Cox voted NL manager of year | | ajc.com
It’s his second with the Braves, his third overall, but his first since 1991. I guess they finally ran out of excuses for not giving it to him.
Cox voted NL manager of year | | ajc.com
It’s his second with the Braves, his third overall, but his first since 1991. I guess they finally ran out of excuses for not giving it to him.
He still gives the credit to someone else…
“I thought Tony deserved it, to be honest,” Cox said. “I would be more than happy to split that trophy and have both our names on it.”
This guy truly is one of the fantastic men in baseball. I’m glad to have him on our side.
Disturbingly, in an AJC article today an organizational source was quoted as saying the Braves had about 4 million to spend in free agency. I know the math was done here, and if we keep the same payroll we should have about $15 mil minus Smoltz’s starter increase. If the team only spends 4 mil in free agency and doesn’t pick up talent via trade, I’m going jump off a cliff. Twice.
I hope Andruw Jones is our center fielder for many years to come. It’s debatable whether or not he is “worth” his contract, but he is no doubt a great player, and I love having him on the Braves, for his all-around play (though of course there are times i would like to slap him for a bad at-bat).
That said, I’ve heard in so many rumors that we’re open to trading him. Schuerholz has made some great moves in recent years but i can’t remember him trading an all-star cornerstone in his prime.
So, what do you think he could get?
Whatever one might think of Bobby’s strategic instincts, I have always been impressed by his estimation of where he sits in the cosmos. In an era of sickening self-aggrandizement coming from both coaches and athletes, it’s always refreshing to find a guy who is truly just happy to have the opportunity to be doing what he’s doing.
I read somewhere (I think ESPN) that the Braves are considering trading Andruw for Kevin Brown. In essence trading 39 million over the next 3 years for 15 million this year. If they did that then they would have to re sign Drew.
I think we’re forgetting that we need to re-sign Drew anyway, regardless of whether they trade Andruw or not. Granted, we do have options at right field, and it would become a must situation if we let Andruw go, but it would drastically behoove us to re-sign Drew anyway. Drew’s superior offense will not make-up for Andruw’s superior defense (though I can’t prove it) and we will still be stuck without a proven right fielder.
As you can read in Aaron Gleeman’s article The Meat Market: Outfielders, the other options in the outfield basically… suck. Richard Hidalgo’s name has been mentioned here before, with mixed reviews, and at the price he could be obtained for, he might not be too bad of a gamble. Jermaine Dye also might not be such a bad gamble, considering the portion of last season that he was healthy in he hit .285/.343/.505, very similar to Andruw’s career line of .268/.342/.493. Those are two examples that are gambles, but a lot bigger gambles than expecting Drew to repeat last season.
_Drew’s superior offense will not make-up for Andruw’s superior defense_
Actually, I think it does. Drew’s offensive win shares were 29, Andruw’s 12 — a difference of 17. Drew’s defensive win shares were 4.7, Andruw’s 7.4 — a difference of only 2.7. In other words, Drew’s bat is about 4 times as important as Andruw’s glove.
I do hope the Braves resign Drew, and I hope they only trade Andruw for the right package. I’m not sure if a salary dump for Kevin Brown is the right thing . . . but if they do that and resign Drew, then he can probably play center. Then they’d need a corner outfielder (although some of the rumors include Kenny Lofton — yuck).
Sentimentally, I don’t want to see Andruw go (especially to the Yankees). Practically, I don’t think Kevin Brown is a reliable option for next year. Basically, I don’t think it would be a good deal for Atlanta.
I think that the Yankees are going to sign Beltran anyway.
I think Kevin Brown is the biggest a$$hole in the league.
And I think Bobby Cox would chew him up and spit him out.
espn.com’s Top 50 FA list lists the Braves as the team most likely to sign Drew and Wright as well as Benitez, Millwood, and Bob Wickman.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?page=top50mlbfreeagents
I doubt we even have enough money for Drew, Wright, and Benitez, but I’d sure like to see those three in a Braves uniform on Opening Day (with Smoltz on the mound).
Yeah, I saw the same article. The big assumption is that they would all take big pay cuts to come back to the Braves. I’d be satisfied with Drew and Wright.
Another espn article – Gammons reports that the Braves are offering Marcus and Meyer for one of Oakland’s starters (hopefully not Zito).
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/gammons/story?id=1922717
This is ridiculous. I think I have to start discounting Peter Gammon?s comments. Is he and his team are getting so busy that they don?t have time to validate the truth of rumors?
I think it?s more likely for us to trade Furcal than Giles. Just like the Andruw rumor, there is no way the Braves will trade Giles.
Did you guys read Bill Shanks? article at
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=citadel-2_318611_248&prov=citadel&type=story
I think his comment is quite sensible, except the part about closer which I completely disagree.
I don’t discount the Gammon’s stuff. Even though it sounds like he just makes crap up he has had enough correct stories to make you wonder. I don’t think the A’s go for that one anyway.
Bill Shank’s article is interesting in that he may be the only guy on the planet that thinks Francouer is ahead of Marte. I can’t understand why the heck we’d trade for Kyle Farnsworth either. Other than that I guess he is entitled to do some fantasizing just like the rest of us. I’m always amazed at the Andruw lovers out there. The guy is a very good player but if we could trade his butt to some unwitting fool, and get a decent player in return the payroll flexibility alone would be worth it.
Finally I noticed that in the ESPN article that the Reds are shopping Austin Kearns. IMHO we should be making an offer. We could trade a couple of our TNSTAAPS and get a potentially good every day player. Even Jose Cappellan should be considered. I know that I’ll get flamed by that last statement but last year a lot of folks thought it was dumb to trade Marquis and Wainwright for Drew.
Al Lieter is now a free agent. Any chance we go after him? How does he stack up against K. Brown today? I assume the answer for the Braves is that he is too expensive.
Hey Johnny, I am not too high on that Farnsworth suggestion. In fact, I don’t think any of his comment on the bullpen is sensible.
Francouer and Marte, really doesn’t matter who is ahead of who, but I guess Marte is more valuable as he is a 3B.
Getting rid of Andruw? Who are we replacing him with? I don’t trust Drew in CF. What are the other good REAL and young CF out there? Beltran, Vernon Wells…who else? Torii Hunter perhaps? Just because he makes $13M doesn’t mean we have to trade him, and there is still hope that he will finally reach his potential.
I’d take Leiter in a heartbeat. He’s a leader, and also one of the smartest pitchers out there. Listening to him during the playoffs, he made the other guys look like absolute novices (not to hard to do to McCarver).
I’d trade Capellan for Kearns in a heartbeat. I’m sure it would take more, and I’d do that, too.
I like Leiter, but the Yankees are supposedly interested, and I really don’t expect him to leave NY. Kearns for Capellan almost makes too much sense considering each team’s needs. I think Kearns can do — with the bat, anyway — about what Drew just did, only the Braves would control him for three more years.
Plus it would piss off Terrance Moore if the Braves got a Reds outfielder who isn’t Griffey. But that’s just a bonus.
Yeah, it does make a lot of sense, does it? We gamble on an extremely talented outfielder, and the Reds take one of our possibly over-hyped pitching prospect (a fire-baller without a breaking pitch). Hey, they may even take Reitsma back as a starting pitcher!!!
Terence Moore has more of a clue about the Braves than Bill Shanks.
I’m glad that Bill Shanks is NOT the GM of the Braves.
I also think that I saw where the Reds are shopping Adam Dunn. They have to be out of their vulcan mind. But he is arbitration eligible this season and should get a biiiiiggggg raise. Nah I shouldn’t fantasize too much.
Do any of y’all think that the Braves will just settle for Langerhans in right field?
I like Drew a lot, but there is probably a team that would pay $8-10 million/year for a couple of years. He probably won’t get something long term next year, but if he has a good one, he most certainly will. The added bonus for him will be that the econmics will be better by then.
We should just keep Andruw, and focus on pitching. With what we got coming up through the minors, the next few years could be good offensively. Teach Capeelan how to throw an off-speed pitch, or make him a closer. Look for LaRoche to have a breakout year. He had a very good 2nd half, especially for Braves 1st basemen standards.
If we could find out if Millwood’s problem is just mechanics, we could tie him up for several years at a decent price.
I have a question – I’ve seen multiple articles where writers are saying the Braves want to resign Drew, and hope to move him to center field to ease the strain on his knees. How do they figure moving to center is less strain? Wouldn’t it be more running? What am I missing there? (besides the fact that Andruw is in CF, perhaps they expect him to be moved).
John,
You’re not missing anything. I assume if you are getting if from multiple sources that is all goes back to Will Carroll on BPro. I saw the sentence and began to understand why people give him such a hard time. I suspect it was mistake on his part. While I don’t know this, I suspect that CF is probably worse on the knees than either corner spot.
Supposedly a corner outfielder pivots and runs at angles moreso than a CF, therefore making it harder on the knees. I’m not sure I buy that, but that’s what I’m told.
Carroll was saying that last year and he still is after Drew had a career year with no leg injuries to speak of. I maintain that the biggest thing was just getting out of St. Louis, which is an injury vortex where everyone gets hurt, and to Atlanta, where the training staff is just much better. And I was saying that last year:
“Drew, even hurt, is better, and at his best is terrific. I hope Bobby and Jeff Porter can keep him healthy. Notice how many injuries the Cards have? Notice how relatively rarely a Braves regular misses significant time?”
On the other hand, here’s Carroll on Jaret Wright:
“He’d be stupid to leave Leo Mazzone behind.”
So he’s right sometimes.
In my experiences as an outfielder (last season as a junior in HS I was a corner outfielder, this season I am a CF), you pivot and run at an angle just as much as a CF than you do at either of the corner spots. You run more for a potential basehit, but the whole act of pivoting and running at an angle is the same.
I remember last year someone saying that CF would be easier b/c as a RF, Drew would have to chase balls along the foul lines and either have to stop suddenly or run into a wall along the lines, either of which was bad for his knees. In CF, he only has to worry about the outfield fence.