Yep. The Mets have certainly made an effort to improve; somehow, though, nothing seems to work the way it’s supposed to with them, so I’m reserving judgement. They are the NL East team that I’m the most worried about this year, as a Braves fan.
As sorry as I was to see Rafael Furcal go, Renteria seems to be more or less an equivalent player – a couple of years older (probably), best years are a bit better than Furcal’s but not dramatically so, neither gets on base quite as much as you’d like from a leadoff hitter, both have hit 12-15 HR/year in their good years, both right around 75% in stolen base percentage (though Furcal has averaged an extra 9 SB/162 games), and both have played key roles on successful teams. Renteria doesn’t have Furcal’s arm (no one else does) but they both make most of the plays they’re supposed to. With the Red Sox picking up a chunk of Renteria’s salary ($11 million over the next three years), it’s about as good as the Braves could have done – an All-Star shortstop for $6 million/season instead of the $13 million/year Furcal got from the Dodgers. At any rate, I’m not worried about the shortstop spot anymore, especially with Wilson Betemit on the bench.
I’m excited about Brian McCann’s future, but then the vast majority of players who get anointed as a perennial all-star before they’ve been in the majors a full season wash up pretty soon after that. He gets raves from other players and scouts both in and out of the Braves organization, and the Braves apparently thought enough of him to trade Johnny Estrada for bullpen prospects, but I’m having nightmares about having McCann struggle or get injured and having Todd Pratt as our starting catcher for much of the season – Pratt’s fine as a backup, but if we have Pratt and Brayan Pena as our catching corps, we could be in trouble. I liked Estrada and was sorry to see him go, even if he wasn’t nearly as valuable last year as the season before.
If anything can help keep the pressure off McCann, it’ll be the pressure on Jeff Francoeur to live up to the hype of last season and the nearly impossible expectations for this season. He seems as well-suited as anyone to handle it, and I really hope he becomes for the Braves of the next decade what Chipper Jones has been for the last, but again it’s tough to base career projections on half a season. Even if he slumps a bit, though, right field should be in capable hands.
With Chipper at 3B, Giles at 2B, and Andruw in CF, most of the rest of the position slots are also set. Ryan Langerhans and Kelly Johnson would probably be adequate in LF, especially since Johnson can also fill in at short or third, but I’d love to see the Braves pick up a right-handed bat who could split time between LF and 1B (platooning with Adam LaRoche). The Braves offered arbitration to Brian Jordan, who might fill that role, and who might avoid injury if he’s only playing three or four days a week, but he’s getting really old and I’d love to see someone with more upside added instead – problem is, there aren’t a lot of candidates: Jeff Conine is even older than Jordan, Juan Encarnacion hasn’t ever played 1B (though neither has Jordan), Denny Hocking can play anwhere on the field, but he played 161 games . . . over the last 3 years, not sure Bobby Cox would want Jose Guillen in his clubhouse (and he’s never played 1B), etc. Eli Marrero would be one possibility, but he’s only played over 100 games twice in his career (though his best season percentage-wise was the year he spent in Atlanta). Reggie Sanders might be a candidate, but his one year as a Brave was the worst of his career. I’d love to see the Braves take a shot at Rondell White – he’s from the Milledgeville area, still lives there in the off-season, was playing well before he got hurt last year, and is a positive guy to have around, from all reports. I don’t think he’s ever played 1B before either, but it might be worth a shot – at least he’s a little younger than Brian Jordan. He’s also likely to be signable for around $3.5 million. You have to think that if Todd Hollandsworth batted right instead of left, the Braves would have tried to keep him, despite not having done much to impress in his short time with the club last year.
The Braves starting pitching seems to be solid enough to start the year, and perhaps even good enough to justify trading one of the younger guys (Ramirez, Kyle Davies, Mackay McBride) for relief help – I’m not convinced that Lance Cormier and Oscar Villareal are the answer. Actually, I’m pretty sure they aren’t. There obviously aren’t any true closers on the market – at least none that would be available for anything Braves would be willing to part with. Have to believe that if there were any real chance of getting a deal done with Tampa Bay for Danys Baez, it would have happened by now.
All in all, if they had to start the season now, I think you might have to give the Mets a slight edge in the NL East on talent and potential, but a lot of folks have lost money betting against the Braves for the last decade and a half – I think our chances would be pretty good.
