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.

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.

Last off season, I did a series on the Braves’ roster and what our options at each position were before the season started. This year I’m thinking about doing the same thing, only not quite to the same extent because it took way too long to do last time. I won’t start this probably until January or around there, but there’s a fanpost on TalkingChop about where we stand so far. It’s pretty detailed payroll-wise and it’s sorted pretty well by each facet of the team, so have a look if you wish. It’s a very nice read and a good reference as well.

Another off season-speculation read is on MLBTR, which is an abbreviated version of the newly-posted Braves Mailbag, and discusses options for the Braves “big bat” on the off season checklist for next season. If you wish to read the whole Braves Mailbag on the official site, feel free to do so here. MLBTR throws out a few names mentioned by Braves beat writer, Mark Bowman, in which the Braves might be seeking services from. My take on this is that the Braves do not want to overpay an outfielder just to play here for a year or so and are looking to trade for the power-hitting outfielder that they need to bolster the lineup in 2009 without having to fork over a lot of money while doing so. Who will it be? I would say an Adam Dunn-type player or around that equivalent; someone who’s not too old and isn’t declining and someone who hits for power with consistency. Mark Bowman named, specifically, Xavier Nady that would probably be the better option. We’ll have to see, though. Still a while to go before the season starts and even a few weeks before teams even start gearing up for the Hot Stove League.

DOB’s latest blog addresses the upcoming off season needs as well. He mentions a few names as well that the Braves might have some interest in or might even take a look at at the very least, some of which are not mentioned in the Mailbag, but are definitely worth a look or two.

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.