Really has no business at all making the roster, only he is (a) out of options and (b) the last Canadian on the team.
Thorman was handed the platoon first base job and played pretty well in March and April. He started playing most of the time when Craig Wilson was released, and simultaneously stopped hitting at all. The Braves desperately flailed trying to replace him with Saltalamacchia, Julio, and even Woodward, before Teixeira stabilized the situation, probably a couple of weeks too late. Thorman’s .216/.258/.394 season (in 120 games, 287 ABs) is probably reason #3 (after the travails of the bottom of the rotation and Andruw’s substandard season) that the Braves missed the playoffs.
The guy has real power. He just can’t connect often enough to make use of it, or draw enough walks to balance a low batting average. Painfully slow, not a good first baseman, 26 years old. Is probably not as bad of a hitter as he looked last season, but he could hit forty points higher and still not be any good… Bad against righthanders, but Belliardian (.176/.227/.221) against lefties.
His results in the Mexican League this fall were not good either. Actually, WAY off from his AAA days.
Once again I get to the computer 30 minutes before Mac, thus orphaning my most recent wit and/or wisdom.
That’s fine, I can take it. Reposting:
BP’s top 11 Braves prospects is up:
Five-Star Prospects
1. Jordan Schafer, CF
2. Jason Heyward, RF
Four-Star Prospects
3. Brent Lillibridge, SS
4. Brandon Jones, LF
5. Gorkys Hernandez, CF
6. Jair Jurrjens, RHP
Three-Star Prospects
7. Julio Teheran, RHP
8. Tommy Hanson, RHP
9. Cole Rohrbaugh, LHP
10. Cody Johnson, OF
11. Jeff Locke, LHP
Just Missing: Joey Devine, RHP (now with Oakland); Steve Evarts, LHP; Kris Medlen, RHP
OK, just so I’m not hijacking the thread right away — Thorman sucks.
Any chance of Thorman platooning with Mark Teixeira?
No, seriously I think the Braves trade Thorman before the start of the season. I just cannot imagine a way that he makes the team. He is pretty much useless for anything (starting, bench, defense, etc…). Who else is out of options that the Braves trade?
Kenny,
I am all for trading the lumbering Canadian, but who the hell would want a stiff like Thorman?
It only adds to the increased importance of throwing the “financial kitchen sink” at Teixeira.
Boy, Thorman is worse than I thought. It’s probably best that goes somewhere else to play lest his belief that bacon should be round instead of in strips causes dissention amongst the team.
The thing is, what happens if Teixeira goes down for any amount of time? Would that usher in the Barbaro Canizares era?
Someone will take a flyer on Thorman. Power is still the most important thing in MLB. I am not saying you will get anything resembling a quality player, but you may get a lower level relief type pitcher.
Or maybe you can add something ot Thorman and get something. Either way, we really don’t need to use a roster space on him unless somehow in Spring Training it starts to click.
As for Barbaro, he is 27 or so, he’s only been in Americn ball for 2 years,and he is a lefty killer at AAA (around 1000ops, drops to 700 against righties, and I know, Thorman killed righties in AAA for a season or so too); however, there probably is a reason he is not considered highly.
“Belliardian”
I like that. If Thorman is Belliardian, what is Langerhans?
Bad.
Thorman, Orr, Woodward, Julio: what a bench!
To his credit, Thorman has produced some of the most violent strikeouts in recent memory. That guy swings HARD. Also, if ‘scowling, muttering obsceneties and marching back to the dugout in a menacing way after a strikeout’ were officially recognized statistics, he would be an All-Star.
The Braves might hold on to Thorman some how. Release then sign to a minor league contract? His minor league stats are close to what Adam LaRoche produced with almost the same path. Who knows?
kenny,
i just spit coffee all over my desk after reading your first comment…nice.
I see thorman putting forth another “good” spring training upping his value, and the braves trading him for (insert emergency need here) like they always do in April.
platoon…hilarious and oh so scary at the same time.
People complained that Andruw didn’t show enough emotion after striking out. At least you can’t say that about Thorman. (Actually he reminded me of myself playing tennis–the muttering and swearing I mean.) Did anyone ever tell him that baseball is not football, that trying harder doesn’t mean you will be a better hitter?
652 OPS from a 1B? Nice. What a way to start my day…
#12
Tennessee Brave – would you take Thorman’s scowling, angry strikeouts over the infamous ones we used to get from Klesko?
#13
Johnny – I love your positive outlook and optimism, that’s awesome. But Thorman sucks. He truly is the modern day Brad Komminsk.
For 2007:
“Scott Thorman had the longest average homerun in the NL at 409 feet”
Marc-
Andruw showed PLENTY of emotion – the wrong kind; myself and many Braves fans hated that stupid smirk he always had, even when he was in the midst of one of his typical, maddening, 5 week long slumps.
18 — i’d be curious to see what the average HR distance is in each park.
in philly it’s got to be about 275, right?
Good timing on the Thorman player review. Maybe posted yesterday, but Pirates and LaRoche agree to 1-year $5mil contract. I don’t miss Adam, but Thor obviously was no answer.
And I thought you didn’t have Andruw to kick around any more. I’ll bet it won’t be mid-May before I’m the only one who misses him.
How far away is Heyward?? Isnt he projecte to be a 1B??
Alex,
I understand your point that it was frustrating to see Andruw smirking. But I don’t think you can judge how much a player cares by his demeanor. Look, I was never the biggest Andruw Jones fan but I never had the impression that he didn’t care. And I don’t think his deameanor last year was any different than when he hit 51 home runs.
Maybe we should keep Thorman to serve as some sort of enforcer in case anyone throws to close to Chipper. Instead of taking the chance the Chipper gets hurt in the ensuing fight Thorman can race out of the dugout and clobber the pitcher and take the suspension instead as well.
“… NOT the only one who misses him.” Old brains and arthritic fingers are almost as muchg fum as last year’s bench.
Damn. I hope somebody understands what I tried to post.
I won’t miss .222 at any time this year.
Alex, from the last thread, that sounds like a great idea. I’d love to.
Coop; Re @26
I got it!
I’m looking for hope on the Mighty Thor. His home runs are awesome. Smoltz designated him as the guy to hide behind if there’s a brawl.
Is there going to be a write-up on the Hitting coach? Can TP help Thor?
I shudder to think that the best evidence for Pendleton’s coaching is how bad these guys MIGHT be if he wasn’t helping!
I think it is pretty safe to say that Heyward is a long ways away. He was hitting at rookie ball last year.
And, the Braves are trying to keep him in right field. They believe he has a career track between Fred McGriff wthout hurting his shoulder (which moved him to first bsse) and Willie *** MCCovey with moderately more agile body. WOW.
And yes, if they bring him up in the next 2 years he better be toward the upper end of that assessment.
I won’t miss .222 at any time this year.
Considering our current options in CF, I wouldn’t be so sure…
@32,
If they keep him in RF, what happens to Frenchy? I would take a Willie McCovey-type career for sure.
Seriously, about the brawl. If Thorman and Tex lead the charge, the other team stands no chance. I bet Hudson would go insane in a brawl, too.
Marc @ 34:
If it takes more than 2 years for Heyward to be ready Francoeur could get priced out of town. Good chance Bobby’ll be gone; if he makes The Leap, he may not take a hometown discount.
Re: pricing our players out of town, didn’t Liberty buy the club to flip it for tax purposes? Any news on potential buyers or when the sale has to be completed for the tax benefits to be realized? I know Mark Cuban is attempting to purchase the Cubs. If that falls through. . ..
“I won’t miss .222 at any time this year.
Considering our current options in CF, I wouldn’t be so sure…”
Look at the bright side. We paid someone $15 mil last year to hit .222 in CF, at least this year it’ll only be $2 mil
“Re: pricing our players out of town, didn’t Liberty buy the club to flip it for tax purposes? Any news on potential buyers or when the sale has to be completed for the tax benefits to be realized? I know Mark Cuban is attempting to purchase the Cubs. If that falls through. . ..”
It my understanding that Liberty has to own the club for at least two years in order to avoid paying taxes for the purchase/stock swap. I’m guessing Arthur Blank will be the owner in the 2010-2011 era.
I looked too. Heyward is a right fielder….right now. Only 17 he is 6/4 220. Dang. I wonder how big he is gonna be once he ‘fills out’.
csg,
And the nice part is that if Kotsay is healthy, he will likely hit at least 70 points higher (and still cost $13 million less) despite being universally loathed by about 85% of Bravesjournal 😉
That extra cash will be better spent trying to keep Teixeira.
Blank is getting hammered by Atlanta media for his handling of the Falcons. I can’t really see him being interested in adding another Atlanta sports team. I also am not sure he has enough money anymore to buy a baseball team.
Why wouldn’t they keep Frenchy and move Heyward to left field and Schafer in Center and have a real outfield for a change.
I actually like the idea of having Thor on the bench. I’d take a lefty pinch hitter who can occasionally jack one into the upper deck over any of our recent bench options.
Blank definitely has enough money to buy the Braves. He was in the running, and would have bought the Braves was it not for this convoluted sale with the tax incentives.
I think would be fantastic if either Blank or Cuban were able to buy the Braves. However, I do not think MLB will ever let Cuban buy a team. There is a terrible fear among owners that someone like that would drive up salaries, much the same way Steinbrenner has done.
Kenny he could drive the salaries anymore than the Sox and Yankees are doing now. They are more scared of someone like Cuban coming in and challenging the way things are run.
Dutch,
And by occasionally you mean 4% of the time? I think I would rather have someone that can more consistently put the ball in play as my pinch hitter.
couldn’t drive is what I meant
Justin,
I totally agree. MLB owners are an archaic group. I am not justifying their thinking, but you hear it in a lot of the comments that Selig and some of the other owners say.
how many real owners are there anymore?………its mostly corporate BS. the game needs guys like cuban to liven things up. like ted turner tried to do.
I think only three or four teams have corporate owners.
I will be surprised if Thorman ever makes a contribution in the bigs. He swings like a crazy mofo.
Cuban annoys me. He’s like a child playing with his toys. Of course, so was Ted Turner but Turner actually did something significant with his money.
Blank was in the running to buy the Braves yes, but I think that was only because of his iconic status as one of Atlanta’s 3 or 4 billionaires. He was an obvious choice considering he already owned the Falcons.
I remember distinctly though that during the time the Braves were up for sale he said he didn’t have the money to afford to add another team. He ‘only’ ever had $2billion and roughly half of that went into buying the Falcons and the GA dome. I think buying another team might spread things too thin for him. He’d have to sell most of his remaining Home Depot shares to do it, and they comprise the majority of his current wealth I believe.
The Braves do need to get back to having a single owner with a real face people can see at games. Someone who cares about winning more than tax breaks. I’d love for Blank to do it but I don’t see it ever happening.
I’d love if Cuban took the reigns. We’ll still never have the budget of the huge market teams though.
Arizona Dbacks – Jeff Moorad
Atlanta Braves – Liberty Media
Baltimore Orioles – Peter Angelos
Boston Red Sox – John Henry
Chicago Cubs – Tribune Company
Chicago White Sox – Jerry Reinsdorf
Cincinnati Reds – Robert Castellini
Cleveland Indians – Larry Dolan
Colorado Rockies – Charlie Monfort
Detroit Tigers – Mike Ilitch
Florida Marlins – Jeffrey Loria
Houston Astros – Drayton McLane Jr.
Kansas City Royals – David Glass
Los Angeles Angels – Arturo Moreno
Los Angeles Dodgers – Frank McCourt
Milwaukee Brewers – Mark Attanasio
Minnesota Twins – Carl Pohlad
New York Mets – Fred Wilpon
New York Yankees – George Steinbrenner
Oakland Athletics – Lewis Wolff
Philadelphia Phillies – David Montgomery
Pittsburgh Pirates – Robert Nutting
St. Louis Cardinals – William O. DeWitt Jr.
San Diego Padres – John Moores
San Francisco Giants – Peter Magowan
Seattle Mariners – Nintendo
Tampa Bay Devil Rays – Stuart Sternberg
Texas Rangers – Thomas O. Hicks
Toronto Blue Jays – Rogers Communications
Washington Nationals – Theodore N. Lerner
MLB required Liberty to own the Braves a certain minimum. I think it was 5 years. This is separate and apart from the tax driven issue that is corrctly reported at two years.
Would MLB waive for the right party (meaning a friend of Bud and Jerry)? Yes. Could the Braves be “put on the market?” NO.
And Mark Attanasio’s brother, Paul, is the guy who created Homicide: Life on the Street and wrote the movie The Good German.
Also, this just in on Mark Kotsay: he hit a homer off Randy Johnson at Yankee Stadium on Mother’s Day, using a Breast Cancer Awareness pink bat. As the AJC reports, this prompted Nick Swisher to say: “If going yard off Big Unit at Yankee Stadium with a pink bat doesn’t make you a stud, I don’t know what does.”
Yessirree.
I like how Nintendo is an owner of an MLB team
Killing a bird with a pitch makes you a stud.
Using a pink bad to hit a homer off the guy who killed a bird with a pitch just makes you Mark Kotsay.
So only four teams, huh? My guess was right. Three when the Cubs are sold.
Why must the Braves be one of the four? The team is lucky enough to not play in a dome or on astroturf or a stadium meant for football. But they get stuck with some faceless corporate owner in Colorado.
Basically the Braves’ set up in the 90’s was as perfect as you could hope for. A rich as hell single owner with a competitive streak who also happened to own a national tv station on which to broadcast his team’s games. A team located in the middle of the southeast where no other major cities had professional sports franchises. The best (probably) GM in the history of sports.
There was nowhere to go but down from there.
I voted today, it felt good.
Dan @60,
Be careful what you wish for. Individual ownership is no panacea. Living in the DC/Baltimore area, I have seen that up close with Peter Angelos and Dan Snyder. At least TW and Liberty haven’t tried to interfere with the baseball people. It could be a lot worse.
I basically want an individual owner who will do what I myself would do if I was a filthy rich owner of my favorite baseball team. I see Mark Cuban as that guy. I don’t know of any others out there. Sadly, I’m still working on my first $100k and thus am several years out from my first billion.
Had a conversation with someone last night who went to the Led Zeppelin show in London last month. He said he was at the merch table & he looked over & there was Randy Johnson, Big Unit/Big Zep fan.
He talked to him & said he was unbelievably cool. Johnson said he knew what song Zep would open the show with (“Good Times Bad Times”). He was right.
Speaking of Zep songs, I’m going to California. See you next week. Be nice, y’all.
Leaving the land of the ice and snow, huh?
Lucky son of a gun, you.
Be safe ububba
ububba-
No compromising photos again of you & Lindsay, Paris or Nicole when you get out there…
MLB has a stated policy to encourage individual/family ownership. Despite this, they refused to do anything to influence TW to sell to either of the interested local personal ownership groups (Blank and the Terwilligers).
Do you really think TW would give a damn about MLB’s ownership preference? I think TW was determined to make this deal; the only thing MLB could have done was threaten to not approve it and that would have risked a lawsuit from a company that can afford some really expensive lawyers. If they were afraid of Angelos suing over the Expos moving to DC, they had to be much more afraid of TW.
thx for the list, dix…….for some reason i thought that the private ownership was a thing of the past. y’know, like complete games.
Anybody read BP’s analysis of the Kotsay trade? They don’t seem to hate it quite as much as everyone here seems to, but they still grade it a win for the A’s.
Of course they don’t hate it as much. They’re not Braves fans. Besides, they love the potential thing too, sometimes.
The Braves have a roster crunch in ST. They have to choose between Thorman/Aybar/Anderson ( all out of options ) and between Yates/Boyer/Ring/Bennett ( all out of options )
Godot,
That sounds like a lot more trades are going to be made.
Lunatic%, I haven’t seen it. What do they say?
I am not sure I see the crunch as tight as you make it sound. Are you saying the Braves can only keep one from each group? Who are you assuming will be in the Braves’ pen?
FWIW, I think Resop would also be on the list.
Thinking about it, if they have 13 position players to start.
7 full timers ( McCann, Tex, KJ, Yunel, Chipper, Frenchy, Mr.Jamie )
2 for the LF platoon ( Diaz/Jones )
Infante as IF utility
Pena or Lopez at C
Anderson as OF backup/ Pete Orr memorial pinch runner.
So leaves 1 spot between Aybar, Prado and Thor.
12 pitchers:
Smoltz, Hudson, James, Glavine, Hampton ( HA HA )
Soriano, Moylan, Acosta, Ohman as the sure fire bullpen spots.
So Braves need a swingman and 2 bullpen arms between Yates/Boyer/Bennett/Ring. Thats not that bad a crunch.
Oops, forgot Resop. The Gryboski role. Add him to the last sentence.
woo hoo, its snowing in atlanta 🙂
Total body failure in the lead!
I wanna see Baxter Stockman get a shot at the pen. Mostly I just want that to be his nickname.
Drewdat, I fully support that desire, and that rationale. That’s a tremendous post. Well done, sir.
I voted for TBF (Total Body Failure) I can just imagin Hampton finishing his windup and just collapsing to the ground into a pile of jelly. Kind of like how the terminator would turn into molten metal.
Right, but the Terminator could re-form himself into a killing machine. Hampton lacks that ability.
Thats why I only talked about the turning into molten metal part.
Just read the BP writeup of the trade. Apparently the A’s were after Kris Medlen as the second pitcher in the deal. Glad we managed to not get tricked into throwing him in for another couple thousand bucks; kid’s gonna be good, maybe as early as this year.
I basically agree with BP’s assessment, that this was a very, very good deal for the A’s and a deal that will range from mediocre to poor for the Braves, depending on Kotsay’s health. Basically, his upside is “mediocre” and his downside is 2007 Mike Hampton, (with maybe a bit of 2005 Mondesi thrown in early). They mentioned that Patterson on a 1-year deal for $2-3M (which frankly is what I’d been hoping for) might have been an alternative.
As for Thorman, well, frankly he shouldn’t be rostered, especially if we keep one of the pure-glove CF’s around. Otherwise, I think we could make a spot for him, but it really looks like we need a RH bat off the bench rather than a lefty. I think I’d like Anderson and then Aybar (if he’s up to it) or Prado the best. Not really any power to speak of with that arrangement, but there are some useful players.
snowing in atlanta?? i think i’d prefer that to this cold-ass drizzle going on here in tallahassee. how well does ATL cope with the snow?……..in 1970 i was in the army at ft. gordon in augusta and we had about four inches of the stuff and everyone was in total panic mode ……..school buses in ditches, we couldnt leave the post etc.
I predict Hampton will return to the Braves in the peak physical condition of his life and will make it through the season unscathed.
But, unfortunately, his season will only last two innings as he will return with a major case of the yips.
I bet Hampton comes back stronger than ever, plus he’ll pitch RH this year
I’ve barely heard anything about Jordan Schafer’s role in this scenario at all; he seems to be a forgotten player in this mess.
The situation is two-pronged here. Not only do Kotsay and Anderson have to hold down the fort for a year, but Jordan Schafer has to improve his stock in Mississippi to show that he can be ready to take over at a moment’s notice.
Would it be such a total failure if Kotsay and Anderson are mediocre to bad, but Schafer develops well and takes over? Isn’t that what we ultimately want?
Yes, thats what we want, but then its makes this particular trade look worse and worse. Best case scenario would’ve been that we let Anderson and Blanco hold down the fort for the first half and Scafer comes in to take over sometime during the season. Here’s hoping that Kotsay starts off very strong and Schafer develops more than expected. Then hope we can ship off Kotsay for something around the deadline. It’ll never happen though
This is wrong, but my prediction to Mac over the phone a little while ago that Hampton comes out at Spring Training like Stephen Hawking, but declaring himself, “ready to pitch”.
I know what I typed looked pretty back. Stranger things have happened, though. Your scenario has a good chance of happening if Kotsay does well, because the Braves are only on the hook for $2 million. That could be attractive to someone else at mid-season.
What I’d rather have happen would be for Schafer to work on everything for a full year. That might be better for him in the long term; plus, it would prevent anyone from accusing the Braves of bringing him up too soon.
pretty bad*
Sam, just wondering, but do you think that rushing position players and rushing pitchers can have different affects on their later performance? I dont know really…
Mark Kotsay = Raul Mondesi (now in White!)
Hampton will fall into a hole in the Earth to cause said TBF.
I guess the question is if Hampton might actually collapse into a black hole and suck the entire planet into himself.
A black hole doesn’t really suck things into itself, but rather onto itself.
Well, yes. And if Hampton actually collapsed into a black hole, he would have exactly the same gravitational attraction he has now (slightly more than Tom Glavine) and would not actually cause the Earth to collapse. It’s a joke.
You didn’t say he’d cause the earth to collapse. You said he’d suck the earth into himself.
Okay already.
From what I can tell, he would probably fall through the Earth’s crust, oscillate around the center for awhile, and eventually settle in there at the center of the Earth’s gravity. Where he would still get paid.
jeez mine was a joke, too.
Besides, to get to the core he’d have to fall through the earth’s mantle too.
This is why the Braves have been promoting players straight from Double A lately, according to Peanut:
“Since moving their Double-A affiliate to Mississippi before the start of the 2005 season, the Braves have been more reluctant to move many of their top prospects to Richmond, where they would have been subjected to worse field conditions and fewer amenities, such as indoor batting cages.”
So maybe we’ll get to see pitchers develop further in Triple A once the team moves.
Secret Gwinnett Negotiations!
Braves-Gwinnett deal troubles some residents | ajc.com
BTW, do you think that the G-Braves will schedule their home games for when the big club is on the road?
Throw away the key!
Leyritz faces additional charge in fatal crash — South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
We had some of the most unusual injuries last year- Hampton’s Total Body Failure, Orr’s Pulled Suck Muscle, Woodward’s Lardner Syndrome (“Although he is a very poor fielder, he is a very poor hitter”), Scott Thorman’s Swing And Miss Compulsion, Craig Wilson’s Amputated Bat, Jeff Francoeur’s Selective Blindness (although that wasn’t nearly as bad as before), and Cox’s Anterograde Amnesia (the inability to remember which players deserved to play even though he saw them perform each day).
at 104: probably
i mean 107
And Mark Redman’s deformed upper body and left arm.
@112
it was actually listed as an ingrown toenail…but just as lame.
I already blocked it from my memory.
understandable
Brian J., hysterical.
I ask a question for someone smarter than I in this wide world of the Braves Journal.
I was reading the 5 things you may not know about Kotsay article and it mentioned him pitching in college and always trying to convince a manager to let him pitch in the big leagues, to this point unsuccessfully. I remember always wanting Cox to give Roachy a chance to pitch, I saw him pitch in college and he could bring it from the left side.
Anyway, I was racking my brain trying to figure out when the last time that a position player pitched for the Braves. I can’t seem to recall one in the most recent Cox era. I can certainly remember a couple of memorable non pitchers pitching against the Braves, namely Jose Oquendo when he played all 9 positions (I believe in ’88 or ’89) and the immortal Brent Mayne (getting Chipper Jones out among others) for the Rockies a few years back.
Please help !!
Also, who would have made the best pitchers over the years as far as position players go ?? I think Furcal and Roachy would be in my top five for sure.
I for one was surprised to hear that Orr was playing while hurt From where I stood, his suck muscle seemed to be performing extremely well. So well, in fact, that there were whispers of ‘roid usage or even HGH.
In the immortal words of PTI, Goodnight, Canada.
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