Atlanta Braves – Baseball Primer
Here’s the Baseball Primer Braves preview. Fraser picks the Braves to repeat, making him almost unique. He’ll look like a prophet in six months.
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Is anyone besides me bummed (or, OTOH, jazzed, or even care at all) that the AA team is moving from Greenville to Pearl, Mississippi? Or does it make a difference to you one way or another?
Just curious
Being from Mississippi, I’m glad to see it. Don’t know the reasoning, though. Is the Greenville stadium in bad shape like Macon was? I know the city of Pearl gave them a sweetheart stadium deal.
At first I was bummed when I saw part of the AJC’s sports section was going premium. Then I realized this means I will never accidentally read a Terence Moore column again. Hallelujah!
I hadn’t heard about the Greenville-Pearl move, but I’m a little bit bummed. There was always a chance that I might swing through Greenville on a trip and could catch a game. No one swings through Mississippi.
From what I can tell, Greenville offered the Braves some money but Pearl offered more. I think it goes with the radio move in that a short-term gain will be outweighed by a long-term loss. South Carolina is more important to the Braves than Mississippi, and Pearl isn’t really a AA-size market.
One positive is that the team will presumably switch divisions in the Southern League, so they’ll come to Birmingham more often now.
The LA Times picked the Braves to repeat and the Phils to finish third. Some people have learned their lesson, I guess…
Pearl is not a large market per se, but it is a suburb of Jackson, which is the largest city in Mississippi several times over. The white flight from Jackson has gone east and northeast to Rankin (where Pearl is) and Madison Counties. It’s to Jackson as Hoover-Vestavia is to Birmingham and Alpharetta is to Atlanta.
By the way, the Braves made their final cuts today. Betemit, Hollins and Hodges were sent down. Marrero was put on the DL with a strained abdominal muscle, joining Almanza and Byrd.
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TRANSACTIONS?SITE=APWEB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Here’s the opening day roster composition as far as I can tell:
STARTING PITCHERS (5): Ortiz, Hampton, Ramirez, Thomson, Wright
RELIEVERS (7): Smoltz, Alfonseca, Cunnane, Cruz, Reitsma, Nitkowski, Gryboski
CATCHERS (2): Estrada, Perez
INFIELDERS (7): LaRoche, Giles, Furcal, DeRosa, Garcia, Hessman, J. Franco
OUTFIELDERS (4): A. Jones, C. Jones, Drew, DeWayne Wise.
Comments?
My comment is an obvious one: bench looks 2nd grade-sissy-girly-weak. Hessman has a bit of pop, Franco can hit lefties, but Wise, Garcia, and Perez scare no one.
And Hessman only made the team because Marrero is on the DL …
Did Mark McLemore retire or something? I think he would be a great pickup. He can play every position except catcher and pitcher and he hits well from both sides of the plate.
Did they really pick Wise over Hollins? I’m a littel disappointed on that – mostly just wanted Hollins to get some ML service time sicne he’s spent so much time in the organization
Yeah, they really kept Wise over Hollins, apparently because Wise hits lefty …
So Javy’s first at bat in Baltimore is a HR. As if the rack of discounted #9 Jerseys in the Clubhouse store wasn’t depressing enough.
Hollins does have ML service time. Not much, like a month, but some.
The Braves obviously weren’t going to enter the season with no lefthanded hitter on the bench. And between the Garcia nightmare, Branyan’s failure, and the necessity to carry six righthanded relievers, it pretty much had to be the extra outfielder. It’s stupid, but there it is.
Eric, you mean YOU don’t swing through Mississippi