Category: Player Analysis 2011

Speed guy makes good. Bourn was drafted by the Phillies out of the University of Houston in 2003, in the fourth round, and had a minor league career you’d expect with his talent base — decent average, walks, a lot of...

Disturbing. Hicks probably won’t cost the Braves anything, as the offensive difference between Diory Hernandez’s zero and his less-than-zero should be pretty minor as long as AAG stays healthy. It’s rather what...

An odd assortment of strengths and weaknesses. I’d rather have that than a bench player who’s mediocre at everything. Young’s from Temple, Texas (like Lance Berkman). He played three years at New Mexico before...

The primary beneficiary of Joe Mather playing himself off the team. Conrad got by far the most major league playing time of his career last year, mostly as a pinch-hitter. He played in 103 games, entering 58 of them as a...

Just pitched so damned well that the Braves put him in the rotation over Mike Minor, even though Minor also pitched well. So I look pretty stupid. Beachy is from Indiana and went to a small college there. That part of the...

I don’t normally profile the manager, but normally the manager has been the same guy every year. Hence, the new guy: Fredi Gonzalez was born in Cuba in 1964, but grew up in Miami. He was a 16th-round draft pick of the...

If anything happens to Brian McCann or David Ross, it would seem that J. C. Boscan has replaced Clint Sammons (no longer in the organization) as the guy they’ll call up. Nothing better happen to them. Boscan, proof that...

The last spot on the roster will, presumably, go to somebody who can play centerfield. I suppose it’s possible that the Braves would go into the season with nobody on the roster to back up Nate McLouth except Joe Mather,...

I kept putting this off, but it really looks like the Braves, barring some NRI playing out of his head in spring training, really are going to go into the season with this guy as the backup shortstop and only real backup...

In the starting rotation, there are two pitchers who might go if something goes wrong with one of the top five, though unless someone gets hurt or Mike Minor is really bad, I don’t think anyone has much of a chance of...

Two ragarmed righthanders in their thirties. Linebrink was a second-round pick of the Giants way back in ’97 who flopped as a starter and was dealt after all of three major league relief outings to the Astros for the...

Brought in to do the LOOGY thing even though there’s little evidence that this is the best way to use him and last year he couldn’t get anyone out no matter how they hit. Sherrill’s career splits are much, much...

Missed much of the season with mono, starting around the All-Star break and sidelining him, or confining him to mopup duty, for most of the second half. When healthy, he was excellent, working mostly as a lefty specialist but...

Did not make the expected and normal gains the second year back from Tommy John surgery; in fact, he declined somewhat, though his ERA was only up a little (2.97 from 2.84). Most notably, after allowing zero homers in 2009, he...

Came out of nowhere last year to anchor the Braves’ bullpen, leading the team with 83 innings pitched in relief, second with 79 appearances (sixth in the league), and finished eighth in the rookie of the year voting. Not...

While turning over the top bullpen role to a mostly untested (21 mostly low-leverage appearances last year) 23-year-old near-rookie with a history of massive control problems is perhaps not unpredecented, it is nonetheless...

Seems to be pencilled in, very heavily, as the #5 starter, both because he’s lefthanded and all the other starters are righties, and because really he’s the best man for the job, even if he didn’t look it in...

That’s the other side of the coin. Jurrjens’ ERA went from 2.60 to 4.64, while his strikeouts and walks stayed almost exactly the same as in his two previous campaigns. So a lot of that was “luck”, balls...

I guess that’s about the best we could have hoped for. Lowe went out every fifth day and gave the Braves league-average pitching, which with the Braves’ offense and relief pitching was enough to win more than they...

Can we ignore wins and losses now? Hanson pitched very well in 2010, putting up a 3.33 ERA (though he allowed 11 unearned runs, for a 3.82 run average, after allowing just one unearned run in 2009) but finished 10-11 due to...