Catcher’s Blog

So today is a much-needed off day for our struggling Braves. I’m not sure that having an off day will do much of anything, but what could it hurt? Like the Braves play lately, I’ve been lazy and unenthusiastic about posting, mainly because I didn’t really want to focus on how bad things have become. So I won’t. I’ll make this a “good” post.

TalkingChop has been covering the September call-ups and with September just a few days away, I thought I’d link to those good posts. It’s a three-part series with hitters, pitchers, and roster fitting, but it’s a good read. Something to take your mind off the sting of the terrible games lately. Part one, part two, part three.

Also, I wanted to mention that I’ll be venturing to Atlanta to Thursday’s game against the Marlins. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as I’m thinking. The Marlins are off their game a bit lately and Charlie Morton is pitching against Anibal Sanchez. Hopefully this will be one of his good days. *crosses fingers* Anyway, I’ll be making a post this weekend on the game with pictures. Be on the lookout for that.

Kotsay cleared waivers, but a good bit of teams are supposedly interested in taking on his services, according to MLBTR and Ken Rosenthal.

Somewhat surprising new addition to our cleared waivers list - Braves center fielder Mark Kotsay.  Apparently a number of teams are interested in the resurgent Kotsay, though not enough to take on his remaining salary.

Mark Kotsay - Ken Rosenthal says he cleared and a number of teams are interested. Kotsay clearing is a bit of a surprise since the A’s are paying most of his salary. Kotsay can block trades to eight teams. The center fielder is having a nice comeback season with a .782 OPS in 324 plate appearances.

I’m pretty sure teams don’t want to have to pay his salary, but the A’s are footing over half of it. I really like Kotsay, though, but I think that while we are planning to acquire a power-hitting outfielder, someone needs to go at some point. It would be better to trade Kotsay before the season ends so that we can at least get a decent return, as he will be a free agent and we will probably get a supplemental draft pick from someone signing him, if at all, like we did last year for Ron Mahay. But that is if someone takes a chance on him, like we did this year, and signs him in the off season. I think a team will be in desperate need of a center fielder that is still in contention and we will trade him for the right offer.

Also, as we’ve already heard from many places, the Braves are looking to add a top-of-the-line starter next year.

The Braves nearly acquired Jason Bay in July, and will be in the market for a slugging outfielder this winter.  They’ll also be looking for a quality starter, likely in the Ryan Dempster/A.J. Burnett/Jon Garland range.  Click here to browse the free agent market.

I’m sure that we will go for at least one top starter, but I’m not so sure about Ryan Dempster, though. Maybe it’s just me, but he’s been a closer/reliever for a few years and he has been good this year as a starter. But to me, he’s been on a team that has no trouble scoring runs or winning ballgames. He may not be as good on another team, but I’m no expert. I could see us getting Ben Sheets or John Lackey maybe, and even Jon Garland, but I’m not sure about Dempster being so top-of-the-line like the other pitchers we have interest in.

And another note: Jo-Jo is making the start tomorrow in Glavine’s spot. This could be good or bad, but we’ll see.

What else could possibly happen this season? I really don’t think we want to find out, but I’m sure we still will within the last month and half left of the season. Glavine has now gone back to the DL for the third time and is possibly done while possibly needing surgery on his elbow. Matt DeSalvo has been brought up from Richmond to join the already tattered bullpen to take Glavine’s spot on the roster. What did we do the baseball gods because they really do not like us this season, at all. This a good interpretation of the season so far:

Now maybe that the dreaded Cubs are out of town and off to Florida, maybe we can acutally do well against the Giants. But I’m not holding my breath. Beware people, you never know what might go down in this soap opera of a season.