Go to the TV, Hanson’s pitching

 Lake Buena Vista, Fla. – It’s mere coincidence that today’s game is on ESPN and Tommy Hanson is making his debut, but what a sweet coincidence for Braves fans who can get in front of a TV.

    I mean, seriously, this is a much-anticipated debut. Granted, it’s just two relief innings (third and fourth innings) in the second Grapefruit League game on the slate, a game that has very little significance otherwise.

  But Hanson is the best pitching prospect the Braves have signed and developed since Kevin Millwood, and has the potential to make a far greater impact on the organization for years to come.

  The 6-foot-6, Oklahoma-born, California-raised right-hander has star potential, and if it doesn’t seem fair to put that burden on such a young pitcher before he’s pitched above the Double-A level, well, it’s too late.

  When you’re the first pitcher ever to win the MVP award at the prospect-laden Arizona Fall League, word gets around, and expectations soar. And honestly, I’ve never met a kid who seems less inclined to either buckle under the weight of those expectations or let them go to his head.

 This guy’s special, you can tell that from the minute you start talking to him. Calm, grounded, acts like he’s completely unfazed by all the attention and interviews and projections people are making for his future.

 “I feel zero pressure,” he said last week, when I asked him about competing for a spot this spring, when the starting rotation appears set with the addition of Tom Glavine in the 5-hole. “I just want to go out and throw.”

  He wants to be a big-time major league pitcher worse than anyone wants it for him; he’s driven like hell to succeed.

  It’s just that he doesn’t feel the need to let everyone know that in interviews, to walk around acting like nothing’s going to get in his way and that he’s a bad man. He lets his actions speak for him, in his work habits, his intensity on the mound, the way he goes at hitters, everything.

  And he’s got to know that if there are no injuries to Braves starters this spring, and he’s assigned to Triple-A Gwinnett to start the season, then it’s surely just a matter of time before the Braves need him and he gets the call.

 Anyone who’s talked to him and seen him pitch, who’s seen him carve hitters with his 94-mph fastballs with explosive movement, big curveballs, nasty sliders — Bobby Cox has already compared his slider to John Smoltz’s vaunted pitch — and quality changeups, agrees he’s as close to can’t-miss as they come.

 Hopefully you’ll get to see enough of him in two innings today to at least develop some appreciation for his talent, though it’s not going to be possible to fully grasp how good he is until you’ve seen him go six or seven innings and really show all he can do, how much he can dominate a lineup deep into games.

  I saw him pitch one game in the Arizona Fall League in November. I think he gave up two hits and an unearned run in the first inning, and I thought, well, wouldn’t you know it, I see his one mediocre game.

  He gave up one hit and no walks the rest of his five-inning performance.

  He completely dominated hitters in most of his AFL starts, going 5-0 with a 0.63 ERA and 49 strikeouts in 29 innings, with a .105 opponents’ average.

  Again, this was against some of the best prospects in all of baseball, guys like Matt Wieters, the former Georgia Tech catcher who’s the top-rated prospect in Baseball America’s just-released Top 100 ranking. Wieters is penciled in as the regular catcher for the Orioles this season.

  He continued in the desert what he’d done all last season, when he threw a 14-strikeout no-hitter after a May promotion to Double-A Mississippi. He went 11-5 with a 2.41 ERA in 138 innings between High-A Myrtle Beach and Mississippi, totaling 163 strikeouts and 52 walks in 138 innings and leading all minor league starters with a .175 opponents’ average.

  So get ready to watch him take another step, folks, but keep in mind: It’s just his first appearance in a Grapefruit League game.

  It’s probably not going to be any great indicator of what’s to come. Even Hanson has got to be feeling a little bit of extra butterflies in his stomach as he makes his first appearance for the Braves, and on ESPN to boot.

  (By the way, the only reason he’s relieving today is the fact that the Braves have so many starting pitchers in camp, and Bobby Cox wanted to give Jorge Campillo a start before he leaves to join the Mexican WBC team. Hanson is scheduled to make his first start in an exhibition game against Panama’s WBC team on Wednesday at Dark Star, aka Disney’s Wide World of Sports, which is serving as Panama’s training camp.)

  – Speaking of Baseball America’s Top 100, the Braves were the only organization with two prospects in the top 10, and they have two in the top five – Hanson was No. 4 and man-child OF Jason Heyward No. 5.

  The Braves had five in the Top 100, including CF Jordan Schafer at No. 42, CF Gorkys Hernandez at No. 62, and 1B Freddie Freeman at No. 87.

  By the way, Schafer is playing CF and batting leadoff today, after his big day yesterday that included a homer and a stolen base.

  There were also four other former Braves prospects in the Top 100, guys who’ve been traded away in recent years, including RH Neftali Feliz at No. 10 (yes, the Braves could have had three in the top 10); SS Elvis Andrus at No. 37 (he was traded to Texas along with Feliz and three other prospects in the July 2007 Mark Teixeira deal); C Max Ramirez at No. 84, and C Tyler Flowers at No. 99.

  The only pitcher rated ahead of Hanson is Tampa Bay lefty David Price, who’s already appeared in five games in the ALCS and World Series.

  When I mentioned to Bobby Cox that the Braves had two prospects, Hanson and Heyward, in BA’s top five, his response was: “They better look at Freeman.”

  Freeman, another big (6-foot-5) Braves kid, terrorized A-ball pitchers last season at Rome in the same lineup with Heyward, his roommate (both of them are 19, folks. yes, 19). The two had a sort of competition at Rome to see who could produce the higher OBP.

  That’s exactly what you’d like to have two guys with that much hitting ability doing in the minors, and which is exactly what you’re not going to see most in that position doing.

 Instead of swinging for fences, those two worked counts and tried to get on base as much as possible, all the while mashing. Heyward hit .323 with a .483 slugging percentage and .388 OBP, with 44 extra-base hits (six triples, 11 bombs) and 52 RBI in 449 at-bats before an end-of-season promotion to high-A.

 Freeman hit .316 with a .521 slugging percentage, .378 OBP and 58 extra-base hits (seven triples, 18 homers) amd 95 RBI in 491 at-bats at Rome.

 Cox thinks the world of both of them, and has commented several times on Freeman’s compact stroke – “You expect a big guy to have a longer swing, but he doesn’t,” he says with approval. When Freeman got a two-out, two-run single in his spring debut Wednesday against the Tigers, Cox said he wasn’t surprised.

  He also pointed out, as he has several times, that Freeman actually chokes up on the bat a little, which you don’t see much these days by hitters other than Barry Bonds. Again, Cox also said that with an obvious tone of approval. Loves the old-school hitters.

  – Another anticipated debut: Kenshin Kawakami is scheduled to make his Braves debut Friday with a start over in Bradenton, a long haul for the large Japanese media contingent that chronicles his every move (and a long haul for me; which means a good cigar and a few CDs will be onboard tomorrow, and the bike will stay back at the rental house in Kissin’me, Fla.