In Frank Wren We Trust: Part 1

Frank Wren replaced the legendary John Schuerholz as GM of the Braves on October 11th, 2007. Because there has been so much talk lately about making a move to upgrade our offense, especially in the outfield, I decided to take a look back at Wren's moves since becoming GM (also, I have nothing better to do). I will be using the Rick James Titty Scale, with "4 Thumbs Up" being an exceptional move and "4 Thumbs Down" being atrocious. We'll go in chronological order, looking at trades, players claimed off waivers, and free agents signed (not players resigned).

10/25/07 - Chris Resop claimed off waivers from Angels

In 16 relief appearances in 2008, Resop went 0-1 with a 5.89 ERA. Not a great pickup, but no major damage.

1 Thumb Down

10/27/07 - Edgar Renteria and Cash to Detroit for Jair Jurrjens and Gorkys Hernandez

Since leaving the Braves, Renteria's numbers have declined dramatically. In 2008 with the Tigers, he hit .270/.317.699, while thus far in 2009 with the Giants, he has hit .250/.333/.671.

On the other hand, Jurrjens has been superb in his 1 and 1/3 years with the Braves. Last year he went 13-10 with a 3.68 ERA over 188 IP. This year he has performed like an allstar, sporting a 2.59 ERA and a 5-2 record (which would be better if not for weak run support). Hernandez is also excelling in the minors. In 2007, he hit .293 and stole 54 bases in A ball. After a slight decline in 2008, he seems to have turned things around in AA Mississippi this year, hitting .316 with 9 steals. He is ranked as the 62nd best prospect in baseball by Baseball America. A simply brilliant move by Wren, getting a possible ace-to-be and an excellent prospect while making room for The Cuban Missile at short.

4 Thumbs Up

11/19/2007 - Signed Tom Glavine for 1 year, $8 million

Hard to argue with bringing back one of the faces of the franchise, but this move proved to be more sentimental than anything else. Glavine went 2-4 with a 5.54 ERA in 2008 before going down with an injury. On top of that, signing him gave the Mets a first round compensation pick.

2 Thumbs Down

12/4/2007 - Jose Ascanio to Cubs for Will Ohman and Omar Infante

Ascanio played awful for the Cubs in 2008 (7.94 ERA, 2.118 WHIP), but may have righted the ship this year, bringing his WHIP down to a respectable 1.286 with 10.3 K/9 and a 3.86 ERA.

Ohman did a great job in a Braves uniform, appearing in 83 games in 2008, going 4-1 with a 3.68 ERA. Super-utility man Omar Infante has proved to be a valuable pickup, playing any number of positions while wielding a solid bat. His 2008: .293/.338/.416. He was off to an even better start this year: .349/.389/.430. A solid deal by Wren.

2 Thumbs Up

1/14/08 - Joey Devine, Jamie Richmond and Cash to the A's for Mark Kotsay

A move made out of the need for a stopgap centerfielder before Schafer was (seemingly...) ready for the big leagues. After his memorable, grandslam-filled performance as a rookie, Devine proved to be an excellent reliever in 2008. He appeared in 42 games for the A's with great numbers: 6-1, 0.59 ERA, .832 WHIP (!), 9.7 K/9. Had a shot at the closer role this year before being forced to undergo Tommy John surgery. Richmond has a respectable ERA right around 3.80 in the minors.

Kotsay, in a typically injury-plagued year, played pretty average (.289/.340/.418). Hindsight being what it is, the Braves should have let Josh Anderson man centerfield and kept the two young arms, especially Devine.

The Milk's Gone Bad!

1/17/08 - Willy Aybar and Chase Fontaine to the Rays for Jeff Ridgway

Aybar worked out his issues enough to appear in 95 games for the Rays in 2008, hitting .253/.327/.410. SO far in '09, he's improved to .283/.376/.446. Fontaine has done nothing special in the minors, hitting .248 last year.

As for Ridgway, he had an ERA of 5.47 in 44 games last year for Richmond. The Braves released him on March 30th this year. Aybar clearly had some issues, and the Braves just needed to rid themselves of him, although it would have been nice to get something back in return.

1 Thumb Down

That's enough for today. Back with more tomorrow...

Death, Taxes, and the Braves Wasting Dominant Pitching

Another excellent pitching performance by Vazquez last night (6.1 IP, 1 ER, 8 K) squandered by the Braves inept offense. Granted, this was a lineup featuring Garret Anderson hitting third and Martin Prado cleanup, but they were facing Doug Davis, he of the career 4.31 ERA. Francoeur went 1/5 with 3 K's. The bullpen pitched well overall, with Jeff Bennett finally yielding the winning run in the 11th. Schafer did steal a base, tying the Braves with Milwaukee for last in the NL with 11 (though the Brewers are second in HRs).

The good guys try to split the series this afternoon at 4:00 with Kris Medlen facing Max Scherzer, a young guy with seemingly nasty stuff (10.4 K/9 in 16 career games started). Hopefully Medlen can avoid the disastrous inning and pitch like he did for most of his last game. Throwing more strikes (only 56% thus far) would be nice.

Links: Scouring Them Internets So You Don't Have To

• Gammons says don't read anything into the Red Sox alleged interest in Francouer. Here's Frenchy imitating Sox fans after hearing the news.

• Tom Verducci says Tommy Hanson could be called up as early as Sunday. Can he hit?

• If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Adam Dunn is currently on pace to hit more homeruns this year (16 and counting) than the number of games that his team wins (13). (via Jayson Stark)

• White Men Can't Jump (via TBL)

• Charles Barkley is a Round Mound of Bitterness

• Madden 10 Ratings: Position and Rookies

• Shaq, dressed as Bill Cosby, and Ben Stein outtakes (via Awful Announcing)

• Everyone's favorite Woody is back (soon)

Babe Ruth Pitches/Hits Braves to Win

OK, so Jair Jurrjens may not be Babe Ruth, but the Braves' best pitcher of the year looked pretty good with the bat last night, hitting a 2 RBI double in the 2nd and drawing a walk (!) in the 3rd (the chick in that video looks like a younger, uglier version of Mindy Sterling, she of Austin Powers fame ). Ironic that in his worst pitching performance of the year, Jurrjens finally gets some run support to improve to 5-2. Over his first 10 games of the year, Jurrjens had an ERA of 2.07 and a .228 BAA, yet only had a record of 4-2, while last night, he had an ERA of 9.00, yet recorded his 5th victory of the season. Go figure. Escobar returned to the lineup and crushed a three run homer. The Braves send Vazquez to the mound this afternoon to face the Diamondbacks' Doug Davis (2-6, 3.77 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, 1.5 HR/9, 6.5 K/9).

Down in the Minors

By: The Bearded Joo

The Braves outfield has been receiving a lot of attention lately, for all the wrong reasons. With Schafer and Francouer underwhelming everyone in the ballpark, the weak outfield stands out for a team struggling to score runs. The Braves’ outfielders rank dead last in homeruns and slugging percentage. This power outage also extends to the rest of the offense, which currently ranks 26^th out of 30 in homeruns hit and 24^th in RBI. Francouer is mired in a year-long "slump," Schafer is struggling to get the bat on the ball (though still drawing walks), and Garret Anderson, signed in the offseason to add some pop to the outfield that ranked last in most hitting statistics in 2008, is slugging only .319. Having been signed to a one year contract, Anderson will most likely serve as a stopgap for uber-prospect Jason Heyward, who could represent a solution to the problems in the outfield and the power drought.

Heyward was drafted 14^th overall by Atlanta in the 2007 Draft and signed a deal worth about $1.7 million, receiving the same amount of money as 2006 14^th pick Travis Snider (now in the majors with the Blue Jays). Standing 6’4’’ and weighing in over 220 pounds, Heyward has the prototypical body of a power hitter. In 2008, he hit .316 with 11 homeruns and 56 RBIs and stole 15 bases (in 18 attempts) for Rome. Though only 18 at the time, he also showed a keen eye, striking out only 78 times and walking 51. This year, Heyward is off to another good start at high A in Myrtle Beach, sporting .295/.373/.561 percentages with 9 homers in 139 ABs (1 in about 15.5).

Now I’m sure by now you’re asking yourself: how do we know Heyward will be successful in the majors? The truth is we don’t, but if Heyward’s first Major League camp showed us anything, it’s that Heyward can already hit professional pitchers, and good ones at that. During spring training, Heyward crushed 2 balls off Kawakami and also went deep off of Jair Jurrjens, the same pitcher that is currently fourth in all of baseball with a cool 1.96 ERA and who allows a homerun only every 15 innings pitched.

So it may not be this year or even next, but when it does happen, expect the Braves to get that little boost to perhaps take us back to a tradition that Braves fans had become accustomed to … the playoffs.

McCann Allstar?

Let me start off by saying that I'm just as guilty as the next guy: I just now submitted my first all-star ballot, though not my last. While the fans don't vote for the one true bright spot of this Braves season, starting pitching, they do get to vote in the starters at each position. I was motivated to vote last night while watching Tim Lincecum dominate a Gwinnett Braves lineup that featured Francouer hitting 5th, a scary thought. Anyways, Joe and Boo got to talking about the other bright spot in Atlanta this year: Brian McCann. Amazingly, he ranks only fifth in all-star balloting as of May 26th.

Apart from the Twin's Joe Mauer, McCann is the best hitting catcher in the game. His combination of power and contact is rarely seen at his position. So how is it that he is fifth in vote getting at catcher? Let's compare his season to the players in front of him (in order): Yadier Molina, Jason Kendall, Pudge Rodriguez, and Russell Martin. Maybe these guys are blowing him out of the water. And being who I am, I of course wanted to do this comparison in chart form:

Mac is the only one of the five hitting over .270 (.313), the only one with an OBP over .380 (.402), he is out slugging his four competitors, and is blowing away the others in OPS. Homers? Mac is tied with Rodrizguez for the lead at 5, despite playing in only 29 games compared to 41 for the others. RBIs? He trails Rodrizuez's 21 by only 3. By nearly any measure, McCann stands out above the other NL catchers. So, in the words of P. Diddy: Vote or Die!

Links: Scouring Them Internets So You Don't Have To

• Mets fan goes looking for Carlos Delgado's career.

• Conversation between SI's Joe Posnanski and stat guru Bill James about Randy Johnson, who will be going for his 300th win soon. They compare him to the three other beyond-dominate pitchers of the Steroids Era: Pedro, Clemens*, and Maddux. 

• Ted Keith of SI puts together his dream team of young players and chooses Joe Mauer at catcher. An argument for McCann can definitely be made: he's one year younger, doesn't have the injury history of Mauer, and hits for more power (career SLG .503 vs. .474). However, Mauer is (much) better definisively and if he can get close to keeping his HR pace this year (11 in 100 PA), he becomes the clear choice. 

• Tommy Hanson makes Baseball America's Hot Sheet this week. Why? How's 13 IP, 3 H, O R, 16 K, and 2 BB sound?

• ESPN360 is coming to Comcast at an unspecified date (in time for college football). On a related note, Comcast executives still eat puppies.