Archive for Braves

That knee-jerk assumption everyone had — including me — that Andruw Jones would sign a minor league deal with the Braves turns out to have been a faulty one: The Braves have had a couple of weeks to discuss Andruw Jones, and in the process, it doesn’t appear that they’ve become any more interested in […]

Because it’s a huge shock: When they surprised the public with plans for a new ballpark for the minor-league Braves a year ago, Gwinnett County officials said the stadium would cost $40 million and would pay for itself from Day One. Neither statement has come true. So far, county commissioners have committed $31 million in […]

Andruw Jones is about to be released. I wouldn’t bet my belly button lint that the Braves won’t sign him to a veteran minimum deal within the next week or so.

ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick has Derek Lowe “leaning strongly” towards signing with Atlanta. I know four years is a long contract for a 35 year-old, but he’s young blood compared to Smoltz and Glavine. I know $60M is a lot of money, but $15M a year is around what Mike Hampton was making, so we’re used […]

Braves GM Frank Wren, when asked whether he pays attention to the criticism he’s received from the web: Said Wren, speaking of the reason he strategically avoids such sites: “It’s not unlike talk radio, and I’ve stopped listening to talk radio. I don’t think the average sports fan calls talk radio, nor do I think […]

It’s bad enough that the Braves have been given the baseball equivalent of an atomic wedgie by anyone they’ve tried to sign this winter, but now they’ve got out of town writers eyeing Braves’ players like they’re the 1958 Kansas City A’s or something: You’ve heard this story from the Dodgers and Angels in many […]

Hey Boston! You take our old pitcher, we’ll take your old pitcher! With the news that John Smoltz may be headed to the Red Sox, it should come as a no surprise that the Braves appear to be intensifying their pursuit of another free-agent pitcher: Derek Lowe. According to a baseball source, Lowe is scheduled […]

The other day I was struggling to think how the Braves’ offseason could get any worse. I’ll admit that this development hadn’t occurred to me: John Smoltz is leaving Atlanta for the most stunning of destinations. The Boston Red Sox. Smoltz, 41, is on the verge of signing a one-year, $5.5 million contract with the […]

Dave O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is one of the handful of newspapers dudes who really gets into blogging. Well, he calls it a blog, but because he’s not really linking to anybody, it’s more of a freewheeling stream-of-consciousness thing. Either way, it’s nice loose Posnanski-lite writing that I tend to enjoy more than your […]

I wasn’t a big fan of Lance Niekro: First Baseman, but this is something I can get behind: Twenty years have passed since a Niekro threw a knuckleball in a major-league game. Lance Niekro, the longtime Giants infield prospect, now hopes to become the next to keep the family craft alive. Niekro, who as recently […]