Posts tagged ‘Braves off season’

Time is ticking on the Braves off-season!

Happy New Year to all Braves Fans! With the change of the calendar it now means we are a month closer to baseball returning. It may seem a while a way but pitchers and catchers are only six weeks away from reporting to camp with spring training only a couple weeks behind.  This means it is officially time to start worrying if the braves and Gm Frank Wren are going to make anymore off-season moves to bolster the 09 roster. So far fans are extremely disappointed in how the off-season has gone so far. Not only have the braves not significantly improved their club, the other teams in the division have! Both the Mets and (World Series Champion) Phillies have improved their biggest weaknesses over this winter. It appears the Braves are now down to plan C. That plan being; go with what you got and hope for the best! What the braves have are a couple of huge holes. Starting pitching and power is the obvious two. I am sure that Braves are closely monitoring the status of John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. Both pitchers have expressed interest in returning to the club in 09 if healthy. These two guys may now have to be relied on to be a big part of this upcoming season’s starting rotation. We all know how that worked out last year. I can’t remember such a disappointing off-season in quite a few years.

With the thought of relying on unstable pitching, it is just as uncomforting to know that this year’s Braves team will not be able to slug it out with any of the strong clubs in baseball. I don’t want to see a Brandon Jones, and Matt Diaz platoon in the outfield. I don’t want to see a Matt Diaz and Greg Norton platoon either! I want to see a trade or free agent acquisition that makes since. The Braves have been rumored to have interest in names like Dye, Ankiel, Cameron, and others. So far we are stuck watching the same outfield that produced one of Major League Baseball’s weakest outfields and one of the weakest Atlanta Braves outfield in quite some time. How about we get rid of some of the unproven talent on the team such as pitchers Reyes, or even Morton or position players like Blanco or Brandon Jones and include them as a trade for a quality player. These guys would be great for a team rebuilding and looking to cut payroll or take chances on young unproven talent.

With time ticking closer to the 09 season it is easy to see that the Braves Christmas Wishlist has not come true. I think Santa must have thought that Frank Wren was a bad boy or maybe just a bad GM so far? My question to anyone and everyone who reads this just this: with the minimal time remaining in the off-season what should Frank Wren focus on? He can still try to acquire a starting pitcher or a power hitter by trade, or maybe focus on the health of the current players such as Smoltz, Glavine, Moylan and Soriano. Whatever happens from here I will support my home town team and hope for the best, and I hope you will do the same.