Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Empire is Evil again; baseball offseason

I cringed this morning when I heard the news -- Curtis Granderson will be going to the Yankees. You have got to be kidding me. Granderson is such a good guy and someone I like to root for. I can't do that if he is in New York.

The Tigers have always been my American League team to root for, so I took a liking to Granderson. He is just a guy who seems to play the game the right way. Plus with everything he is involved in off the field as well, you just can't help but wish for good things for him.

Now he is a Yankee. My only hope is it doesn't last long.

The Braves have spent the offseason looking for a couple of arms for the pen and seem to have found them in Takashi Saito to replace Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez. I think Saito is solid, but I don't know what to expect from Wagner. I have seen him play quite a bit going back to his Houston days.

If Wagner can settle into the closer role, I think the back end of the pen is in good shape. The Braves are also set with the starting rotation, with six starters signed right now. Someone is probably going to have to go and I wouldn't mind it being Derek Lowe.

The last think they need to address is getting a stick. If they move Lowe's 15 mil off the books, that could really open up some opportunities for Frank Wren in the free agent market. The two big names out there right now are Jason Bay and Matt Holliday. I think Atlanta will probably be priced out of those negotiations meaning they will have to take a look at the next level of guys, including Jermaine Dye. I wouldn't mind seeing the former Brave coming back to Atlanta.

After the strong push at the end of the season, with Wild Card talks going to the last week of the season, there is reason for some excitement going into this season. I think they do need one, maybe two more bats to put the whole package together.

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