Braves 2011 season thread

[Duvall]

Things are looking up for the Braves in 2011 - Melky Cabrera will be employed elsewhere (http://markbowman.mlblogs.com/archives/2010/10/braves_release_melky_cabrera.html).

[JasonEvans]

The Braves will reap some tremendous savings in 2011 as a result of their young stars being ready to play. As a result, they should be a very active player in the free agent market as they seek more production from their outfield.

Plugging Kimbrell, Venters, and Dunn in for Wagner and Saito is almost a $9 million savings. Freeman at 1B in place of Glaus and Lee will result in savings of about $5 million. Some other expensive vets, like Farnsworthless, Ankiel, McClouth, and (please, please, please) Kawakami could be released or unsigned as Melky was. By the way, Melky cleared another $3 million of salary off the books.

Sure, they will have to give raises to some guys (Prado, Infante, Heyward) but they are going to have a healthy chunk of change to spend. I have my fingers crossed that they will be players in the Carl Crawford sweepstakes (though he will be $13-15 million per season and probably will want a 4 or 5 year deal).

--Jason "it is good to be young! It gives you flexibility" Evans

[Duvall]

The Braves will reap some tremendous savings in 2011 as a result of their young stars being ready to play. As a result, they should be a very active player in the free agent market as they seek more production from their outfield.

The first sentence is true; the second remains to be seen.


Plugging Kimbrel, Venters, and Dunn in for Wagner and Saito is almost a $9 million savings. Freeman at 1B in place of Glaus and Lee will result in savings of about $5 million. Some other expensive vets, like Farnsworthless, Ankiel, McClouth, and (please, please, please) Kawakami could be released or unsigned as Melky was. By the way, Melky cleared another $3 million of salary off the books.

True with respect to Wagner, Saito, Glaus, Lee, Farnsworth and Ankiel (though bringing back Wagner for another year at ~$6.5 million would be a bargain if he weren't retiring). But McLouth and Kawakami are under contract for next year and will probably remain on the Braves' payroll, unless they can find a team dumb enough to take one of those contracts off their hands.


Sure, they will have to give raises to some guys (Prado, Infante, Heyward) but they are going to have a healthy chunk of change to spend. I have my fingers crossed that they will be players in the Carl Crawford sweepstakes (though he will be $13-15 million per season and probably will want a 4 or 5 year deal).

Crawford will get more than that, either in years or salary. I doubt the Braves will be a player for him or Jayson Werth. Hope I'm wrong, though it wouldn't take much to upgrade Atlanta's outfield situation - a couple of actual major league players would strengthen the team significantly.