ajc.com | Braves | Hammond also exiting
To the Yankees. That’s even worse than the Mets. Typically, the Yankees splurged; two years, $5 million, with an option for $3 million. (And actually, Stanton turned down the same offer.)
The Braves offered arbitration to Greg Maddux, Julio Franco, Darren Bragg, and Keith L
Wow! $5m for a pitcher with 70 innings in the majors since 1998. Yeah, he was great this year, but he stunk up the joint in 96, 97 & 98 and wasn’t even in the show in 99, 00 or 01. His last even major league average season was 95.
Teams should learn from Hammond (and Cabrera, Holmes, Ligtenberg, Remlinger, etc.) that careful scouting, quality coaching, and narrowly defined roles can allow *anyone* to do OK in the bullpen. Instead, clubs have thrown bazillion dollars at pitchers whose pedigrees are very limited.
The Braves are better off not committing their supposedly limited funds to off-the-shelf relievers. Thanks for the great work Chris, but at this cost, you won’t be missed.
I agree that Hammond is generally expendable (and he got less money than Remlinger, egads!), but with the loss of Spoon, Remlinger, Hammond and the possible move of Smoltz to the rotation, who is in the Braves’ pen along with Holmesie in 2003?
Will Ligtenberg be back? This makes John Foster the top lefty in the pen. Noooooo!!!
Check that, Hammond got more money than Remlinger. My incredulity was placed correctly, but my fingers moved faster than my brain.
The Braves will find relievers, they always do. I’m more upset about L
Was Hammond arbitration eligible? And if so why didn’t the Braves offer arbitration with the goal being to get a pick when someone elsed signed him and the down-side being one year of a good lefty at a slightly high price?
I agree with Mac on L
Read this morning that Mike Stanton was cut loose by the Yankees to make room for Hammond and Mark Freakin’ Guthrie. Still don’t understand why they would give Hammond (who’s a year older and has a far worse track record of both performance and health) twice the money they were giving Stanton last year. Maybe the Braves can bring Stanton back.
They offered the same contract to Stanton (and to another LH free agent) as they did Hammond. Stanton turned them down.
Keith will return, like he always does, as the lefthanded PH. Over the last three years, over a span of about 760 PA, Lockhart has an OPS of about 630 vs. righthanders…