Braves Starting Pitching In Disarray

NIteowl049 — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 11:39:20 -0000

The Braves depth chart at mlb.com lists the starters as of today for next season:

Javier Vazquez

Jair Jurjjens

Jorge Campillo

Jo-Jo Reyes

Charlie Morton

John Smoltz and Tom Glavine may or may not be ready to pitch and in the case of Smoltz may not even be back with the Braves in 2009. Tim Hudson is planning his return to the Braves by the middle of August. These are three very good pitchers in a state of limbo because of health issues and free agent issue for Smoltz.

If the Braves start the season with Tommy Hanson in the majors he should be a huge upgrade to the starting rotation. Last season he was 11-5 between stops at Myrtle Beach in A ball and Mississippi in AA ball. Hanson allowed ten homers in 60 innings at Myrtle Beach in 2007 but came back in 2008 and allowed no homers in 40 innings.

At Myrtle Beach last season he compiled a 3-1 record at Myrtle Beach with a 0.90 ERA and allowed only 15 hits in 40 innings while striking out 49. Hanson was 8-4 with Mississippi and had an ERA of 3.03. He also struck out 114 batters in 98 innings.

He went on to have an excellent Arizona Fall League season posting a 5-0 record and a 0.63 ERA. He struck out 49 batters in 28 innings while giving up only 10 hits. He held batters to a .105 batting average.

The Braves may elect to let him start the season in Triple AAA ball since he has not pitched above Double AA.

With Javier Vazquez and Jair Jurjjens at the top of the starting rotation the Braves will have to make some moves. Jorge Campillo started the first two months of the season with an 0.71 ERA in April and a 1.14 mark in May. However, in August and September he posted ERA's of 6.15 and 5.63. It may be that he tired late in the season since he had never pitched more than 13 innings in a season while with the Mariners and had started this season in the bullpen for the Braves.

Jo-Jo Reyes will surprise me if he is in the starting rotation after his 3-11 season with a 5.81 ERA last season and allowed opposing batters to hit .301. Charlie Morton was not effective either with a 4-8 record and an ERA of 6.15.

The records of Reyes and Morton are the reason the Braves tried so hard to acquire Jake Peavy and A.J. Burnett. Vazquez had problems last season winning big games and his manager Ozzie Guillen mentioned that fact at least once. Still he deserves a chance for a new start with the Braves and is one of the top strikeout pitchers in baseball. He is 9th among active pitchers in strikeouts with 2015 and has a realistic chance of posting 3000 strikeouts since he is only 32.

Frank Wren will now have to find some starting pitching even though Peavy seems to be out of the picture. The only major move made by the Braves this offseason was the acquisition of Vazquez. There are more questions than answers about the availability of Smoltz and Glavine and if they will even be healthy enough to pitch at the start of the 2009 season. If Reyes and Morton are in the starting rotation on opening day the Braves may be in for a long season.

Jeff Francoeur A Puzzling Case

NIteowl049 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:12:34 -0000

Jeff Francoeur seemed to have it all going his way before the start of the 2008 season. He had hit 48 homers and driven in 208 runs combined in the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

By the end of April of the 2008 season Francoeur was hitting .277 with 3 homers and 19 RBI's. Those numbers had him in line to hit 18 homers and drive in close to 100 runs. At the end of May his batting average had dipped to .236 for the month but he hit 3 more more homers and drove in 14 runs for a total of 6 homers and 33 RBI's and still in line for a 100 RBI season.

It all unraveled for Jeff in June and July when he hit .206 in June and .220 in July. In those two months he hit a total of 3 homers he hit 3 homers and drove in only 14 runs.He had driven in 19 less runs in June and July than he had driven in during April and May.

In August and September he would hit only two homers but did drive in 24 runs. He hit .206 in August and .286 in September. June 28th was the last day of the season in which he was hitting over .240.

His power numbers dropped sharply from the 2007 season with his homers going down to 11 after having 19 in 2007. He had 34 fewer RBI's dropping from 105 in 2007 to 79 in 2008. His batting average had dropped from .293 to .239 and his on base percentage had tumbled to .294 after posting a .338 mark in 2007. His slugging percentage dropped 85 points from .444 to .359.

In 2007 he had hit a homer every 33.8 at bats but in 2008 he only hit a homer every 54.5 at bats. Jeff hit .192 in 2008 with runners in scoring position after hitting .341 with runners in scoring position in 2007.

Jeff will be 25 on January 8th of next month so he is still young but if he starts off the 2009 season the way he played in 2008 he may find himself on the bench or back in the minor leagues unless he is traded during the winter.

Hopefully Jeff can put the 2008 season behind him and hit like he did in the last month of the season. Jeff has seen his home run numbers drop from 29 in 2006 to 19 in 2007 to 11 in 2006.

After having success in his first three seasons it will be interesting to see how Jeff plays in the 2009 season. This is one fan rooting for him to be Comeback Player of the Year in 2009.

SB Nation User Blog: NIteowl049

Braves Starting Pitching In Disarray

Jeff Francoeur A Puzzling Case