Category: Player Analysis 2013

With the exception of Andrelton Simmons, Julio Teheran is the most important player in the Braves organization. Thanks to a winter spending spree, the Braves have both locked up through 2020 (in Teheran’s case, it’s...

Will Jason Heyward finally break out with a full and healthy season of all-star offense to match his all-world defense? Will he ever put together the kind of year that both the numbers-counters and advanced-metric types agree...

On January 24, 2013, the Braves acquired LF Justin Upton and 3B Chris Johnson from the Arizona Diamondbacks for infielder Martin Prado, pitcher Randall Delgado, and three minor leaguers. For the very short term—as in, a single...

Well, THAT was quick. A day after announcing that Kris Medlen’s MRI revealed elbow ligament damage and conceding that Medlen, Beachy, and Minor might all open the season on the Disabled List, Frank Wren managed to sign the...

Orange line = PAs per month Blue area = OPS per month Zero values indicate injury or being sent down.

The former Future All Star/Next Andruw Jones/Suspended for PEDs/Home Run in his First AB/F@%*ing Success/Traded to and Released by the LAstros, was the 25th man on the roster last season. It was presumed he would be released or...

Andrelton Simmons is the best defensive player in baseball. He’s the first Brave to win that title by acclamation since the heyday of Andruw Jones, and in related news, Braves pitchers allowed fewer runs per game — 3.38...

I asked Alex if I could have the Mat Gamel write up. I love marginal players like this. They amuse me. They open themselves up to a bit more than a straight “what to expect from them statistically” bit. It’s...

What exactly is left to say about The Kraken? Craig Kimbrel is absurdly good at his job. Just stupid good. Craig Kimbrel is about to get really expensive. At some point in either the very near, or not quite very near but...

Last winter, the Braves and Angels made a challenge trade of promising pitchers with injury issues. The Braves got the better end of the trade (Tommy Hanson, sent to Anaheim in the deal, made 13 mostly-ineffective starts and was...

Continuing a theme from last thread, David Hale is another piece of what figures to be a mix-and-match back end of the Braves’ rotation this year. The Braves drafted Hale out of Princeton in the third round in 2009, and he...

Alex Wood is the first player from the 2011, 2012, or 2013 Braves draft classes to reach the major leagues. (He was the team’s second-round pick in 2012, #85 overall.) There are two major reasons for this: 1) He was a college...

First, the ugly truths via the ugly numbers: In November 2012, B.J. Upton signed with the Braves as a free-agent for $75,250,000, the largest such deal in franchise history. In the first campaign of his five-year pact, the new...

Living up here in the land that still thinks Jim Leyritz made the world right (rather than sending all right-thinking Americans into a decade-long funk) I try, unsuccessfully, to avoid following the Yankees. It’s not actually...

Chipper Who? Well, let’s not go too far. Chris Johnson was the “throw in” piece in the deal that brought Justin Upton over from Arizona. Initially he was considered to be a back up, possible platoon partner for Juan...

2013 was a breakout year for Freddie Freeman on the field, as he raised his OPS 101 points to almost .900 and made his first All-Star team. But even more fascinatingly, it was also the year he became the Braves’ — hell, the...