Lowe to start both openers

McPoyle, what I’ve seen from Francoeur this spring has made me a believer. 110%. I expected him to bounce back. I expect him to be better… but I didn’t expect him to be an entirely different hitter.

He’s looked more like Chipper this spring than the Frenchy of old. He’s shown off a GREAT eye, swinging at NOTHING out of the strikezone… driving pitches where they’re thrown, rather than trying to pull everything. 7 walks, 2 strikeouts… dude has not only turned it around, but has really matured as a hitter. Because what happened last year forced him to change, his ‘08 season might wind up being the best thing that ever happened to his career.

That said, I understand if you more guarded where Francoeur is concerned. I would point out, however, that the above numbers are pretty close to his ‘07 stats (.293, 19 HR, 105 RBI, 40 doubles). So we know he’s capable of something at least very close to the “attainable numbers” I listed.

Actually, I would be surprised if he hits well over .300, and well over 20 HR. But for now… I’ll go with .300, 21 HR.

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I thank doG God every day that the season is about to start. Why? It has nothing to do with my love of baseball. (I’d rather football start this weekend.) I just want the predictions to stop. I want the hand-wringing over who the fifth outfielder will be to stop. I want it all to stop. Please stop.

Let’s play ball. You know, the kind of ball that will make all of this stop.

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KC what i found most interesting about your guesses is the SB category. the totals you put seem very attainable, and i actaully think the braves could get a few more out of a couple of guys.

the reason this is interesting is because in coach’s recent out-of-his-butt comment, he has guaranteed that the braves would not steal 75 bases this year. you estimates put the braves at 72! and if maccann matches his 5 SB from last year instead of the 2 that you estimated…were there! thats not even including steals from prado, infante, or whatever other bench guy is out there.

i just wonder what coach will do if his guarantee doesnt happen, and he is proven to be full of hot air once again. my guess is he will act like it never happened and continue to be as pompous as ever.

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KC… obviously i’d love to see those kinda stats out of Shafer. That would make him the immediate NL player of the year. IMO, i don’t see Shafer getting 30+ SB’s or 55 rbi’s. I think he’s capable of the .280 average, but i see him more in the 40-45 rbi range with 20-25 steals.

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Lew

Amen!

Bubdylan

You can take 5% off KC’s predictions, and that is where I am (except I would NEVER short McCann on his SB’s!)

In all seriousness, if we get the kind of years that are expected from our players, it could be an exciting year. Injuries are the biggest wild card.

Frenchy’s season will also be pivotal. 5 runs a game with this staff will keep us in the hunt, I believe.

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KC, I have to take issue with some of your projections. I don’t know how Francoeur’s attainable numbers, despite how happy we all are with his performance this spring, are basically equal to McCann’s attainable numbers.

I think if those are BMac’s numbers, you need to be far more pessimistic with Frenchy. Frankly, I think McCann is capable of putting up far better numbers than you just listed. That would essentially be no real improvement over previous healthy years.

For Jeff, though, I’d say those numbers are in the upper 75% of what we can hope for.

I think the rest of your numbers are reasonable, perhaps trending on optimistic, as to what is attainable.

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ease19-It’s all no big deal. You blog here long enough and someone is bound to give you grief-there’s always some mental midget who has to let people know how stupid they are. It comes with the territory. However, for every moron who thinks they have fabulous insight, but really can’t tell their butt hole from a golf course, there are actually ten or fifteen that really do know what they’re talking about.

For every Stinky there are always enough BubDylan’s, Waynes, KC’s, Jersey Gill’s (and even Chop Chop’s, heh heh) and others to make up for the And Idiots.

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[...] Lowe has been given the honor of starting in the season opener for the Braves. In fact, he’ll start both that game and the home opener. A lot of that has to do with his seniority, but his 2-0 spring with a 3.27 ERA didn’t hurt [...]

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2nd test

If you set the target attribute of a link to “_blank”,
the link will open in a new window.

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