprising that Chipper didn’t snag one, after winning the Batting Title, but David Wright did have a solid year at 3B.

Secondly, there are a lot of rumors starting to surface involving the Braves, which is a good thing. Lately, all we’ve heard about is this blasted Jake Peavy mess that just won’t end was all but put to rest today by Frank Wren. It’s about time we start hearing other rumors about other possibilities to try to offset the frustration most Braves fans now have toward the Padres, which hopefully will subdue now that we’re clearly moving on. I’m not going to post all of the rumors on here, but I do try to keep up with them all, mostly on MLB Trade Rumors and the MLB Hot Stove Blog. Those are two good sources for rumors and such things to keep you busy during this long off season.

Also, the top prospect that we’re absolutely not trading for any reason, Tommy Hanson, has been lighting up the AFL or should I say mowing down? Either way, he’s doing extremely well, as is his teammate Tyler Flowers. Normally, I don’t mention a lot about minor leaguers on here, but I’ll make an exception this time. To check out Tommy Hanson’s stats and possible prediction of his Major League debut, please head on over to CrookedPitch.com. This is a very good read on a future projected pitching star.

Finally, I mentioned before that I had something in the works and that I wasn’t going to talk about it. But, since it’s going slowly right now, so I figured I might as well at least mention it. What I’m currently working on is a new home for Catcher’s Blog, only the name is different. I won’t reveal too much yet, but when I get the layout ready, I’ll put a preview up. The reason for this transistion to a new domain is that I’m 21 now and I’m wanting to bring a more personal side and be more “girly” to the blogosphere, if you will. Please take the word girly really lightly, because I really am not a girly girl by any means. I like being a girl and being somewhat feminine, but being “high fashion” and what not just isn’t me. Plus, I’d like to establish a name for myself as a Braves blogger, well more so than I already have anyway. So keep looking out for new updates on the new domain. I hope to have it up and running by December or around there, but I’m not sure when I’ll actually launch it. I’ll have to think about it some more and then there’s finishing up college as well.

Somewhere in the early hours of Thursday morning, October 23rd, the host will be upgrading its servers for about an hour at a time. This means that Catcher’s Blog and anything associated with it will not be accessible during that time. I’m not sure exactly when the site will be down, but the e-mail I received said between the hours of 12 am to 6 am of Thursday, the 23rd. This probably won’t effect many visitors, but in case you might happen to try to access the site during those hours on the 23rd and the site is down, then that is why. This is just a heads up for everyone. Everything should be back to normal after the upgrading process is completed.

According to MLBTR, the Braves have mentioned that the payroll will increase in ‘09 and the team will have roughly around $45 million to spend this off season with that amount coming off the books. Most of the money freed up looks to be going toward starting pitching, as it should after this season of injury-ridden pitchers falling off one-by-one. Some names mentioned as possibilities for the rotation next year are as follows: Derek Lowe, A.J. Burnett, Matt Cain, Brad Penny, and Ryan Dempster. All of these are better than the fill-ins we used this past season, but some of those guys could possibly be re-signed to their respective teams. The Braves would also like to try to re-sign Smoltz, Glavine, and Hampton. I don’t see them signing all three, though, unless their contracts were incentive-based or decreased a bit (mainly Hampton for the latter).

I started back college classes today, trying to attempt to wind it down now with only four more classes to go (one left after the current quarter), so posting might be a little slower. Of course, I could post at school should anything huge happen. But the main point here, I’m working on something new. I won’t say what it is yet because I still have a lot to do on it before it’s ready, but look out for this revelation sometime within the next few months. I’m pretty excited about it myself.

Sorry for the lack of posts everyone. Again, I’ve been lazy or busy doing school-related things. Or there’s also the fact that we can’t win a game now it seems. But other than that, I will post my game review of the 28th game vs. the Marlins probably tomorrow or Wednesday. It’s not as in-depth as some of the past reviews I’ve written, but it works. I also got a few autographs and pictures after the game before they left for Washington, and that’s in the post as well.

I don’t usually post site updates on blogs, but since I’m posting, I might as well include that I revamped the layout a little bit. Not much, but I did make another header and changed a few of the colors up a bit. I really love how the header came out, with its abstract feel. I will admit that I sort of followed a tutorial for some of it, but still. The picture of Mac is actually a picture I took at the game on the 28th. I added that to give it more depth and a more Catcher’s Blog feel. He adds more to the graphic.

Another note while I’m posting randomly in the middle of the night, I will be going to last home game on September 21st against the Mets. We’ll be sitting in section 117, row 8; I purchased the tickets this past weekend. It’s never too early for a good deal on tickets. Seriously, StubHub is like one of the best places to buy Braves tickets.

Today is a much-need needed off day for the Bravos and I thought I would make a little update. I’m sorry for the lack of posting lately, but I’ve been lazy and haven’t felt well at all. My sinuses are still bothering me, which is year-round just about, and I’ve started an online class for school this week. Hopefully things will get better because I won’t need to be as lazy now that I have a class to take and pay attention to most days of the week. These late night games have kind of put me off a little as well. Plus, my Internet is still a bit wonky and keeps going in and out for some reason and losing signal. I’m not sure why. We might switch soon, but I’m not completely sure if we will or not yet.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I will be going to Hunting Island, SC camping for the entire week next week. I’ll be leaving on Monday and will return on Saturday at some point. I’ll only miss one game more than likely, with the exception of the All-Star game (which I really would like to see, or at least watch because of Chipper and Mac), but I am taking my laptop with me because of the online class I’m taking and other reasons. I’m not completely sure that I’ll have much Internet access or any at all, so if I don’t post any next week, you’ll know why. If I do in fact have the Internet, I still might not post since there probably won’t be much to post about during the break, except All-Star coverage. I might check in on the site from time to time, though.

Tomorrow begins a three game series against the Padres. It will be interesting to see how we play against them as bad as the Padres have been this season so far. Taking the series would be the best thing since I’m not expecting a sweep, but a series win will definitely do. Losing to Jake Peavy wouldn’t really surprise me, but it would be icing on the cake if we didn’t lose to him. Let’s play good baseball this series and end the first half on a good note before the time off during the break.