Catcher’s Blog

Ok, so I’ll be a nice blogger and send my congrats to the Phillies for winning the World Series and bringing us into the off season earlier than expected. Ok, there (even if it is a week late).

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I will go on to say that the off season has officially begun. About this time last year (earlier actually), we traded Edgar Renteria for Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez. Now it’s looking as if it was a genius move by Frank Wren since Renteria had a less than stellar season in ‘08 and the Tigers are declining his ‘09 option for $11 million. Hopefully we have more brilliant trades like this one from Frank Wren in the near future.

There are a lot of trade rumors starting to surface and MLBTR has posted their 2009 Top 50 Free Agents list. This list mentions three free-agent possibilities for the Braves. Below are the names and MLBTR reasons for matching the player with the Braves, followed by my comments in bold.

• Ben Sheets - Braves. Under this scenario, the Braves are unable to land Jake Peavy via trade.  Sheets is one of many possible free agent pitchers the Braves may consider.  The Red Sox or Dodgers could be other suitors.
  - I could see this happening, I’ve read in different places that Sheets could land in Atlanta. The only problem I see with this is that Sheets is somewhat injury-prone, which might not be a good combination.
• Raul Ibanez - Braves. Even after bringing in two starters, they’ll have money left over for left field.
  - I’m not sure what to think about this since I’m not too familiar with Ibanez. Here’s his baseball-reference.com stats.
• John Smoltz - Braves. I see no reason Smoltz would leave after all these years.
  - This is agreed 100% if Smoltz is able to make a return.

Not too much to mention other than free agents filing and a lot of speculation so far. The GM Meetings kicked off today and will go through Thursday. A new Mailbag was posted on the official site with a few good points.

Also, speaking of free agents, you could win tickets to an Opening Day 2009 game by playing Free Agent Frenzy, which is basically fans guessing where free agents will end up next season. The contest runs until November 12th. I made my guesses, you should, too, while nothing else is going on in the world of Hot Stove.

I’ve been following the Jake Peavy rumors all week since they broke and I haven’t really posted anything about them on here. The main reason is because right now they’re just speculation and who knows what might happen with this situation. Everyone is saying that the Braves are indeed the front runners in this, but who knows what other teams have to offer? I’m sure there will be plenty more of this topic mentioned within the coming weeks, as the trade could be completed with the right offer most anytime now, or so the rumors say.

I was sent an e-mail from the host of Baseball Daily Digest, Eric SanInocencio. He mentions that FOX Sports Writer, Ken Rosenthal, was on the show today to discuss the whole Jake Peavy situation and what could possibly go down within the next few weeks. Rosenthal believes, as does many other writers, that the Braves are the front runners for Peavy’s services. Rosenthal talks a good bit about Peavy and possible scenarios. Check out the show.

In other news, I’m still working on a write-up that will hopefully be done soon. Be on the lookout for that post.

This is my review post on the Braves vs. Marlins game from August 28, 2008. The link to all the pictures will be below the review since there are 85 pictures; it would take too long to include all of them in the post. Some are linked in the post, though. Please continue reading if you wish.

Read the rest of this entry »