The Official Site of The Atlanta Braves: News: Late heroics rescue Braves
Hooray.
Super Glove Man Mark Kotsay was the DH, batting eighth. So far, the Braves seem to be resisting the “obvious” move and are hitting their two best candidates in the 1 and 2 spots — KJ 1 and Escobar 2 today. Weird.
God forbid that they’re actually thinking of using that 1-2. 😉
Look who played center: Gregor Blanco, who went 1-3 with a walk. They’re probably wanting to see how he is defensively and also looking to get both Kotsay and Blanco ABs. If that’s case, then I don’t see why there was sarcasm.
a lot of interesting thoughts are over at mlbtraderumors. delgado is having an mri today and 2 teams have lost their shortstops. selling high on lillibridge might be a good idea.
And what if Escobar hits a wall? Where would the Braves be then?
I don’t think that you can build a team by constantly planning for the worst. If the Braves are convinced Escobar is the man, and if there’s demand for Lillibridge, they’d be foolish not to make a move.
I know that its still spring training, but Tex is yet to record a hit… low average, free agency year, seem familiar?
Don’t worry about it. He’s going to mash.
He’s had what, eight plate appearances? (I’m certainly not going to look it up.) That’s the equivalent of a two-game hitless streak. Big whoop.
Yeah, not worried.
Santana and Bedard had bad outings also, I guess this is the year that all the great players will suck
And let’s just say that I certainly don’t expect Glavine to keep up the strikeout-per-inning pace either.
Braves’ official website says Mike Hampton will pitch tomorrow.
Mac,
Yeah, you’re right about Escobar.
As for Teixeira, I’m as worried about him as I am about Smoltz pitching “on the side”: very little.
#12 – do we have a better chance of a Hampton fluke injury or Hampton actually pitching tomorrow?
Super Glove Man Mark Kotsay was the DH, batting eighth.
He even had a hit! Off the immortal Sam Gervacio! Kotsay sooooo ownes minor league closers.
I wouldn’t be too sarcastic with that comment, Robert. Knowing the Braves, since Kotsay got a hit and KJ went hitless, you will now see Kotsay at the top of the order for the rest of spring. God, I hope not!
The idea of watching Hampton pitch actually makes me want to watch a spring training game….
Why trade Lillibridge at all? Having quality depth in the infield is not a problem especially when you know Chipper will miss several weeks at some point in the season. The only way you trade him is if you get back a top of the rotation starting pitching, but there aren’t any of those available at this point and the Braves don’t need another.
Well, obviously, whether you trade Lilligbridge depends on what you are offered for him. YOu don’t trade him just to trade him but if you were blown away by an offer that would improve the team, then do it.
As for Teixera, come on. You’re worrying about the first two games of spring training? This is what the internet does; allow fans to obsess over the meaningless.
I’d personally rather trade Escobar than Lillibridge.
Chipper tweaked his hamstring & had to come out of BP. It has begun.
http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080302&content_id=2400101&vkey=spt2008news&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl
Off to a great start….
He’ll be fine by Opening Day. I say get all the injuries out of the way early.
@20 And this is why we shouldn’t even think about trading Lillibridge!
timo,
Well, Mac is right; you shouldn’t build a team based on what can go wrong. However, Chipper’s hammy says that there is now a need to keep Escobar AND Lillibridge around on the team.
I believe you are all forgetting about two other players on this team: Martin Prado and Omar Infante. Who wouldn’t want to see one of them at third for twenty or thirty games?
I dunno if jea is being sarcastic, but having Martin Prado or Omar Infante at third for a stretch of games wouldn’t be the end of the world, considering who else we’ve thrown out there the past couple years. They’d play good defense, and they wouldn’t kill us with the bat.
Hampton throws two scoreless innings.
Replacing Chipper Jones with Martin Prado for any decent-sized number of games is a huge loss for the Braves.
yeah , and so is replacing chipper with anyone………..unless theres a hall of famer third baseman lurking in the minors. years ago, i used to hang out with a bunch of red sox fans who treated every spring training bump or bruise like it was the allies getting beaten back into the sea on D-Day. then the season would start and they would imagine every horrible scenario possible and wait for the sky to fall. (and it usually did) now a lot of the braves fans here are sounding a lot like them.
@24 sam, you’re right however knowing chipper’s fragile past years and kotsay in center, i think it makes a lot of sense to have a very capable back-up player arounf. i for one don’t want to see prado anywhere close to atlanta this year.
@29, barrycuda, just being realistic here, nothing else. and i am expcting chipper to play 140 games.
Hampton looks graet.
Not graet, but great.
@28
My point wasn’t that trading Chipper’s production for Infante/Prado’s is a wash, but that Infante/Prado will be a lot better than the Chris Woodward/Pete Orrs of the world. It’s kinda nice to know we have a decent bench this year.
That’s like saying herpes is better than syphillis.
i guess it is?
and another scoreless inning by damian moss fwiw
Prado isn’t any good.
Despite that, watch him and Infante play a combined 40 games at second base while Kelly Johnson and his .390 OBP sit on the bench.
i can guarantee that kelly johnson won’t be on the bench for 40 games if he has a .390 obp. kelly had 600 at-bats last year (521 at bats recorded and 79 walks). he wasn’t on the bench very often. he at least made an appearance in 147 of the 162 games played.
always a relief to have something like that gauranteed.
Player A and Player B both played at AAA last year as 23-year-olds.
Player A — .287/.331/.436
Player B — .316/.374/.420
Who are they? Hint — one is a highly touted prospect, the other is routinely dismissed on message boards.
Falcons sign Michael Turner. I don’t know what their problem with Norwood is, but Turner is very good. So much for drafting McFadden.
I’ll bite: Brent Lillibridge and Martin Prado.
Mac, who do you want on your bench? Should we call up the New Yorks and see if Jose Reyes and Robinson Cano can come be our middle infielder bench players? I don’t understand why we make such a big deal about our bench players, especially when they’re actually decent this year.
Correct — Lillibridge is A, and Prado is B.
I’m not advocating a platoon or anything, just saying that Prado can indeed play.