Part Two: The Prognosis

So after a week of contemplation, frustration, and an obscenely large amount of Biochemistry, I've returned with the "Chinese Democracy" of blog posts, Part Two:  The Prognosis.

The Braves left standing at the end of 2008 were not a good baseball team.  They didn't have good pitching, rarely had good hitting, and were terrible in the clutch.  Frank Wren has every opportunity to try to correct things this offseason, with reportedly about 45 million dollars to spend on new players.  I feel there are two different routes he could go with this, but neither one involves any of the big free agents this offseason.

Option one begins with Jake Peavy.  Peavy, as you may have heard, is being cautiously shopped by the penny-pinching Padres.  While this is absurd for a number of reasons, I don't feel bad at all for capitalizing on it.  Not after witnessing the travesty that was Kevin Millwood for Johnny Estrada.  Peavy is arguably the best pitcher in baseball, still a young player, and cost-controlled for four years at below-market cost.  That makes him the only player who I'd feel comfortable dipping into the Braves elite-prospect level.  I'd wonder if an offer of Tommy Hanson, Kelly Johnson, Jo-Jo Reyes, and Brandon Jones would entice them.  An elite pitching prospect, one of the best second basemen in the majors, and two major league ready prospects with potential seems to be a good deal.  While it's certainly not Charles Thomas, Juan Cruz, and Dan Meyer for Tim Hudson (and we shouldn't expect this anymore), the deal tops the one the Twins received for Johan Santana, factoring in the below market contract Peavy is extended to.  If the Braves are truly ready to retool, a true Ace is the foremost need, and makes all the difference in the route the Braves take.

Assuming that deal (or one similar to it) is enough to get Peavy, the team still has about 40 million to play with, and still needs more pitching.  Sabathia, Sheets, and Derek Lowe are all good to great pitchers, but I'm not looking at any of them.  The first two terrify me for injury reasons, and I just don't think Derek Lowe will be worth it at the end of his contract.  Rather, I look at someone who has not been talked about nearly enough in Oliver Perez. 

Any Braves fan over the past few years should know Perez quite well, as he as simply owned the Braves since moving in from the Pirates.  My reasoning for acquiring him is threefold:  Foremost, obviously, is that he's a young, talented pitcher.  He's not consistent at all, but his first year with Rick Peterson helped him tremendously, and I feel that a year with Roger McDowell could do the same.  Secondly, Perez is coming off a down year.  He's still going to be expensive, but comparatively cheap to other pitchers of his caliber.  2007 Oliver Perez  would have probably made about 4 million dollars more a year in free agency than Oliver Perez present, and  2009 Oliver Perez has the potential to do the same.  Atlanta should capitalize on this one year advantage. Finally, it would be worth it to sign Perez just so Atlanta doesn't have the guaranteed losses against the Mets that I've come to expect.  I honestly have no idea what he's expected to sign for, but I'd be willing to put a rough offer of 14 million a year over 4 years.  That's less than Andy Pettitte got from the Yanks last year, but more than any other free agent pitcher over the last couple of years.  It's a very risky proposition, but Atlanta has to take risks given their current state.

Finally, to round out the rotation, I'm going to make a very unpopular move and resign Mike Hampton to a two year, incentive laden contract that starts at about 5 million a year.  I like Hampton, and even though I'm begging for criticism here, I believe that he's finally healthy.  Imagine how irritated as a Braves fan you would be if Hampton went on to succeed next year after the Braves wasted some 80 million dollars on him.  He's getting older, but I think that he could succeed in the fourth starter role, which is what we're looking at him for.

This provides the Braves rotation with a starting five of Peavy, Perez, Jurrjens, Hampton, and Jorge Campillo.  If either John Smoltz or Tim Hudson is able to return around the all-star break, they can replace the inevitable occurence of a Hampton injury or a Campillo regression, and make the Braves rotation as scary as it used to be.

The acquisition of Peavy and Perez and the retaining of Hampton should give the Braves about 25 million left to work with on offense.  Unfortunately, the free agent class for offense is stunningly weak.  With the Braves needing offense from the outfield primarily, and possibly a replacement for Johnson at second, the attractive options are Pat Burrell, Adam Dunn, Milton Bradley, Manny Ramirez, Bobby Abreu, Rocco Baldelli, and Raul Ibañez.

Dunn and Burrell are intriguing, of course, but Atlanta would lead the world in strikeouts between one of them and Francoeur.  Bradley and Ramirez are talented, but I can't imagine Bobby Cox allowing either of their egos in the Braves locker room.  I think a short term contract for Bobby Abreu would be wonderful, but his name is going to outweigh his value during his contract, and probably won't sign for less than 5 years, 60 million.  Leaving us with Baldelli and Ibañez, two options I was hoping for at the trade deadline.

Baldelli, as you may remember, came up with Carl Crawford and had everyone convinced that one day, the Rays were finally going to be good.  Unfortunately, now that the Rays are good, they have eleven outfielders and Baldelli was too injured to be one of them.  A three year, fifteen million dollar contract seems like a good starting point for him, as he has the potential to be a boom or bust signing.  More risks that Atlanta can afford to take, because with Jordan Schafer waiting in the wings, Baldelli going down could be beneficial in the long run, but I'd like to have someone who I know is major league ready to start off 2009.

Ibañez is 37 years old, but has consistently hit .295 with 20-odd home runs for the Mariners.  He made 5.5 million last year, and is probably due for a raise, but not a long term contract.  I think a 7 million, 1 year contract would be fair, 0r 2 years for 13 million.  Again, with Jason Heyward waiting in the wings, all Atlanta needs is a serviceable stopgap.

With 13 million left to spend, the Braves could make a run at Rafael Furcal as Dave O'Brien had suggested early in the year, but I'd just assume let Martin Prado man the second base job.  He's not going to hit 320 again, but should at least be serviceable at second base.  A lineup of Baldelli/ Escobar/ Jones/ McCann/ Ibañez/ Kotchman/ Prado/ Francoeur will not only score some runs, but will allow Bobby Cox to play the run-manufacturing game that he loves to play so much, with a lot of slap-hitters surrounding Jones and McCann.

Of course, Jake Peavy might not actually be available, or this offseason might be one of the absurd ones where everyone signs for 20 million dollar contracts.  If that happens, the Braves should do the exact opposite of everything I wrote above:  Stand pat.  Yes, they have 45 million dollars to play with, but there is no use in spending for spendings sake.  For the sake of argument, take a look at some of the big names in the 2009 free agent class:  Mark DeRosa, Placido Polanco, Brian Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Chone Figgins, Rick Ankiel, Jason Bay, Carl Crawford, Brian Giles, Vladimir Guerrero, Matt Holliday, Xavier Nady, Jason Werth, Josh Beckett, Erik Bedard, Justin Duchescherer, Kelvim Escobar, Rich Harden, John Lackey, Cliff Lee, Brett Myers, and Brandon Webb.  It will be a buyers market, and a prime time to have a boatload of cap space.

For 2008, Atlanta can attempt the path of the 2008 Marlins and let the kids play.  We don't know if Jordan Schafer and Gorkys Hernandez are ready, but it would be worth trying them out.  Jurrjens, Campillo, Reyes, Morton, and James is not a fearsome rotation, but they could surprise by the end of the year.  What's the worst case scenario, the Braves lose a lot?  That's probably going to be the outcome of 2009 anyways, why not just take the better draft pick?  If the team truly does suck, then Atlanta will know exactly where it stands for 2010, making the free agent class all the more promising.

I might be crazy.  Ten years of watching the Hawks be awful followed by slight success this year may have tainted my mindset towards accepting losing.  However, I believe that the Braves have too many holes to fill through free agency this year, but the acquisition of Peavy would change that entirely.  The verdict on Frank Wren is yet to be determined, but he needs to decide right now if he's going to make a splash in free agency or a ripple, because there's no room for hesitation if the Braves want to succeed.