The Braves seem to need to add a right handed bat, probably in left field. In reality there are no good choices. It seems to me that the best choices are at least a year away - Mike Trout or Wil Myers. If you were Frank Wren could you build a trade with the assumption you'll wait a year to get your bat. I started tinkering and thought maybe he could do both. The Braves send Tommy Hansen and Arodys Vizcaino to the Royals for Wil Myers, Lorenzo Cain, and either Chris Dwyer or Yordano Ventura. The Braves have liked Cain and he could play left for a year and move to center when Bourne becomes a free agent. He doesn't add much power, but adds good defense and some speed over Prado. Wil Myers is probably a year a way, but he is an A- prospect as a corner outfielder. Dwyer would give the Braves a left hander who will probably need to move to the pen, but outside of Venters and O'Flaherty we don't have any lefties in the pen and none coming up - all the top pen prospects are right handed. Ventura could stay a starter or move to the pen because of his size. I think a deal for Trout would be harder to arrange - thoughts.

Before I am banned or the denizens here seek to send the men in white suits with butterfly nets after me. The Royals on paper look bad and they didn't sniff .500 last year two major reasons. 1. Although they hit, they had no power and drove in few runs, 2. They had poor pitching exacerbated by injuries and I'll phone it in performances by their better pitches. Not to mention a dreadful bullpen for half a year surrounding Soria.

I'll go over pitching first and get back to offense later. Our defense will be better or the same everywhere except CF. 

SS and 2B with Escobar and Getz should be better. C without Kendall should improve ( I remember the Rany article about how the team ERA was better with Pena - small sample size though it was). 3B with Betemit was a disaster, but at one time he was a good fielder. Maybe some stability and a year of success will help and statistically he should move toward the mean for small improvement. 1B should be constant. Frenchy in RF should be a wash with DeJesus. Gordon with some offensive success is a good athlete who can improve and can throw. If somehow we can limit Melky in CF or get time for Cain or Dyson that would be big defensive jump. But pitching, last year we had 1 above average pitcher, one with above average stuff, but below average production (Davies), one who was finished (Bannister), one who was finished by injury (Meche and we knew it) and a litany of call ups - one was a youngster with promise Hochevar. The others were journeymen, of whom Chen shined. Not a compelling rotation. The rotation is certainly deeper this year. I expect Francis and Hochevar to be better than league average pitchers on ability alone - Rany's article on Hochevar and Yost and their mid year meeting of the minds could mean a very solid year for Luke.

Davies is Davies and he could mature and contribute (Jason Marquis finally did). Mazzaro with experience and great Royal's coaching should be average or a shade better. Bruce Chen statistically should move back. But he has had a solid year and Booby Cox used to say when Chen was a hot Braves prospect that confidence (lack of)  was what held him back. He also has a second year to have recovered from arm surgery. So maybe we get a second year like last year, Sean O'Sullivan is young and should start in AAA, but is better than anyone we had to call up last year - except Hochevar.

The Bullpen was awful last year. This year we have some solid arms Tejeda and Wood to start the year(behind Soria), and some very exciting talent that could make the roster -Jeffress and Collins a powerful righty/lefty duo. Strikeout pitcher Greg Holland and longer shots Louis Coleman and Blaine Hardy to be called up if they don't make the pen out of spring training.

Even with the loss of the Great One - starters are deeper more experienced, the bullpen may be one of the best in the league. Later my optimistic look at Offense. Polite comments please. 

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Bill Polian suggests McClendon and Thomas may be starters next year. Does McClendon start at guard or center? Does Thomas start at guard or tackle? - some of the Star reporters say he has worked at tackle a lot. What was going on early in the year when Richard and Saturday started and had this hand holding gimmick? After that stopped and DeVan started was his play really different than what Lilja would have given us ( I know this would ruin BBS gripe if they were comparable)? Did Pollack improve enough after the benching that he could be a passable starter next year? Would you be comfortable with either LT Johnson, LG DeVan, C McClendon, RG Pollack, RT Thomas or Linkenbach  or Saturday at C and McClendon at one Guard spot? Could the innovative Colts be the 1st to platoon C's McCelendon against 3-4 and Saturday against 4-3? All of this presupposes minimal help from rookies or free agents. I just don't think we are going to sign Gaither (bad back and too expensive). We may shop for some mid priced help like Robert Gallery G or Samson Satele C from Oakland and we never know what Polian's going to in the draft, but the best expectations my be a RT to develop into LT or an interior lineman. Would these be passable improvements - especially if our draft focused on D (DT, S, LB)? Polite comments please. Thanks

It seems a shame that last week's results aren't available. Maybe someone could take this on and expand it a little 

bit. They could give percentage correct for each game along with the winners or top 10 each week. I know it's a holiday 

weekend (I hope they aren't tabulated by hand), but the prediction thread seems to be getting less attention especially

since Thursday games have started. 

Readers love reading about themselves, so how about some love for the predictions. 

Seems like just yesterday that Braves fans were disappointed that we missed out on Burnett. The conventional wisdom has been we overpaid for Derek Lowe, but let's look at where we are now. A J Burnett 393 IP, 23 wins, and 3 years at 16.5 million left to go. Derek Lowe 387 IP, 31 wins, and 2 years at 15 million left to go. Their WHIP are comparable - Burnett 1.40 and 1.51 and Lowe 1.52 and 1.37.  Once they hit fre agency they are going to get paid and you can't fairly compare salaries to pre free agent pitchers. I'd rather have Lowe. Bet the Yankees want to trade?

My observations on what would be a top 20 based on potential and progress this year. That would of course 

leave off injured players, such as Dimaster Delgado.

1. Randall Delgado

2.Julio Teheran

3. Mike Minor

4. Arodys Vizcaino

5. Freddie Freeman

6.Mycal Jones

7. Robinson Lopez

8. Willie Cabrera

9. Chris Masters

10. J.J. Hoover

11. Benino Pruneda

12. Paul Clemens

13. Michael Dunn

14. Brandon Beachy

15. Luis Avilan

16. Samuel Sime

17. Brett Oberholtzer

18. Chris Resop

19. Cory Rasmus

20. Brett Butts

Andy Otero and Edward Salcedo could easily join this list once they start play in this country. Craig Kimbrel and

Jonny Venters are already w/ Atlanta as is the ubiquitous Gregor Blanco.