Catcher’s Blog

Tonight Smoltz goes for #3000 in strikeouts. For Talking Chop’s NAHWAL (Noc-A-Homa-Win-A-Lotta game that fans play for fun and prizes) for today, I predicted that Smoltz would strike out Ryan Zimmerman in the 3rd inning of tonight’s game for #3000. Just thought I’d include that in the post. We’ll see how it goes.

Smoltz faces John Lannan again in a rematch from 4/12 against the Nats. Let’s see if Smoltz can beat Lannan yet again and reach #3000 in strikeouts to be among even more elites in the baseball world. Will Diaz be in LF again tonight after Blanco’s recent tear? Will KJ still be in the leadoff spot? We’ll have to find out later tonight, but it’s something to ponder.

This idea was actually thought out by DOB in his latest blog, since he thoroughly believes we won’t be able to sign Teixeira for $20 million+ per year. At first, my being partial to KJ kind of kicked in, and I was thinking, “he has got to be kidding.” But I read most of the blog, I could then see where he was coming from, and it is something to think about; it wasn’t actually that bad of an idea.

I’m not ruling out the possibilty that Teixeira will remain a Brave, because I really hope he does, but all things considered we shouldn’t really count on that happening until it actually does. I know Wren isn’t Scheurholz, but I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to pay that kind of money to retain him and his services. DOB’s comments are below:

And I’ll start by asking what you think of this idea: The Braves should re-sign Rafael Furcal as a free agent after this season. That suggestion was made to me by someone connected to the Braves (I’ll leave it at that; not going to tell you whether it was a player, coach, team official, etc). And it made me think.

 And I gotta say, much as I like Kelly Johnson’s potential as a hitter, the thought of Furcal and Yunel Escobar as a double-play combo and 1-2 combo at the top of the order is … well, wow.
Yes, your leadoff problem would be solved for, say, three years, if you could get Furcal to accept another contract as short as the one he signed with the Dodgers when he left Atlanta.

And you would have the best, most entertaining double-play combination in baseball with Furcal and Escobar at second base and shortstop, whichever way you want to arrange it.
It would probably cost you more than $15 million per for Furcal, but I have a very strong suspicion the Braves aren’t going to pay $20 mill a year for Teixeira. So “Fookie” could be your big-ticket free agent. Give him $16-17 mill a year, if that’s what it takes.

But here’s my own idea, and let me know what you think: Simply move Kelly over to first base. I don’t think he’s ever going to be a great second baseman, and he certainly has the athleticism to play first. And the power to be a 25-homer guy. I like his bat too much to move him (and he’s affordable for several years).

Kelly is a very good hitter with the potential to be a great hitter. If I were the Braves, I’d start planning now to move him to first base to take over for Tex. And I’d start feeling out Furcal and his agent about the possibility of coming home.

Folks, with Furcal, Escobar and Chipper in the first three spots in your lineup, you’d have the potential to have one of the most dynamic teams in the league. And like I said, the double-play combo would be worth the price of admission, with those two covering more ground than any other middle-infield pair in the league and possessing the best two infield arms in all of baseball, gunning down runners from everywhere. Think about it.

Am I the only one who thinks this idea is possibly a good idea? While you would have to figure that it would have to be decided who would be at SS and 2B between Furcal and Escobar, this would probably have to be on the shoulders of KJ since he’s transitioned so much already from SS to LF to 2B. But I think KJ would be for taking one for the team and up to playing 1B if it would make the team better overall. KJ’s not really one to complain and he’s said previously that he’d move wherever they needed him to better the team. KJ has said he likes the lead-off spot but would hit wherever they put him, but he’s not really a typical lead-off hitter and maybe would be better suited behind Mac and Frenchy in the lineup as another run producer. KJ’s athleticism might help him make the transition to 1B if he were to do so.

Again, I’m not trying to say I don’t want to keep Teixeira, but it is nice to have a plan B in case we can’t sign him to a deal. Keeping our in-house options and bringing in Furcal, if he’s not signed to an extension, would help us get another pitcher, which would make up for the loss of Glavine (and Hampton, but I won’t really count him yet) coming off the books next season. Smoltz is getting older and I’m not sure how effective Chuckie will be as a starter, but if we could get a decent free agent starter with maybe a little more experience and success than Jurrjens has had so far, we won’t have a gaping hole in the rotation. KJ will also be on the cheap next year as well, although he is arbitration eligible, I believe, he would still be a cheaper option than a good defensive 1B would be. Also, signing Kotsay to another year or two wouldn’t be that bad if he keeps up what he’s been doing so far and it turns out Schafer isn’t quite ready for the bigs yet. Just another thought.

Today we play start the Nats series of two games, who we’ve seen it seems like a hundred times already. Tim Hudson will face Matt Chico and if the offense keeps it up, we should pull out a win, or let’s hope so anyway. Let’s keep the streak alive as long as possible; the longer, the better. The key thing right now is to stop leaving 10-12 guys on base in games. That’s going to start costing us eventually. We need more timely hitting and hopefully even with Chipper day-to-day we can keep up the good offense.

So we’ve won three in a row and we’re slowly but surely building our confidence back up after the first few unlucky weeks with the injuries and what not. If we sweep the Dodgers, that will only make things better. It seems Hiroki Kuroda hasn’t done badly, but he is 1-1. If we hit smart and actually bring guys in when guys get on base, we should be ok. We left a total of nine men on base in yesterday’s game (ten in Friday night’s game) and that’s becoming our downfall, except for the offense coming alive during the latter innings of the games. At least we’ve learned how to take some walks now, we did have five yesterday. Plus, our bullpen isn’t sucking right now either, which is always good since most of the guys in the ‘pen are shaky at times. Maybe the baseball gods felt bad and thought they’d give us better luck for a little while. Even if some of our guys still have yet to start anything that resembles hitting, not naming names though, which I probably don’t have to, unfortunately.

Jurrjens is on the mound today and will be going for the sweep. JJ hasn’t really had a lights out game where he doesn’t get tired in the latter innings and gives up a few runs, but he is still growing as a pitcher and is still only 22. I think he’ll get it right sooner or later. I’m wondering if today Bobby doesn’t give a few guys off, mainly Mac, but he may not need it just yet after an off day this past Monday. Let’s go for the sweep and bring the Nats and Fish in hoping for some more good games and wins.

This roadtrip has not gone our way at all. Injuries, one run losses, very little offense, very little bullpen pitching is the gist of it. Like Chipper said last night during Braves Live, no one is being consistent right now. We left the home stand feeling pretty well because we had beat the Mets, but it turns out, now we’re just counting down the days until we go back home, which is down to tonight. I’m sure the players are happy about that. But it really shouldn’t matter where they’re playing; the way we’re playing right now is just horrible. There’s really no excuse, but something has got to give somewhere.

This quote from Matty about sums it up as best as I can put it:

“I don’t know how bad hell is, but I’d call it the trip from hell so far.”

Hopefully tonight we can come out with a win with Smoltz on the mound. We can’t have bad luck every single game can we? That would be cruel. But even with all the woes the team has faced so far, it’s still way too early to throw in the towel and give up. There’s plenty of more games to play and anything is possible.

Just a note about the site. I added a Theme Switcher so if you would like to switch the layout to a different one, please feel free. I’ve only currently got three themes in the Switcher, but I will add more as soon as I get time to edit them to my liking. All themes are pretty much the same navigation and sidebar-wise, with one that is a two-column theme that has a little less on the sidebars than the three-column themes do. The other two themes I’m planning on adding are two-column as well.  

According to MLBTR, we’re currently hurting for pitching and need to make a deal soon or we might as well call it quits. They list who is available for the Braves to consider. Are we really hurting that bad? One, we don’t know the verdict on Glavine and if he doesn’t feel any worse than he did Sunday, some find it a non-worrisome injury. Glavine apparently said himself, “they better not,” be putting him on the DL without his knowledge, but he’s not ruling the possibility out if it will end up hurting the team. Two, yeah, we’ve lost Hampton, but he was an added bonus at the time. Everyone was almost expecting something to go wrong with Hampton with the backup depth we acquired in case something did happen to his fragile self. Three, Smoltz is Smoltz and while he is getting older, he is still making every effort he can to pitch when his time roles around. As he said, he has a lot of pitching left in him and he’ll know when he can’t pitch anymore. But let’s not push it, Smoltz isn’t 20-something anymore. Four, why would we spend money or give up a player on someone else that we really don’t need unless one of our other pitchers are lost with an injury, which hopefully doesn’t happen.

Add in the fact that Mike Gonzalez will return before too much longer (before or around the All-Star break) and will hopefully provide some stability to the weakening ‘pen. While it’s still early, we could see a reliever being added to the equation if the ‘pen keeps going at this rate. Everyone is almost expecting Pena to be traded at some point because he’s not proving to be the bench option that we really need in key situations, so maybe we’ll trade him for a reliable relief pitcher. This option seems more plausible than trading for/acquiring a starter just to have another one when we already have other options. Some may not be great options, but we do have other options in pitching until the regulars get healthy.

The series with Florida in Miami, where I wish I was right now because of the recent cold streak here, kicks off later tonight at 7:10 pm. Jair Jurrjens faces off against Scott Olsen. This could go either way really because Florida has been hot to start the season, but I think it’s time they get down more on their own level, like Washington. I say we take at least two of three of this series, but with the Marlins, you never know what might happen. Olsen has pitched great and bad against us before and he is a lefty, so look for Matty to hopefully have a really good game in his favorite ballpark.