Former Atlanta Braves catcher Javy Lopez will release his autobiography, Behind the Plate: A Catcher's View of the Braves Dynasty, in April. I believe this will be the first Atlanta Braves player from the 14-year run to release a book, so I for one am pretty excited to see what it will hold.

I'm hoping to get a copy to review on the site, and if that happens, I will have my Lord or Reading (and baseball cards), Chris Mays, hammer out a review of the book.

The mother-ship, Baseball Nation, has posted their list of the top-10 worst swings of the 2011 season. Five Atlanta Braves players are represented. Thankfully, three of them are Braves pitchers who are making opposing batters look foolish. One I wanted to highlight is relief pitcher Anthony Varvaro. We'll be talking more about all the Braves bullpen options throughout spring training, but this is a good opportunity to highlight a reliever who is on the 40-man roster and who has a very good chance of breaking camp with the big club.

Here is the number-4 worst swing of the 2011 season, Anthony Varvaro against Michael Morse of the Washington Nationals:

I'm going to go with that being a change-up, though it could also be some kind of overhand curve ball. Either way it's a nasty pitch if Varvaro can command it with regularity. This is a window into why the Braves really like this kid for the pen. Not only does he have a mid-90s fastball, but with off-speed stuff like this, he's got two strikeout pitches.

Varvaro is a guy the Braves claimed off waivers from Seattle prior to last year, and we should all know by now how successful the Braves have been with former Seattle relievers. So he's got that working in his favor. Of the relievers the Braves called up from Gwinnett last year, Varvaro arguably had the most success, though he seemed to benefit from good defense behind him.

Tommy Hanson makes an appearance on the top-10 list while making Jose Reyes look stupid (hope that happens a lot this year). Chipper Jones and Freddie Freeman check-swing their way into the top-3, but Tim Hudson grabs the number-1 spot with his fairly awesome swing attempt on a pitch-out:

See the rest of the GIFs at Baseball Nation.

(FYI, if the constant repetitive movement of the GIFs bothers you, just hit the Esc key and it will stop the moving GIFs.)

In reading all of the prospect lists and reviews last week one particular statement caught my eye, and hasn't escaped my mind since then. Interestingly, this statement wasn't about an Atlanta Braves prospect, it was about Brandon Beachy. Strangely, this curmudgeonly view of a young Braves player didn't come from Keith Law, it came from Kevin Goldstein's post. Here was his line about Beachy, found in the Top-10 Talents 25 and Under section of his Braves prospect post (sub. req.):

The general industry thought on Beachy is that he's good but not as good as his 2011 season, and regression is a good assumption.

My gut told me not to agree with that, and my memory told me that the opposite seemed to be true. So I thought I'd poke around my memory and Baseball Reference and see what I could find that would support the opposite of that statement.

Brandon Beachy faced the Phillies in his first big league start in 2010. He faced them again in his third big league start. Then again in his fifth big league start in 2011, and three other times last year. In 28 big league starts, Beachy has faced the Phillies six times. If that above statement about regression carried any weight, then the Phillies should be getting the better of Brandon since they've seen him more than any other team. But his starts against them tell a different story.

It's hard to analyze his 2010 starts, since they were emergency starts at the end of the year, after Beachy had pretty much been shut down for the season. Still, he improved from his Major League debut to his third game. He faced more batters, lowered his walks, raised his strikeout total, improved his Game Score from 45 to 47, and seemed a better pitcher. At the very least he didn't regress while facing the same team twice in a span of two weeks (in the pressure cooker of a pennant race).

Continue reading this post »

After Keith Law got me to flail my arms around yesterday in curfuddled disagreement, Marc Hulet of FanGraphs puts the Braves prospects universe back into order with a sane (and boring, I guess, but that's good) list.

1. Julio Teheran, RHP
2. Arodys Vizcaino, RHP
3. Randall Delgado, RHP
4. Tyler Pastornicky, SS
5. Sean Gilmartin, LHP
6. Andrelton Simmons, SS
7. Christian Bethancourt, C
8. Edward Salcedo, SS
9. Zeke Spruill, RHP
10. Brandon Drury, 3B
11. J.R. Graham, RHP
12. Matt Lipka, OF
13. J.J. Hoover, RHP
14. Carlos Perez, LHP
15. Joe Terdoslavich, 1B
    Sleeper: Navery Moore, RHP

Good writeups on the site, and a good list. I guess for the record I should tell you what my top-25 Braves prospects look like. I put my list together in late October last year, so no AFL performances were considered (and I'm not sure I would have put too much weight on them anyway). My top-25 after the jump (so you can bash me if you'd like). Note that the official Talking Chop top-25 is an average of my rankings, CB's, and Matt's.

Continue reading this post »

All the recent news about the Atlanta Braves organization wanting to expand to Wilmington, North Carolina, has left some towns a little jealous. Especially one town in Southwest Georgia:

The article does say that the Columbus City Council likely wouldn't consider building the Braves a new stadium the way that the Wilmington City Council is considering it. Of course, Golden Park is a pretty nice park for a minor league team. Go here for a great review of the park, and more pictures like the one above.

A decade ago the Braves abandoned South Georgia (anywhere below Atlanta) when they moved their Sally League team from Macon to Rome after the 2002 season. The Macon ballpark is the oldest park in the state (opened in 1929), and deserves a team of some sort. Unfortunately, the trend around baseball is away from the historic minor league stadiums to new ergonomic money-machines that try for a diluted faux-historic flavor.

If you want a Braves minor league franchise, then you better build them a new stadium. Surely someone can find a use for these gorgeous old parks. Maybe we need more Rickwood Classics around the South. Speaking of, the 2012 Rickwood Classic will feature a guest appearance by Dale Murphy. Perhaps we could get Dale to start up a series of "Classic" games throughout the old parks of the South.

Hey Choppers! It's time for us to do our part and help a fellow Talking Chop reader and Braves fan get selected for this season of MLB Fan Cave. Braves fan Ricky Mast needs your support and your vote. Go here to vote and watch his video, which is also embedded below. You can follow him on Twitter @RickyMast. Use the hashtag #PutABraveInTheCave.

Good luck Ricky!

Keith Law of ESPN has released his top-10 2012 Atlanta Braves prospects. Let me just say, there are some surprises (the numbers beside the top-4 indicate what their rank is on Law's top-100 list):

Arodys Vizcaino, RHP (14)
Julio Teheran, RHP (18)
Christian Bethancourt, C (94)
Randall Delgado, RHP (98)
Andrelton Simmons, SS
Tyler Pastornicky, SS
Sean Gilmartin, LHP
Zeke Spruill, RHP
J.R. Graham, RHP
Matt Lipka, OF

So first, Arodys Vizcaino! Wait, that's not so shocking, let me back up. Julio Teheran at number 18! Does Law know something that no one else does? He ranks six pitchers ahead of Teheran (including Vizcaino), and while I could see a case for a couple of them, I still don't get it. Law ranked Teheran sixth in his 2011 top-100, but while the writeup on him this year says "he's farther away than he appeared to be a year ago," that still doesn't explain dropping him that much in the rankings. It seems to me that Law is viewing Teheran with a glass half empty eye and viewing other guys with similar development paths as glass half full prospects.

He ranks Bethancourt very aggressively, and ahead of Delagdo, but that's likely more about how much he's soured on Delgado than anything else. Here is some of what he says about Delgado in his scouting report, which also gives us some insight into his thoughts about Teheran and Vizcaino (my emphasis):

One thing that became clear during the 2011 season about Atlanta's troika of top pitching prospects is that Delgado, while a strong prospect in his own right, didn't belong in the same discussion as Julio Teheran or Arodys Vizcaino. He didn't possess Teheran's stuff and projection, or Vizcaino's control and plus breaking ball. While those two arms progressed last year, Delgado remains as he was, with a solid-average fastball that will touch 96 mph and an above-average changeup that won't miss enough bats on its own, especially without another pitch to move away from right-handed hitters and keep them honest.

He is still projectable with a loose arm, but the upside of his two system-mates hasn't rubbed off on him. There's a good enough chance that Delgado ends up in the bullpen because of the lack of a third pitch to drop him a level on these rankings, as he's more like a No. 3 or a No. 4 in a rotation or a setup man if he goes to the pen.

Look at how he sees not only Delgado against the other two guys, but at how he describes Teheran versus Vizcaino. Teheran is "stuff and projection," a work in progress, while Vizcaino is "control and plus breaking ball," without any qualifiers about "projection." In Vizcaino's scouting report, Law says "he's a three-pitch starter who has a history of plus control, and just needs time and health to become a No. 1 or No. 2 starter."

I read all that (or maybe I'm reading into all that) as Law just likes Vizcaino better than Teheran from a stuff perspective, even though both have question marks, so he's doing a bit of picking favorites. All of that is perfectly okay in any kind of prospect analysis, but we can respectfully disagree (and I do). This was reflected in last year's rankings, when Law had Freddie Freeman at number-43, and didn't even rank Craig Kimbrel. Those two guys, by the way, finished first and second in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. (Maybe that's a good sign for Teheran and Delgado.)

No Edward Salcedo on this list either, and with his tools I would have expected to see him. Especially ahead of Lipka, a prospect that Salcedo out-performed at the same level.

Here is a tweet from FoxSports Ken Rosenthal about Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Tommy Hanson:

Okay Rosenthal, now we need an entire article on this so we can get even more excited. Though this tweet was pretty concise with its information.

Tommy Caveman for 2012 Cy Young!

During the past few weeks we've been following the unfolding saga of the Atlanta Braves intention to relocate their high-A franchise to Wilmington, North Carolina. All along I figured that the Braves would simply create a new minor league franchise (out of thin air), and not renew their contract with the Lynchburg Hillcats, which expires after the 2014 season.

Come to find out that the Braves seem to prefer to purchase the Hillcats and move that franchise to Wilmington.

The Atlanta Braves have reached a tentative agreement with the Lynchburg Baseball Corporation to purchase full control of the Hillcats, Lynchburg general manager Paul Sunwall said Wednesday. But the sale will not commence unless Wilmington agrees to build a new stadium for the Braves.

The sale would also be contingent on another minor league franchise moving to Lynchburg. Hillcats beat reporter Chris Lang of the Lynchburg News & Advance also wrote this in his story about the Braves possibly purchasing the 'Cats:

The Braves first approached Lynchburg about purchasing the team in the fall and the tentative agreement began to come together in late December, Sunwall said. The Hillcats are the only team in Atlanta’s minor league system not owned by the parent club.

If the stadium deal falls through in Wilmington, Atlanta will not purchase the Lynchburg franchise.

That begs the question about what any new team in Wilmington would be called (clearly this is a very important topic for me). If the Braves purchase the Hillcats franchise, they may not necessarily care about purchasing the Hillcats name. Firstly because we all assume they will want to rebrand the new Wilmington franchise with the "Braves" moniker, and secondly because "Hill" cats doesn't really fit in a coastal city. I continue to hope (and lobby for) the Braves to choose a unique and original name, and not lazily put Braves in front of the city (or state) name as they've done everywhere else.

ESPN's Keith Law puts the Braves farm system in an unfavorable light (or at least, not as favorable as Braves fans are used to) as he ranks it 16th in his latest farm system rankings. Here is what he had to say about the Atlanta system:

They have reaped as little from the draft the past two years as anyone, taking low-ceiling college guys with early picks, staying at or under MLB's bonus recommendations and having less luck on the international market. It's telling that the major question on every position-player prospect in their top 10 is whether he'll hit.

It's true they've been spending less on the draft and on international free agents compared to other clubs, but they've used that strategy to draft and sign a lot of mid-level talent, creating a great deal of depth in the system. This was their stated strategy for the last two drafts. Compare the Braves system to the Pirates system. Pittsburgh has had years of drafting high picks and handing out big bonuses and signing international free agents to big money. Law ranks the Pirates eighth in his rankings.

To better compare the two systems, let's look at how another prospect evaluator ranks systems and players. John Sickels ranked the Braves eighth in his 2012 organizational rankings, while the Pirates come in 12th. When one looks at the way Sickels evaluates players, by assigning letter grades, one can see the differences in the two systems. The Braves had A or B quality prospects through their top-16, while the Pirates had A or B quality prospects through their top-8. This shows the Atlanta system's depth.

While the Pirates need all of their top guys to pan out, the Braves have the depth to allow for some of them to be busts (which every system will ultimately have). One also has to believe that the Braves will get more out of Teheran, Vizcaino, and Delgado than the Pirates will get out of Cole and Taillon.

It's almost like Law is looking ahead to the 2013 rankings, which will likely not be as good for the Braves. A lot will depend on how the Braves hitting prospects fare this year -- there is a lot of boom or bust in some of those guys -- but the Atlanta system will likely look a lot weaker once Teheran, Vizcaino, and Delgado all graduate to the Majors this season.

Evaluation of this sort is not a perfect science, but it does seem that Law is not giving the Atlanta system its fair due, focusing too much on whether hitters will hit, and ignoring all the pitching.

An early look at the Atlanta Braves new promo spot for opening day (hat tip to Braves Directory of Marketing, Hill Scott):

This Is Why We Chop from @hill_scott on Vimeo.

If that won't get you in the mood for opening day, then nothing will.

The process for funding a new Braves minor league stadium in Wilmington, North Carolina, passed its first big hurdle last night. The Star News has the story:

And yes, here is confirmation that the Braves would be bringing the team under their ownership, as speculated earlier on Talking Chop:

Braves and Mandalay officials are offering a 20-year lease guarantee as part of the agreement for the city to in turn build a stadium. The Braves and Mandalay would co-own the minor league team, which Braves officials say would be relocated from Lynchburg, Va.

While the process seems to have gone smoothly so far, there were signs of discontent outside the council meeting last night:

Protestors who carried signs in front of city hall and raised them during the meeting, have similar concerns.

Beau Derosa and Martin Goter sat outside city hall before the meeting holding signs that read "I call foul on corruption" and "Next election you are out."

Talking Chop has been on this story from the beginning, first passing along reports of the Braves interest back in early December of last year, but the AJC is finally catching up.

Overall I support this strategy, but I do hope they decide on an original name for the team, and don't just call them the Wilmington Braves. The Wilmington Wahoos or the Wilmington Wombats would be so much better.

In case you missed the announcement on Monday, here are two videos compiled from the Atlanta Braves press conference to unveil the new uniforms. The first one is from MLB.com, the second is available at FoxSportsSouth.

The Atlanta Braves seem to be pulling out all the stops in order to secure a new organization-owned minor league team, complete with brand new stadium. The Braves have targeted Wilmington, North Carolina for this endeavor. Here is the local ABC station with the latest.

Former Atlanta Braves Manager Bobby Cox, as well as Atlanta Braves General Manager Frank Wren and Mandalay Baseball CEO Art Matin are in town to attend tonight's Wilmington City Council meeting.

Talking Chop has been following this story since the beginning, click here for all the previous news about the Braves' partnership with Mandalay Entertainment. I'm sure we'll have more news tomorrow pending the outcome of the City Council meeting.

Here it is, more prospect goodness from Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus:

1. Julio Teheran, RHP
2. Randall Delgado, RHP
Four-Star Prospects
3. Arodys Vizcaino, RHP
Three-Star Prospects
4. Christian Bethancourt, C
5. Andrelton Simmons, SS
6. Tyler Pastornicky, SS
7. Sean Gilmartin, LHP
8. Edward Salcedo, 3B
9. Matt Lipka, OF
10. Zeke Spruill, RHP
Two-Star Prospects
11. J.R. Graham, RHP

Nine More:
12. Nick Ahmed, SS
13. J.J. Hoover, RHP
14. Joe Terdoslavich, 1B/3B
15. Kyle Kubitza, 3B
16. Brandon Drury, 3B
17. Carlos Perez, LHP
18. Adam Milligan, OF
19. Todd Cunningham, OF
20. Billy Bullock, RHP

No real surprises here. Like Mayo did yesterday, Goldstein lists Nick Ahmed really high, which in my opinion is a huge over-ranking of him. Mycal Jones is absent from this list, though Cunningham is present. I'd list Jones ahead of Cunningham, though Goldstein does list Jones as his "sleeper" later on in the article.

On of the things that he does in his organizational reviews is to list the top young talents in the organization, not just prospects. Here is that list:

Top 10 Talents 25 And Under (born 4/1/86 or later)
1. Tommy Hanson, RHP
2. Jason Heyward, OF
3. Craig Kimbrel, RHP
4. Julio Teheran, RHP
5. Freddie Freeman, 1B
6. Brandon Beachy, RHP
7. Mike Minor, LHP
8. Randall Delgado, RHP
9. Arodys Vizcaino, RHP
10. Christian Bethancourt, C

Just look at that list of players; the top-9 are ready to contribute, or already are contributing, right now. Included in that top-9 is an entire starting rotation, plus a dominant closer and setup man. That's just sick (in a really awesome way). An entire starting rotation 25 years old or younger ... WOW!

Good stuff as always by Kevin Goldstein, and I encourage you to read the full article and prospect reviews here. Most of it is subscription only, but there's no time like the present to get a Baseball Prospectus subscription.

It's going to get fast and furious with prospects this week. Today we got an Atlanta Braves prospect list from MLB.com's Jonathan Mayo, then tomorrow we get the Baseball Prospectus list from Kevin Goldstein. Finally on Friday, ESPN's Keith Law releases his top-10 for each organization.

Here is Mayo's top-20 list:

1. Julio Teheran, RHP
   
2. Arodys Vizcaino, RHP
   
3. Randall Delgado, RHP
   
4. Andrelton Simmons, SS
5. Christian Bethancourt, C
6. Sean Gilmartin, LHP
7. Tyler Pastornicky, SS
8. Joe Terdoslavich, 1B/3B
9. Zeke Spruill, RHP
10. J.R. Graham, RHP
11. Edward Salcedo, 3B
12. Nick Ahmed, SS
13. J.J. Hoover, RHP
14. Matt Lipka, CF
15. Brandon Drury, 3B
    
16. Carlos Perez, LHP
17. Todd Cunningham, OF
18. Mycal Jones, CF
19. Navery Moore, RHP
20. Billy Bullock, RHP

It's a decent list. I like the inclusion of Moore and Bullock at the end, even though relievers usually don't make the cut on top prospect lists. Though I find it strange that neither Kubitza nor LaStella make the list while Ahmed is listed pretty high. Ahmed at 12 is the biggest over-rank on this list, in my opinion.

Here it is, the Atlanta Braves new uniform, being modeled by Chipper Jones, Brian McCann, and Dan Uggla.

Pretty cool new alternate uni. They will apparently wear this on the weekends, shifting the red uni to Fridays.

And of course, Jason Heyward:

Bobby Cox will take the helm of a Braves team one more time:

When can we start taking bets about which team will win? That will be a cool game. I thought it was a cool idea already, but with Bobby on board that adds an extra layer of interest.

Today's Braves quote comes via a video posted by outfielder Matt Diaz, starring Tommy Hanson.

Good stuff from they guys as they get ready for spring training. And yes, Tommy needs to keep that look. (Original link here.)

It's been often repeated this off-season, and will likely be repeated even more as the season nears: the Atlanta Braves didn't add a single new Major League player via free agency or trade. The only "moves" the team made were moves of subtraction, by trading away Derek Lowe and letting Alex Gonzalez leave as a free agent. Other than that, this team looks nearly identical to the team that missed the playoffs by one game last year.

With that in mind, today's poll question is pretty simple, "Do you think the Braves did the right thing this off-season by not adding any additional players via trades or free agency?"

Vote in the poll and discuss in the comments.

Talking Chop was the first Braves site to bring you the news that the organization was looking to move one of its minor league teams to Wilmington, North Carolina. Bobby Cox and other Braves executives have had meetings with Wilmington City Counsel Members about constructing a new stadium for a Braves minor league affiliate. Now it appears the Wilmington City Counsel is about to set the wheels in motion to negotiate with the Braves. From the Lumina News:

Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo and city council held a press conference Tuesday, Jan. 31 to announce that council will move into serious talks about locating a minor league baseball stadium in Wilmington.

The council will vote in next Tuesday’s regular meeting to approve a memorandum with the understanding that the city of Wilmington, Mandalay Entertainment and the Atlanta Braves Professional Baseball Club will work on finding an agreement for bringing a baseball stadium and team to the city during the next six months. [...]

Mandalay Entertainment and the Atlanta Braves want the stadium to be operational by 2014, Saffo said; hence the urgency to begin discussions.

Mandalay Entertainment via its subsidiary, Mandalay Sports Entertainment, has an ownership stake and/or consults with six current minor league teams, from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees to the highly successful Dayton Dragons, who have sold out a record 815 consecutive games. They also recently began consulting with a seventh team, the Winston-Salem Dash. I imagine that their role in this venture would be as a partner/consultant to the Braves in a new Class-A Advanced franchise in Wilmington.

The Braves agreement with the Lynchburg Hillcats, the Atlanta organization's current Class-A Advanced affiliate, will expire at the end of the 2014 season, so the urgency the article speaks about is surely meant to imply that the Braves would like a new stadium in place for the 2015 season, when they would presumably move their Class-A Advanced team from Lynchburg to Wilmington. At the same time the Braves would likely switch from having an independently owned Class-A Advanced team to one that is owned by the parent Major League organization, which is the case with all other Braves minor league teams.

It is now clear that the Braves are determined to bring all of their minor league teams under their ownership and control, leaving no independently owned teams within the organizational structure. The Wilmington Braves would be the final piece of that puzzle.

The Atlanta Braves announced which minor league players they will invite to spring training this year. This list is long and includes some of the team's top prospects and up-and-coming young ballplayers.

Last year's top pick, left-hander Sean Gilmartin, will join right-hander Zeke Spruill as the two pitching prospects receiving invites. Arizona Fall League standouts catcher Christian Bethancourt and third baseman Joey Terdoslovich will be in camp, along with top shortstop prospect Andrelton Simmons.

Outfielders Todd Cunningham and Stefan Gartrell received invites, as did catcher Evan Gattis, one of the feel-good stories in the Braves organization. Catcher Matt Kennelly also gets an invite, because you can never have too many catchers in spring training.

Our old Aussie friend Peter Moylan also gets an invite to spring training. They will join the previously announced non-roster invitees, who were (mostly) all profiled on Talking Chop over the last month. We will continue our NRI In-Depth series starting next week with the new invitees.

Links to NRI In-Depth player profiles:

Jason Rice
Drew Sutton
Luis Durango
Adam Russell
Yohan Flande
Ernesto Mejia
Josh Wilson
Jordan Parraz
Jose Yepez
Dusty Hughes

A great tweet to see from Atlanta Braves beat writer David O'Brien this morning, quoting Chipper Jones regarding Jason Heyward:

Hallelujah!

Excitement ... building.

Last year the Atlanta Braves won 89 games and lost 73. As we all know by now, they fell just short of the playoffs, and didn't have enough left in the tank to win just one of their last five games. But Braves fans are still optimistic about this team in 2012 -- a team that barely changed a single face from last year's team.

In last Friday's poll, conducted on this very website (results below), when asked how many games they thought the Braves would win in 2012, 61% of Atlanta fans chose an answer above 89 games. Forty-five percent of respondents think the Braves will win between 94 and 90 games, with the remaining 16% even more optimistic.

The second most frequently chosen wins total was between 89 and 85 games; 28% of voters chose to believe the Braves win total will fall somewhere in there. Only 8% believe this 2012 team will win fewer than 85 games. (I therefore assume that 8% of the readership of this site is composed of Mets and Phillies fans.)

The overall judgement of Braves fans voting in the poll seems to have been that the 2012 Braves team will be better than the 2011 team, even though the only moves the team made were to subtract their starting shortstop and opening day starting pitcher.

Optimism is in the air ... it must not be long until spring training.

From a David O'Brien Tweet regarding Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones:

I really have no words for that. Strange. I guess he felt it probably wasn't that serious (but if that was the case, then why did he get an MRI). Strange.

It seems like Chipper is almost giving too many reassurances of his health today (if you're following the tweets from David O'Brien and Mark Bowman). Of course, that could just be what those guys are choosing to highlight in their reporting today, and not really anything different than normal. Speaking of...

LOLarry!

Perhaps now we are seeing the reluctance of the Atlanta Braves front office to make any additional trades (beyond Lowe) this off-season. Here is Roger McDowell from Braves pitching camp at Turner Field yesterday regarding Tim Hudson:

"We'll progress as the doctors say he can progress," McDowell said. "Whether it's the middle of April or first of May, we'll probably be a little more cautious so that we can have him at the end. There's no reason to rush things and then have a setback."

"Middle of April or first of May," that's a long time to be without your ace. This could be the big reason that all the Jair Jurrjens trade rumors went nowhere, and were pretty much unsubstantiated rumors to begin with. Hudson's recovery from back surgery to repair a herniated disk in early November may put him a couple of months behind the rest of the team when spring camp begins next month.

It certainly seems like the Braves aren't counting on Hudson to start the season. Add to that the uncertainty of Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson to return from their late season injuries, and the only pitcher from last year's season-opening starting staff who seems to be a sure bet to be healthy to begin the season is Brandon Beachy. It's a good thing the Braves have great starting pitching depth.

This depth could be put to the test early in the year, as the kids will have to be ready when the bell rings if the veterans on the staff can't go. The Braves rotation to start the season could conceivably look something like this: Beachy, Mike Minor, Kris Medlen, Julio Teheran, and Randall Delgado. Then as Jurrjens, Hanson, and Hudson got healthy, the guy doing the worst in the rotation would likely be replaced with the veteran.

If that mix of youngsters is actually the rotation to start the season, then the Braves will not have a single starting pitcher in their rotation over the age of 26 ... and it would still be a really good staff. Even when Jurrjens and Hanson return, the staff would still be 26 or younger. Take a minute to marvel at that amazing young starting pitching depth...

It's going to be a spring training with lots of reports about injury recoveries. Reports of pitchers ahead of their rehab schedule, and reports of others behind in their rehab. Get ready for a lot of conflicting reports, but in the end remember that the Braves will probably err on the side of caution with Hudson, Hanson, and Jurrjens, and even if they throw well in the spring there's still a chance that all three could start the year on the disabled list.

The early season scheduled off-days don't really give the team the ability to use a four-man staff to start the season, so a full five-man rotation will probably be needed from the opening bell. By the way, if the opening day rotation is Beachy, Minor, Medlen, Teheran, Delgado, who would be your opening day starter?

Imagine the sound of cartoon car breaks screeching to a halt, and that's what my mind did when I saw this tweet from David O'Brien:

Oh great. Now we have to worry about Buddy Carlyle stealing time away from more deserving pitchers. I guess as triple-A depth he's not that bad, but more than anything he represents those Braves teams of the late 2000's when they were settling for below average players. They stumbled upon some guys who did okay at first, but far too often they stuck with those guys for too long, to the detriment of the team.

I'm already getting the chills just thinking of what a healthy Jason Heyward will mean to the Atlanta Braves this season. Here is the money quote from an article posted over the weekend about our young outfielder by Peter Gammons:

When Heyward was growing up outside of Atlanta, he went to a handful of Braves games every year, and after playing every day in one of the nation's elite programs, he watched the games with his parents. What he didn't know then was what Major League players deal with, especially when they are hurt.

"With the help of my parents, I realized that the only way to cope with disappointment is to overcome it with hard work," Heyward says. "Performance comes from work and dedication, belief and strength. Words and excuses get you nowhere."

The even tempered way in which Heyward carries himself continues to impress me time and again. I remember what a punk I was at age 20, and I also remember how immature and impulsive I was at age 25, but I've never been subjected to anything close to the pressure situations that Heyward has been under since he was in high school. For a kid his age to carry himself that calmly and be so self aware is an amazing thing, and it has been and will continue to be one of Jason Heyward's greatest assets.

I'm really excited to see what a healthy Heyward can do this year. In an off-season for the Braves that was more about subtraction than addition, a renewed Heyward is the key to a successful 2012.