July 2009

Some Good News?

Right now the Phillies are losing. Their pitching is just dreadful and they are keeping everyone in the division race when they could have been putting everyone out of it.

The Mets are having to adjust to their giant new park, Citi Field, and trying to make up for the injuries in Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, and Jose Reyes. This leaves David Wright to try and keep his team in it. The starting pitching is not to great either.

Now look at the Braves. We have a great starting rotation and a very good bullpen. Once Tim Hudson comes back we will have the best rotation in the National League, and maybe the Majors and our bullpen will be even better because Kawakami will replace JoJo.

Martin Prado is terring the cover off of the ball lately and will most likely have a great season and continue to start at second. Brian McCann is always consistently hitting the ball and if runners get on base, Chipper is going to drive them in.

In tonight’s game against Philly we are winning 9 to 1 in the 6th inning without Nate McLouth and Yunel Escobar (who is leading the team in RBI and Runs). Once those two come back then the lineup could actually start scoring runs. Nate McLouth, Yunel Escobar, Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, and the new Martin Prado does not seem that bad to me and it actually sounds pretty good once you consider another big bat is inevitably on the way.

Casey Kotchman also consistently puts the ball in play and Matt Diaz is batting in the higher .200′s

This means that Jeff Francouer, Kelly Johnson, Garret Anderson, and some young pitching could be used as trade chips (some people say Yunel could be to, but I really think we should keep him considering he is a beast and we don’t have another everyday shortstop). We have the pieces to land another bat without giving up any of our (contributing) starters.

So Atlanta is easily one move away from taking this division by storm.

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Los

Martin Prado

Well its official. Bobby Cox said that Martin Prado would be the starting second baseman. After you consider that Martin is doing really really good, and Kelly is doing really really not good it makes sense. I think that Prado should be Atlanta’s second baseman for years to come and Kelly should be traded.

But you have to wonder how Johnson’s market is now that he is hitting .216. The good thing is that he is a second baseman and middle infielders are often the hardest things to fix, so teams would still want to get him because of the postition he is capable of playing.

Atlants has been very fortunate in having three capable everyday middle infielders in Escobar, Prado, and Johnson.

Kelly should be traded while he still has a market (preferably to the St. Louis Cardinals for one of Rick Ankiel or Ryan Ludwick). Prado has been very good in the clutch and will turn into a great everyday player. This is going to be like last year’s Renteria/Yunel deals but with Kelly/Martin. Also having a Cuban/Venezualen duo sounds pretty sweet to me.

It also doesn’t hurt that the guy puts a lot of heart into his game.

 

martin_prado.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3312/3620682459_357619a125.jpg

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Los

Red Hot Rays

Ever since the beggining of last year people continuosly count out the Tampa Bay Rays, and they continuosly prove everyone wrong. I will admit that I didn’t think they would be able to go to the playoffs this season but they have won 7 games straight and are 4 games back from the division leading Boston Red Sox.

I still think that the Red Sox are going to win the division because they have done so well with many things going wrong.

  • David Ortiz started the season off terribly, and while he is doing better, he has still not started playing like the 08 Big Papi
  • Dice K is struggling on the mound and who knows when he will bring it together
  • The Red Sox have still not found a shortstop solution

The Red Sox have perhaps the best starting pitching depth in the majors and that is one of the reasons that Dice K’s misfortunes have not seriously hurt them. Jason Bay has been on fire and he has made up for David Ortiz’s poor offensive contributions. The Red Sox have the pieces to get a shortstop and by the end of the season when they go into the playoffs they will have one.

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Now back to the Rays. The Rays only major flaw is pitching. Their bullpen and rotation both need some work and if they land a few arms they could grab the wild card and be in the playoffs for the second time. If they had not traded Edwin Jackson they would probably be in second place right now.

The Rays still do not have a legitimate closer and they are going to need one.

There has been talk of the Braves trading either Rafeal Soriano or Mike Gonzalez and the Rays might be interested in aquiring one of these two players.The Braves also have starting pitching depth and need to start some offense so hopefully Frank Wren will try to make a big deal with the defending AL Champs.

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Well, the reason the Rays have been doing well is because they are supposedly the most athletic team in the american league. Jason Bartlett and Ben Zobrist have contributed just as much offensively as defensively which is saying alot, especially in Bartlett’s case.

Speaking of Jason Bartlett. He is turning into an amazing shortstop but still nobody is talking about how good he really is. Probably the best defensive shortstop in the entire American League and he is also hitting .366 with seven homers and 36 RBI. Thats pretty good. He should definitely be an all star with the seaon he is having.

Zobrist has come out of nowhere and with his .624 slugging percentage he leads the american league. He also has 16 long balls and 46 RBI. So much for The Rays not having an everyday rightfielder.

With BJ Upton and Carl Crawford the Rays easily lead the league in stolen bases.

So as you can see the Rays are solid on everything but pitching, which happens to be a pretty important part of the game.

Maybe the Rays will be willing to part with Zobrist to get a pitcher from Atlanta or anything that can help the Braves amizing outfield.

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Los

 

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