Which Nice Teams Are Starting Out Naughty?

Welcome to Atlanta, where your 8-25 Braves stand as the 2016 poster boys for mortgaging the present. It's hard to believe now, but the Cincinnati Reds have to wish they were the Braves.

The Reds tried to play both ends against the middle two off-seasons ago and ended up getting toasted both ways. After a 76-86 campaign in '14, they unloaded their second and third best starters but left the rest of the team intact, en route to a 98-loss season.

Having flipped ace Johnny Cueto for some future chips at last year's trading deadline, GM Walt Jocketty sent Todd Frazier to Chicago for more prospect goodies this off-season. And that was it.

Hanging on to middling veterans like Brandon Phillips, Jay Bruce (getting tagged out, left) and Zack Cozart, he left Joey Votto and the Seven Dwarfs to compete this year against the likes of Pittsburgh, St. Louis and the Cubs. By failing to convert veterans into promising youth, the Reds lack the prospect-laden farm system that hints at a brighter future.

At least the residents of Marietta, Georgia have a future to look forward to.

Others Worthy of Relegation
In short, neither Atlanta nor Cincinnati is surprising anyone with their wretchedness so far this season. Nor are the Twins, who blinded themselves into a false sense of hope with a moment of incandescence last season, nor the Padres, a basket case of a different weave, nor the A's, whose management seems to have run out of ideas about how to convert trash into energy. The Brewers are sowing the bad karma that building around Ryan Braun reaps, not to mention a pitching staff of the following luminaries: Taylor Jungeman, Jimmy Nelson, Willy Peralta, Chase Anderson and Zach Davies.

Then there's the Angels, despite a gargantuan payroll and two inner-ring Hall of Famers, who can't buy a run and whose best starter, now that Garret Richards got laid up is...um...the smoldering ruins of Jered Weaver? Dude hasn't fanned a Major Leaguer batter since 2014.*

It's possible we'll see some dead cat bounce out of Minnesota this year, but that's about the best this pile of owl upchuck can hope for. The real question for these franchises is whether they are on the way up or the way down, or whether they even have a way.

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other
All that leaves us with one head-scratcher, the Houston Astros. If ever a team was tailor-made for a season in which runs are being scored off big flies, it's this ultimate three true outcome team. Houston finished second in homers and fifth in walks last season, and first in whiffs, with seven batters accumulating 100+ Ks, including Colby Rasmus and Chris Carter, who fanned more than 300 times between them. (They also led the league in steals. Go figure.)

They're doing it again this year -- first in strikeouts, first in walks and fourth in going yard. The problem for the Astros is that the guys throwing the most innings are their worst pitchers. Starters 1-4, including last year's Cy Young, have been scorched fora combined 4.87 ERA. Starters #5 and #6 rock a combined 2.48 ERA and the bullpen has neither added nor subtracted.

The all-or-nothing offense combined with a pitching rotation regressing well beyond the mean have spelled doom for Houston, but there is good news in both the immediate past and on the horizon. They've won seven of their last 11 in large part because scads of ill fortune foisted upon them in April is settling out in May. The Astros have played sub-.400 ball so far but Baseball Prospectus projects them to play .543 the rest of the way. Projection systems are for movie theaters, but at least this suggests that the underlying conditions are there for a real recovery.

The early bottom feeders really do appear to be the sport's worst, with one exception. But baseball is a funny game and five months is an awfully long time.

*mild hyperbole but his average pitch speed is 82.7, or roughly how fast I can spit.

Fire Fredi Gonzalez? Fire Robert E. Lee While You're At It

The 7-20 Atlanta Braves have run up the flagpole the firing of manager Fredi Gonzalez. His dismissal can't be too many losses away.

Gonzalez has presided over a pair of losing skids this season -- eight and nine games -- bracketing a four-game win streak. They have the worst record in the game, befitting the worst collection of talent in the sport.

This is nothing new. Gonzalez skippered last year's sinking ship, which crashed after the All-Star break on a 22-53 record. He helmed the 2014 squad that cratered to an 11-22 finish.

Good Guy. Bad Manager?
Gonzalez's friends and detractors alike acknowledge that he's a good guy, a loyal soldier and a mediocre tactician, not the worst but far from the best in the Majors. Braves' brass evidently thinks Gonzalez is a patient teacher because they re-upped him and his coaching staff midway through last season as their sell-off began.

The Braves are in a tear-down in preparation for their move to Marietta. They've sold off or let go Craig Kimbrel, Shelby Miller, Andrelton Simmons, Jason Heyward, Justin Upton and Evan Gattis. In return, they signed Nick Markakis and collected a pile of prospects.

Blaming Fredi Gonzalez for leading this collection of Minor Leaguers and veteran castoffs to a losing record against a brutal early schedule (Nationals, Cardinals, Nationals, Marlins, Dodgers, Mets, Red Sox) is akin to blaming Robert E. Lee for commanding the rebel armies to a two-year losing streak against superior Union forces.

What If They Keep Losing?
The question has been raised about what happens if the losing continues. At 7-20, the Braves are "on pace" -- the stupidest pair of words in baseball -- to go 42-120, tied with the '62 Mets for the most losses in a season. So?  If management hands Gonzalez a 100-loss team, what difference does it make if they lose 90 or 120?

Obviously the public knows little about the internal workings of the franchise. Perhaps Fredi is insubordinate, shiftless or apathetic. Perhaps he's regularly voicing his displeasure to management about the direction of the franchise. Firing might be in order.

Or maybe it's just an act of mercy, although there are a lot worse things than a million dollar paycheck and access to the ballpark all summer. The Braves lack star power, but the teams they lose to have players worth watching.

The talk, however, is solely about the team's performance, which was largely pre-ordained by the people who would ostensibly do the firing. And for this team, at this time, that is the dumbest reason to fire the manager.

Agonizing Over the Irrelevant

Coming into the 2016 season, common wisdom had the Phillies as an ongoing laughingstock and the Braves taking a short hiatus before returning to contention at their new stadium next year.

What I saw was a rebounding Philadelphia squad already populated by many of the young players who would rescue them from oblivion, and a Braves team utterly abandoned by its front office and left almost completely without Major League assets.

Not Peachy in Georgia

That's not a knock on the Braves front office, just an acknowledgement that they've stripped the roster of talent, forsaken a perfectly comfortable 20-year-old stadium, jilted downtown Atlanta for the suburbs and left a Triple-A team on the field.

Besides Nick Markakis, mysteriously signed to a free agent contract last year before losing all his power, and the young tandem of Freddie Freeman and Julio Teheran, the latter of whom has scuffled early this season, there's not much big league talent. Management has its eye on 2017 or 2018, this year be damned.

Frankly Scarlet, They Don't Give A Damn
Which is why it's so sad to hear the Braves' broadcasts and talk to Braves fans. They suffer every loss, which have been legion; every opponent rally, which has flowed like honey; and every exhibition of ineptitude, which promises a spring, summer and fall of more torture. Still just April, the announcers are already running out of expressions of woe. It seems they aren't aware that this is just part of the plan and there isn't any purpose to agonizing over what doesn't even rattle the bosses. Frankly, Scarlet, they don't give a damn.

The Braves have plenty of talent down below and figure to be, at least, a representative team in the coming years. The Phillies, it appeared to me late last season and is now more evident, have a year or two head start. So really the only difference is that the antacid sales have moved south.

The Braves Won the Trade and Lost the Season

Of all the moves consummated so far this off-season, one of the most intriguing involves the Braves and Diamondbacks, in which the D-backs get an orange in exchange for some shiny rocks.

That is, Arizona knows what its end of the deal brings: Shelby Miller and a Single-A pitching prospect, which is to say, Shelby Miller. The 25-year-old righty enters his fourth season cost-controlled with a 3.22 lifetime ERA. If your immediate aim is a pennant, which is the profile of a team that signs Zack Greinke to a fat contract, Miller is a find.

Atlanta, by dealing Miller, is telling us what we already suspected: damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead to 2018. That's the year after the franchise basks in the fresh bloom of a new stadium in a new town.

So the Braves cashed in Miller for a haul of youthful talent. First, there's Ender Inciarte, also 25, who is all batting average, speed and outfield defense. Atlanta's young pitchers will appreciate his glove behind them in the field, not so much the lack of run support he'll contribute to.

Promising Triple-A hurler, 24-year-old Aaron Blair, might be one of those pitchers soon. Low strikeout totals belie low ERAs in high scoring environments. A good addition to a rebuilding club.

Then there's homeboy Dansby Swanson, the shiniest object in the bag. A shortstop out of Vanderbilt selected with the #1 pick in last year's amateur draft, he did nothing to diminish his status as a 21-year-old in Single-A. If your eye is on a distant horizon, the most recent #1 pick is a nice prize.

So the Braves relinquished their second-best starter, but got back a good defensive outfielder, a pitching prospect and a potential star at middle infield. It's the riskier side of the equation and its payoff will take a couple of years, but the likelihood is the scales will tip their way in the long run. That's the side you want to be on if you're not concerned about the present.

The Trade: Dodgers 4, Braves 0, Marlins Coming To Bat

The Dodgers, Braves and Marlins have consummated a trade that significantly boosts L.A.'s starting and relief corps, adds a near-ready middle infielder and cost some hemi-prospects and a boatload of legal tender. This is what former Tampa Bay boy wonder GM Andrew Friendman can do when you give him resources. In fact, Friedman was able to leverage the team's checking account to dislodge talent from cash-poor teams.

For the Marlins, this is another example of a salary dump following a failed signing spree. God help Giancarlo Stanton.

The real head-scratcher here is the Braves, who appear to be so awestruck by a 30-year-old Cuban third base prospect whom they attempted to sign last year that they sold the farm -- and the MLB roster -- to get him and some free cash.

Here's the tally:

The Dodgers add two solid starters in Mat Latos from MIami and Alex Wood from Atlanta to complement Kershaw and Greinke for the stretch run and playoffs. Latos is a veteran #2 or #3; Wood is a very promising left-handed, 24-year-old with a 3.10 lifetime ERA in career 387 innings.

Then they pack the bullpen with Jim Johnson, who was serving capably as Atlanta's closer, and they acquire Jose Peraza, a Triple-A speedster who projects to provide solid middle infield defense and good on-base skills.

The Dodgers didn't get that ace starter many expected them to chase. Instead they got a haul that improves them all over the field.

What it cost them is a bunch of maybe prospects and the acquisition of two dead contracts -- Bronson Arroyo, who is sitting at home collecting his millions, and Mike Morse, whose .214 batting average and inability to play defense suggest he'll be doing the same.

It's nearly the exact opposite in Atlanta, whose role in this deal is hard to fathom. They sacrificed all that Wood has to offer and all the promise that Peraza represents for some salary relief and Hector Olivera, whose multi-million dollar signing bonus was the Dodgers' responsibility. (Johnson is a free agent at season's end, so the only lost value there for the Braves is the opportunity cost of trading him for something worthwhile.) 

We should find out soon if Olivera can play; the Braves should activate him right away. They also obtained two minor-league arms and a Miami draft pick. Unless those farm hurlers turn out to be Glavine and Smoltz, it's going to be difficult to justify this deal.

John Hart Is A Big Fat Lying Poopyhead

If you had recently inherited the Atlanta Braves' GM job you might have noticed that your team skidded to a 21-35 second half record, tallied the second fewest runs in baseball and face increasing competition from the restocked Marlins, rejuvenated Mets and double-barreled Nationals.

You might be bucking against the limited budget, $46.5 million of which will drain into the bank account of B.J. Upton for three years of pre-game batting practice.

It probably does not escape your attention that while you've locked up four of your young studs, your two outfield stallions are knocking on free agency's door. Maybe most importantly, you're moving to a new suburban home in 2017 and would like the team's zenith to coincide with its early years in Marietta.

What do to? Wisely jettison half your home run output for future value. Flip the two outfielders a year from house shopping elsewhere, along with your slugging semi-catcher whose value has roughly a three-year expiration date.

All that, new GM John Hart has done. The result, of course is that the Braves will arm wrestle the Phillies for early 2016 draft picks. Beyond that, the franchise is already deep into divorce proceedings with downtown Atlanta even though they remain legally betrothed.

So Hart is attempting to smear some proverbial lipstick on the proverbial pig, promising the metro that their team will compete in 2015. Management is committed to winning this season, we're doing everything to field a competitive team, we're not sacrificing the present for the future, the check's in the mail and we'll respect you in the morning.

If he were made of wood we could watch his nose grow.

Hart is doing exactly what he should with the roster, focusing on exactly the right page of the calendar for the franchise. He was an innovator as GM in Cleveland and he hasn't forgotten how to ply his trade. He's spewing the cliches he feels are necessary to keep season ticket sales stoked.

But it won't take long for Atlanta fans to smell the body odor from this lineup. When new import Nick Markakis, averaging 16 homers a year, is your number two long ball threat, well, B.J. Upton might get some playing time after all.

Hart is full of it, it being something other than short-term answers. If the trades were deft and the returns as useful as they appear, it should be a short reload in northern Georgia.

Just not in Atlanta.

Are the Braves Punting 2015?

They'll pay Dan Uggla $13.2 milion to stay away from their infield this season. 

They'll fatten B.J. Upton's bank account by $46.5 million for three years of keeping dust from accumulating on the dugout bench. Either that or he'll occupy a lineup spot and cost them a win against replacement.

Rather than losing Jason Heyward to the free market after this season, they traded him to St. Louis with reliever Jordan Walden for promising starter Shelby Miller.

They plugged Nick Markakis into Heyward's slot for four years at $44 million at a cost of two-to-three wins against replacement a year. 

They non-tendered TJ rehabbers Brandon Beachy and Kris Medlen. The pair may or may not re-sign with the team.

Either GM John Hart -- who assembled the mid-90s Indians -- is an evil genius or it's something of a rebuild in Atlanta these days. This comes a year after they inked their best young ballers -- Freddie Freeman, Craig Kimbrel, Andrelton Simmons and Julio Teheran -- to long term deals.

It appears the Braves have their eyes not on 2015 but on 2017, when their new park opens in the suburbs. Everyone not nailed down, or reeking of future value, is on the trading block. We're looking at you, Evan Gattis. You're a fine asset as a slugging catcher, but your late start means you'll enter your 30s in 2017 with your prospects in steep decline.*

Hart is looking at Justin Upton, too. The 27-year-old standout hit 32% above average last season, but he's only under contract one more year. Hart will undoubtedly be shopping both players at the Winter Meetings for pre-arb talent, minor leaguers and international signing slots.

If successful, that means the surging Mets and Marlins could overtake the Braves next season as they battle the Phillies to avoid the NL East cellar. It could get ugly in Atlanta before it gets exciting in Marietta.



* Special bonus fact: Evan Gattis has walked exactly as many times in each of his two MLB seasons as he's homered. He needs to walk 45 times in 2015.

Marlins Get A Good Laugh About Dan Uggla

Were the Florida Marlins really smart when it comes to Dan Uggla or just really lucky?

The squat keystoner was released by the Braves last week after a year-and-a-half of hitting your IQ. With no takers on the market and a solid replacement in rookie Tommy LaStella, Atlanta dumped Uggla and will eat the $18 million left on his contract.

The Uggla whom Atlanta swapped infielder Omar Infante and lefty reliever Mike Dunn to acquire in 2010 appeared only in brief flashes, mostly during his first season in a tomahawk uniform. Whereas he batted .263 with 31 homers per 162 games for the Marlins, he slumped to .209 and 26 homers per 162 with Atlanta. Since moving north, his batting averages have headed south -- .287-.233-.220-.179-.162. That is what we call "trending poorly."

To make matters worse, Uggla is slow-footed and iron-gloved. Without his stick working, he's a muscled beer vendor.

Drafted by Arizona in '01, Uggla didn't make the Majors until he burst on the scene with Florida in 2006, hitting .282 with 27 bombs. Four similar seasons followed, exposing him to free agency as the fastest second baseman in history to reach 100 home runs and the first keystoner ever to smack 30-a-year for four consecutive seasons.

It's not like Miami brass knew Uggla had peaked, offering him a four-year, $48 million deal, which he wisely rejected. That's when they shipped him to Georgia.

Following a fifth straight 30+ home run season in Atlanta, Uggla inked a four-year, $52 million contract with the Braves at the age of 31. But the Marlins had sucked out all his talent had to offer, enjoying 19 wins against replacement over five years for the MLB equivalent of a dinner and a movie ($14.2 million).

For $61 million, the Braves salvaged 2.4 wins against replacement of value from him, worse than any one of his three best seasons in Miami. So today, at 34 and without a team, Dan Uggla will be some contender's pinch hitter, hoping a few well-timed hits, particularly in a playoff situation, can earn him another year in The Show.

For the Braves, the only salvation is that by paying Uggla not to play, they maximize his value (i.e., minimize his damage) and open up a roster spot. And the Marlins get to laugh and wipe their brows in relief.

Catching Up . . . Awards, Goodbye Brian McCann, So Long Turner Field

Baseball events have continued apace despite a Braindrizzling hiatus. How can that be? Perhaps Joe Posnanski kept things afloat in the interim.

The Cy Young Awards were announced this week. There's not a whole lot of room for debate on Clayton Kershaw or Max Scherzer. Kershaw led the planet in ERA, and that includes Little League. Scherzer's 21-3 record and nearly six runs of support per start don't accrue to his credit, but he shouldn't be penalized for them either. Scherzer gets the prize because he dominated AL batters to the tune of a nifty 2.90 ERA, 240 strikeouts in 214 innings, and a best-in-class .97 WHIP.

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The same for Rookie of the Year awards. The trophy would have gone to Yasiel Puig in almost any other year. He punched balls all over the yard, 60% better than league average, and added dynamite to a moribund Dodger offense when he arrived. In years when such luminaries as Geovany Soto, Jason Jennings, Angel Berroa and Bobby Crosby earned top honors, Puig would have run away. Sadly for him, his freshman season coincided with Jose Fernandez's, which awoke ghosts of Fernandomania en route to a 12-6, 2.19 with more whiffs than frames pitched. 

In the AL, Wil Myers and his .293/.354/.478 in slightly more than half a season was the pretty clear choice over shortstop Jose Iglesias and a couple of nice pitchers. In all, not much to complain about.

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The MVP Awards went as expected to Andrew McCutchen and Miguel Cabrera. Both were excellent choices. That Cabrera wasn't the best choice doesn't change the fact that he had another  MVP-caliber season. It's difficult to be disappointed when a great candidate, the second-best of the league's 600 players, secures the honor. It's easy to be disappointed that Major League baseball writers don't know the difference between a great hitter and a great player, and can't fathom how one player's value isn't dependent on the performances of his teammates, but if being disappointed in baseball writers were a virus, we'd all have a permanent case of Ebola.

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You probably heard that teams made $14.1 million qualifying offers to 13 players, every one of which was declined. This is a ritual dance carried out by GMs and players under the new collective bargaining agreement. The players are now free agents who may seek multi-year deals. The teams may or may not want the players back but they will receive compensation draft picks if their former player is signed elsewhere.

Let's take the case of Braves backstop Brian McCann. The Georgia native is leaving by mutual decision, a net benefit for both him and the team even if he inks a five-year, $12 million/year deal with a catcher-starved franchise. (Hello Yankees! By the way, $12 mil is going to be cat pee compared to what McCann commands.) That serves McCann, who at 29 is headed into his decline years, but would guarantee the McCann family $60 million, rather than $14.1 million. It serves the good people of Atlanta -- or Marietta -- because the Braves have cheaper options and serious budget constraints. Leading the parade to replace the seven-time All-Star is Evan Gattis, whose above-average hitting comes with a half-million-dollar price tag and whose value is much greater behind the plate than in left field, where he attempted to hide in 2013. In addition, Atlanta would receive a first round supplemental pick from the signing team.

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Speaking of the Braves, they've flipped Turner Field into the trashcan after just 17 years, like it's a disposable lighter. Shame on the the various entities (which included NBC and the Atlanta Olympic Authority) for paying the massive retrofit costs to turn Centennial Olympic Stadium into Turner Field without requiring the Braves to sign a long-term lease.

The franchise and its new hosts, suburban Cobb County, claim the new home will be a "public-private partnership." This is code for an arrangement in which the public pays the bill and the team reaps the benefits.

In most "public-private" arrangements around sports stadiums, municipalities foot the bill and then lend their borrowing authority to the team for a portion of the costs. The team repays its loan at a discounted rate because the bonds are low-interest and tax-free. The municipality restricts its future borrowing ability for things like schools, hospitals, sewer systems and infrastructure that teams regularly complain about. 

Many econometric studies have demonstrated that even after accounting for all the possible spending resulting from relocated sports teams, municipalities rarely earn back the value of their investments in stadiums unless those edifices are key cogs in new downtown development. Baseball teams are relatively smal businesses whose payrolls generally leave the state from November through March. The stadiums lay empty roughly 250 days-a-year and their use often generates as many costs for the city as tax income, all while the bonds demand repayment.

So the Braves will begin play in their third home in 21 years when they move to Marietta while the Red Sox have competed in the Fens for more than a century.

Don't Count Out the Braves

Went to see the Braves nip the Tribe in an inter-league tumble yesterday. I predicted at the outset that the Native Americans would win. Jenius!

Few outside of the deep South give Atlanta much chance of winning a championship even though the rest of the division conceded back when Egypt had a democracy.

The Braves lack a singular talent, a significant home run threat or an ace. The leading talent in the lineup will be sipping dinner through a straw for a month. Mike Minor and Julio Teheran project as the top of the playoff rotation, scaring exactly as many people as the Bolivian navy.

Look deeper, though, and you will see a formidable opponent with baseball's best record.

1. Little weakness in the lineup.
They get production from shortstop Andrelton Simmons, catcher Brian McCan and second-sacker Dan Uggla, where most teams wobble. Eight batters have ripped 10 or more home runs. Without Heyward, the outfield's got one Upton too many, but even so, the Braves rank second in the NL in scoring.

2. A bench thick with quality.
Evan Gattis has popped 15 homers in half a season and plugs holes at catcher and corner outfield. Lefty Jordan Schafer gets aboard and swipes bags as an outfield fill-in or as Heyward's replacement. Ditto for switch-hitter Joey Terdoslavich who owns outfield and first-baseman mitts. 

3. Solid, not flashy, defense.
Atlanta ranks fifth in the Majors in defensive efficiency and what it lacks in outfield bats it makes up for with the gloves.

4. A middle-heavy rotation.
There's no Verlander-Scherzer or Kershaw-Greinke combo here, but even after Tim Hudson's broken ankle they go six deep with quality. #5 starter Alex Wood, a rookie southpaw, sports a 2.27 ERA since his call-up eight starts ago. They have the fifth-best ERA in the senior circuit.

5. Something called the best bullpen in the world.
Craig Kimbrel and his sub-one ERA would end the argument, but throw in Luis Avilan, David Carpenter and Jordan Walden's combined ERA under 2.00 and good luck scoring after the sixth inning.

6. A bye and home-field.
You already know they won't repeat last year's depressing one-game elimination. And the home crowd gets an extra opportunity if a series goes the distance.

Put it all together and you've got a tough out. The Dodgers have been hotter lately and appear to have more overall talent, but sleeping on the Braves would not be the work of a jenius.

Intriguing Teams of 2010, Part 3

If you prefer quantity over quality, you’re going to love the 2010 Atlanta Braves. With four fourth outfielders and three-and-a-half number two starters, four guys who can play third base, five who can play first, and none who can slug 30 homers, the Braves are the Everglades of baseball -- a mile wide and an inch deep.

Atlanta largely held down the fort during the off-season, after an 84-win season. They traded their third best starter, Javier Vazquez, for the Yankees’ Mediocre Cabrera. They jettisoned first baseman Adam Laroche in favor of the undead Troy Glaus and Eric Hinske. And they let embattled keystoner Kelly Johnson walk.

What that leaves them with is 73 equally plausible lineup combinations, not one of which sends chills up your spine. Nate McLouth, Matt Diaz, the aforemaligned Melky Cabrera and a castoff of thousands will battle for three outfield spots. McLouth and Diaz are nice players: if either showed up at your door to take your daughter to the prom, you’d be pleased, but it’s not like you’re praying that she’ll marry him, the way you did with that Pujols boy when you lived in St. Louis. Neither is a threat to slug .500 or make Georgians forget Andruw Jones afield (especially since Cabrera will staff center.) One more outfielder not worth mentioning is 38-century-old Garret Anderson, who at this point runs like Abe Vigoda and hasn’t hit like an outfielder since Friends was on the air.

At age 38, Chipper Jones can still pick ‘em at the hot corner and hit with his eyes closed. He has not, however, learned how to hit from the trainer’s table, where he is likely once again to spend a fair amount of time. Brian McCann Nakahoma’d 21 times last year to lead the team, and there isn’t much reason to think there’s any bigger wood on the club in 2010. McCann is another Hall of Famer in the making, but he’s not carrying that offense. Yunel Escobar was magnificent from the shortstop position last year; expect him to decline to merely quite good in ’10. In short, the Braves are an offense of guys who bat .300 but slug .420. Not exactly Howard, Utley, Victorino, Werth, Ibanez territory.

Fortunately, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In Bobby Cox’s last year as chief of the teepee, he’ll trot out Lake Wobegone’s starting rotation, where every pitcher is above average. It starts with sensational sophomore Tommy Hanson, followed by Jair Jurrjens, Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami, and perhaps by mid-season, Tim Hudson, whose hip ligament needs more time to acclimate to life in his elbow. The staff is as deep as the ocean.

Alas, the same cannot be said for the bullpen. Beyond the re-purposed body of 38-year-old Billy Wagner, 40-year-old Takashi Saito and the Aussie sidewinder Peter Moylan, t’aint much. If Cox can summon unexpected excellence out of the rest of the pen, Atlanta has a shot at the wild card. They’re going to have to do it by preventing runs, because the offense will be challenged to cobble together what it can.

No analysis of the Braves is complete without mentioning the studmuffin in the room, Jason Heyward. Physically he’s Darryl Strawberry and, thankfully, emotionally he is not. At 6’5” and 245 pounds of sinew, Heyward has already made a name for himself at Braves spring training by blasting so many BP pitches into the parking lot behind the fences that management had to install a net to prevent further damage to parked cars. The team shelled out over $10,000 before they finally took action. Still, the yeast has yet to rise on this 20-year-old with just 50 games above A-ball, and team management is smart enough not to take him out of the oven prematurely. The recipe in Atlanta remains unchanged regardless of Heyward’s immediate future: clog the bases, shut down the opposition and keep the Rolaids close.

Not Miguel Cabrera, Mind You

Veteran righty Jason Marquis just signed a $15 million, two-year deal with the Nationals to eat 200 innings with below-average results for an up-and-coming staff. Another veteran rightly, Javier Vazquez, just fetched Melky Cabrera for the Braves in a trade with the Yankees.

What do these two statements have in common? Evidentally, nothing.

In a time when arms are worth their weight in highly-enriched uranium, the Braves parlayed an above-average starter with a below-market contract -- he's due $9 million/year -- for... Melky Cabrera? Is there any commodity more abundant in baseball than fourth outfielders? Didn't they just cut Ryan Church and trade Jeff Francoeur? What, Ryan Spillborghs wasn't available? The Royals wouldn't part with Willie Bloomquist? Gabe Kapler's demanding his own conditioning coach?

This is a miserable waste of a valuable commodity by Atlanta. Frank Wren must have had a plane to catch when he made this deal, because a #3 starter should fetch real value, not the third trombone in the nobody parade.

There were some prospects in this deal, so maybe one of them is the second coming of Joe Dimaggio. Even then, the Braves' plan was supposed to be to flip one of their surplus quality starters for a big banging outfielder who could solidify a gelatin lineup and challenge the Phillies for the division title NOW. What they got was Melky Cabrera, all .274/.336/.416 of him. (That would be the numbers from his best year -- last -- which  marked year five of the "Melky the Future Star" show.) The Braves needed a hitter, not another edition of Garret Anderson.

Here's another data point in the argument against us Yankee haters. Credit Brian Cashman yet again for conning a perfectly respectable GM into giving him a good starter -- Vazquez has been worth 13 wins over the last three years relative to a replacement level pitcher -- in exchange for a replaceable part. This deal had little to do with New York's advantages, monetary or otherwise, and everything to do with Atlanta misjudging the value of a precious commodity.

Melky Cabrera!