ATLANTA BRAVES 2010 PREVIEW

The Atlanta Braves had a good season last year as they were in the wild card race until the last week of the season. They came up short of the playoffs but had a 86 and 76 record. Lets look at how the 2010 Atlanta Braves stack up against the rest of the National League.

STARTING PITCHING

The Atlanta Braves are known for their starting pitching. During their run of 14 consecutive Division Championships Pitching was the name of the game. Since their run of winning Division Championships pitching has not been as good in Atlanta. The Braves made very good progress last season as they had probably the deepest starting rotation in the National League. This season has a chance to be even better. They will have rookie phenom Tommy Hanson for a full season in the Big Leagues after his stellar rookie season. They get a new and improved Tim Hudson back for hopefully the full season after Tommy John surgery. They have Jair Jurrgens back after his season of a 2.60 ERA. Jurrgens has established himself as one of the best young pitchers in the National League. They have veteran Derek Lowe back after he led the staff in wins last season. Replacing the traded Javier Vasquez in the rotation will be Kenshin Kawakami who was the Braves dragon slayer last season with wins over some of Baseballs biggest name pitchers. Again the Braves appear to have one of the best starting rotations in the National League.

BULLPEN

The Braves lost Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez from their bullpen from last season, but appear to have put together potentially their strongest bullpen in several years. They have Peter Moylan back as one of the leagues best set-up men. Kris Medlin sort of found his niche at the end of last year as a middle reliever and possible starter. The Braves also have lefty Eric O'Flairraty as a solid lefthander out of the pen. The Braves added Takashi Saito as a veteran late inning set-up man. Saito also has closer experience which should give the pen a lot of flexibility. The biggest addition to the pen could be veteran left handed flamethrower Billy Wagner as the closer. If he can bounce back from Tommy John surgery, he could be the Braves most reliable closer since John Smoltz had the closer job. The Bullpen looks solid.

LINE-UP

For most of last season the Braves line-up struggled to hit Homeruns and to score runs consistently, but they did have a couple of breakout players in Yunell Escobar and Martin Prado. Escobar had a solid season with 14 HR and 76 RBI's and Prado hit over .300 for the season and won the 2nd base job. The Braves need a strong comeback season from Chipper Jones as he only had 17 HR's and 72 RBI's and batted .265. The Braves still have Allstar catcher Brian McCann as the anchor of the middle of the line-up. The Braves hope that a full season with Nate McClouth will get him back to the Allstar status he enjoyed while with the Pirates. The Braves acquired OF Melky Cabrerra in the Javy Vasquez trade with the Yankees and he will share LF with old reliable Matt Diaz. The missing ingredient to the Braves line-up could be highly touted rookie RF Jason Heyward. The 20 year old phenom won the job in the spring and is the talk of Baseball coming into the season. He is what you call a five tool player and should add needed power to the Braves line-up. Another piece the Braves added to their line-up was the signing of veteran Troy Glaus to play 1B. The Braves feel like he is healthy and ready to produce the power that he has produced in the past.

The Braves line-up would not be complete without the contributions of their bench. The Braves have veteran catcher David Ross, Omar Infante, who can play the IF and the OF, they also acquired veteran IF and OF Eric Hinske and they have IF Brooks Conrad who played well at times in a reserve roll in parts of last season. With the help of their bench, I see the Braves line-up to have the potential to be more productive than last season.

INTANGIBLES

Longtime Braves Manager Bobby Cox has said that this is his last season in the dugout as the Braves Manager. How will this effect the team? I believe it will be a positive for the team as it will be a motivating factor for them during a long and difficult season. They want to give Bobby Cox one last taste of the Post Season and a chance to send him out as a big winner.

OUTLOOK

I see this being a very successful season in Atlanta as the Braves will be contenders all season. I believe they will fall short of the Division Championship but they will win the Wild Card and make the playoffs.

Until Next Time.