Bradley’s Buzz: ESPN’s Buster doesn’t love Braves’ rotation
This, as you doubtless know, is not a recent picture. (AJC photo by Curtis Compton)
We keep hearing that the Braves’ rotation will be just as good without the man who finished fourth in the National League Cy Young voting in 2009. The (thin) reasoning: That Javier Vazquez was unlikely to have such a season again, but that Tim Hudson — who underwent Tommy John surgery in 2008 and who has won two games since — will absolutely return to top-of-the-rotation form. This, I say again, assumes a lot.
I haven’t quite bought it, and I note for your edification that the estimable Buster Olney of ESPN.com hasn’t yet, either. Writing for ESPN’s Insiders, Buster O. lists his top five rotations — top six, actually — and somehow doesn’t include the Braves’. (Link requires registration.) His rankings:
- 1. Red Sox: Josh Beckett, Jon Lester, John Lackey, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Clay Buchholz, Tim Wakefield.
- 2. Yankees: CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte, Javier Vazquez, Phil Hughes.
- 3. White Sox: Jake Peavy, Mark Buehrle, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Freddy Garcia.
- 4. Angels: Jered Weaver, Scott Kazmir, Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Joel Pineiro.
- 5. Cardinals: Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, Kyle Lohse, Brad Penny and “somebody else.”
- 5a. Phillies: Roy Halladay, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, J.A. Happ, Jamie Moyer.
Of the latter, Olney writes: “The Phillies would have been No. 1 if they had Halladay, [Cliff] Lee and Hamels 1-2-3.” And what of the Braves? Here goes:
“I probably would have placed [them] at No. 3 if not for the trade of Javier Vazquez.”
So I guess that makes two among us who haven’t quite grasped the offseason Zen of Wren — Buster O. and yours truly. But you are, as ever, free to tell me how obstinately obtuse I am.
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341 comments Add your comment
TROTTINGHOME
February 9th, 2010
7:38 pm
Mark’s 4:12 post is a very good example of why
Wren is the GM and Bradley is a spectulating lawyer that had to get a job writing about…sports.
Here’s my problem…to many boobs thinking they can write more than one article a day without plagiarizing or worse cutting and pasting…oops…did I just falsly accuse someone of an illegal act?
Opinion
February 9th, 2010
7:48 pm
everybody chill out on Bradley, the guy is just giving us hungry fans articles to read and digest….he’s doin his job, I prefer to read it from Bradley than anyone who doesn’t fallow the Braves
Opinion
February 9th, 2010
7:48 pm
follow*
Tweets that mention Bradley's Buzz: ESPN's Buster doesn't love Braves' rotation | Mark Bradley -- Topsy.com
February 9th, 2010
7:57 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Bradley, ReidAdair. ReidAdair said: RT @MarkBradleyAJC: ESPN's Buster Olney isn't sold on the Atlanta Braves' rotation sans Javier Vazquez. Neither am I. http://bit.ly/9jVyBL [...]
athensmatt
February 9th, 2010
7:57 pm
jesse stone: even though i don’t think javy will do very well in new york this year, that doesn’t mean i think it was a good trade. i didn’t say anything favoring the trade wren made. i agree with you 100%, i think it was a terrible return for a guy who had an extremely high value.
athensmatt
February 9th, 2010
7:59 pm
amen, trottinghome.
Hank44
February 9th, 2010
8:09 pm
Hey Mark, no matter what some of these knuckleheads say about you and your articles, I still enjoy your insight and opinions and appreciate the opportunity to express our own thoughts towards the Braves. As is every season – it’s a wait and see how all the trades/moves make a GM smarter.
Tweets that mention Bradley's Buzz: ESPN's Buster doesn't love Braves' rotation | Mark Bradley -- Topsy.com
February 9th, 2010
8:14 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Bradley, Nick Stekovic, Bill Penny, Jake Walker, Candice Nicholson and others. Candice Nicholson said: Bradley's Buzz: ESPN's Buster doesn't love Braves' rotation: Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog) I haven't quite b… http://bit.ly/aWPU3B [...]
Lew
February 9th, 2010
8:43 pm
jesse stone-Do I believe the rumor that Tiger had affairs? Probably much more than I believe the rumors that you have a freaking clue.
Jesse Stone
February 9th, 2010
8:52 pm
Are you still going to argue that Wren didn’t offer Furcal a contract? How about Peavy putting an end to his trade to Atlanta? Keep drinking the Frank Wren Kool-Aid
Jesse Stone
February 9th, 2010
8:53 pm
oh, you never did tell me which organization scooped up Mazzone after the Orioles canned him.
Lew
February 9th, 2010
9:01 pm
Dude-Do you even bother to read? I was talking the Peavy deal (DUH, Kevin Towers?). Furcal might or might not have worked out. I have no idea and neither do you as it never happened. All you can say is you didn’t like the idea. But as far as who or what was offered for Peavy, you have NO IDEA what went on in negotiations unless you were part of them.
And as for the Juan Pierre comment. Again, DUH. I know he has a weak arm that was the —oh WTF, you can’t explain much to a person with the reasoning power of a rutabaga.
Jesse Stone
February 9th, 2010
9:10 pm
The Pierre comment made no sense. You can defend Wren to your dying breath if you choose, but he tried to make a trade that, if completed would’ve been a bust. If you were the Braves owner, Wren would have a contract similar to Paul Hewitt’s.
Lew
February 9th, 2010
9:20 pm
Rutabaga
Jesse Stone
February 9th, 2010
9:22 pm
so….that’s how low you’ve stooped now? Impressive
tlj
February 9th, 2010
9:23 pm
Mark,
Let’s be fair about this, Javier had a career year and probably was not going to duplicate it. As a Brave he would have won 12 to 14 games with a 4.00 plus ERA this year. Hudson will probably not duplicate his previous years but should be counted upon for 12 to 14 wins with a 4.00 ERA. In other words it is a wash.
Javier’s contract was scheduled to be up at the end of this year, Hudson will have 2 additional years. We obtained a very good prospect, a 4 th outfielder (possibly a starter, I think Cabera will do okay in the NL) and a lefty relief pitcher.
Last year when we traded for Javier I remember everyone calling it a bad trade. We gave up a very good prospect for a 500 pitcher who couldn’t win the big game. Now all of a sudden this same pitcher is Cy Young. Come on give me a break.
This staff is no worse than the one that finished 2009.
athensmatt
February 9th, 2010
9:28 pm
“We gave up a very good prospect for a 500 pitcher who couldn’t win the big game. Now all of a sudden this same pitcher is Cy Young.”
well said. i was just wondering what ol’ bradley was thinking this time last year when the braves picked up vasquez.
Craig
February 9th, 2010
9:36 pm
What Vazquez or no Vazquez our rotation is one of the games best!far better than the philies!the guy who said that is as dumb as a chicken with no head!
Mike
February 9th, 2010
9:54 pm
All of you need to wake up! Javy has never had a season like the one he had last year. The Braves sold high. Hudson, who is only 1 year older than Javy, is NOT injury prone, he had one surgery. Hudson has had better career numbers than Javy. Wren tried everything he could to dump Lowe which was the right move. He just couldn’t. NO ONE would take Lowe. You never let a guy like Hudson walk when you can get him for 9 mill a year. We had Javy for one more year and no guarantee that he would resign with us. We are not the Yankees people. We have a budget to consider. Do I wish we could have gotten more for Javy? Yes I do, but we wont know how good the trade was until the young guy comes around. When Javy returns to his normal career numbers next year and Huddy comes back and pitches like he did before the surgery (or better – he has said that he may have been dealing with an issue for years and not realizing it) then you Mark, and you Buster Olney, and anyone else can eat some crow.
rmf
February 9th, 2010
9:58 pm
I agree with Mark’s earlier comment that Wren’s first mistake here was the signing of KK. It was too big a contract for 5th pitcher who cannot now be traded. It was great to get him, but he is luxury and this team can no longer afford luxuries.
But in looking at this whole thing, largely with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I think Wren has made several other miscalculations.
I think he first gave Hudson too much money. Does anyone think Hudson could have gotten this deal in this market without either the Yanks or Boston. I know some of you will say the Mets would have gone after him, but they have been pretty timid this offseason. Even so, would even they have given him this number of years. I like Tim and I hope he succeeds, but this is a big gamble for a team like the Braves.
I also think that when he signed Hudson, he thought could find a trading partner for Lowe who would eat a good portion of the contract. I don’t care what anyones says, it seemed pretty clear at the time that the preference was to trade Lowe. We all saw how that worked out.
When he finally got to the point of offering Vazquez, he had little negotiating leverage to get a big established bat The prospect is great, but the point was to win this year.
Despite all of this, we still have a pretty good rotation with two great young pitchers and a lot of young pitching talent on the way up. If Hudson reverts to form with his new arm, it could be a great one.
One thing about Frank is that he sure does give us a lot to talk about.
GovClintonTyree
February 9th, 2010
10:10 pm
The only problem, as Bradley alluded to at 4:06, is the return in the Vazquez deal. It needed to be a young power hitting OF. The Yanks could have kept Melky and Vizcaino and Dunn and sent us Swisher and Frank would still be hitting close to 1.000 with me.
Nothing wrong with clearing salary, nothing wrong with choosing to sign Hudson, had another group of really good signings (Glaus, Hinske, Saito, Wagner). In particular, I think the Hinske move is a master stroke.
Nothing wrong with shopping the hell out of Lowe and getting no takers and opting to move Vazquez. Not happy with the return on the deal, and not happy with the payroll shell game to justify not spending the savings on a real LF (and yes, Damon would be fine with me, at this point).
But only a northeast-biased ESPN reporter – and apparently one local guy who moves from sport to sport – could survey all MLB rotations and not have the Braves in the top five. Some of the rotations he put ahead of the Braves were just silly, even without Vazquez.
willy
February 10th, 2010
12:53 am
to those of you who dont know. We took melky to get him off the Yankees payroll and vizcaino’s stock has been plummeting. This is another FW stoopid move. with the uncertainties of Lowe and KK to trade youe ace is moronic. they would have been better off eating 10 million a yr of lowe’s salary but that would make FW look like the idiot he is.
MitchC
February 10th, 2010
5:57 am
Mark, while I don’t take Olney’s word as the gospel, I do see the problem that you have with what Wren did this offseason.
The thing is: I don’t know that he had a choice. He rried to trade Lowe, and there were no takers. So, Frank was either faced with having to let Tim Hudson go, keep Vazquez for one more year, and then risk that Vazquez would have left after next year anyway. I didn’t like that we had to trade Javy, but I think Frank’s hand was forced.
As we know, pitchers rebound fine from TJ Surgery. It happens all the time. The Braves will be fine if Tim Hudson pitches like Tim Hudson did before the surgery, and if Lowe rebounds. One big question for us will be whether Tommy Hanson has a Sophomore Slump. Hopefully, that wont happen.
The Sporting News Baseball 2010 yearbook has the Braves picked to finish second, and the Cubs as the wild card. I agree with their prediction of second place in the East, because, if the Phillies are healthy, they should win the NL East fairly easily. I’m hopeful that we can snare a wild card, though. It would be nice to get Bobby back to the playoffs in his last season.
Olney’s not the gospel. I think the Braves have the potential to have a good season. Of course, we also have to hope that Billy Wagner doesn’t pitch like a 39 year old. I think if everyone on this team plays up to their potential, we will be fine.
Don
February 10th, 2010
9:01 am
Getting rid of Vazquez was absurd. With him went whatever slim chance we had for being competitive for several reasons:
(1) Almost certainly, at least one of the other starters we are counting on will either be injured or ineffective.
(2) Replacing someone who was that effective with someone almost as good does not translate to almost as many wins.
(3) And most significant of all — Like always, to win with Bobby Cox managing, you have to have pitching so far far superior to the other teams that it overcomes his incompetence and enables you to win over the long 162 game regular season schedule in spite of his inability to manage the offense and generate run production.
coach smith
February 10th, 2010
9:32 am
WHAT A JOKE!
The Phillies are in there on the strength of 2 Pitchers! The rest of the rotation cannot compare with the Braves’
And how can ANYONE argue that
White Sox: Jake Peavy, Mark Buehrle, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Freddy Garcia.
OR
Angels: Jered Weaver, Scott Kazmir, Joe Saunders, Ervin Santana, Joel Pineiro.
Is better than LOWE, HUDSON, HANSON, JURJENS, and KAWAKAMI?
Peavy is always hurt, Garcia couldn’t pay anyone to let him pitch a year ago, and Floyd and Danks? Give me a break!!!!!!!!
and
after Weaver and Kazmir (who are no better than LOWE/HUDSON) the rest of the Angels’ rotation is not much to talk about
The Braves’ rotation DEPTH is what separates them from most. They should be 3rd behind the Yankees and Red Sox!
If you only have 2 great pitchers, they can’t help you 60% of the time
stew
February 10th, 2010
11:06 am
Truthfully, the difference between the Braves and Phils is Ryan Howard. Braves just don’t have 50hrs and 150rbis coming from one source. Coming off last year, Phils have only Hallyday and J.A. Happ as reliable starters and Braves have only JJ and Tommy (Huddy at this point is still unproven, Lowe was a batting practice pitcher, and KK walked the ballpark although he had a reputation for beating the other team’s ace). Still, if we kept Vasquez we would have been #2 on list because Yanks wouldn’t have had him. Therein lies the big difference between Yanks and other teams. If the Yanks had Lowe they wouldda dumped him and ate a good portion of his 15 million we couldn’t. You can only project coming off 2009. Nobody knows if Lowe is gonna rebound and Vasquez is gonna suck. At the end of the year Lowe had no velocity and Vasquez had all his pitches working. That’s all you can go on.
Don
February 10th, 2010
11:36 am
As stated over and over — With Cox managing, to win you can’t just have really good pitching and a good position lineup. You have to have great, great pitching so far far superior to the other teams that over the long 162 game schedule it overcomes his inabiality to manange the offense and generate consistant run production. Of course, obviously this does not work in the Post Season short series environment. With Vazquez went the slim chance that we had for being competitive in 2010.
pittman
February 10th, 2010
11:43 am
if you take all of hansons starts except his very first one his era was under 2.60 (are you kidding me not even lincecum did that good) juir had i think 25 quality starts out of thirty (extremely consistent), derek lowe will rebound cause he knows he doesnt have to be a no. 1 ace on this staff, and kawakami outdueled (ready for this) johan santana, cliff lee, roy halladay, clayton kershaw, and josh johnson all aces on their team name me another number 5 starter that defeated 5 aces if hudson can give 20-25 quality starts we will be having the best starters era like last year. And on javy vazquez he had to go people (baseball pitchers with that many innings on his arm say that he is overdue for an injury or a decline) his era will be around 4.5 with the yankees
WFURRV925
February 10th, 2010
12:12 pm
If Frank Wren somehow pulls the unimaginable & gets Johnny Damon, will not the financial windfall of trading Javy Vazquez be totally worth it…
The problem of this team last year was not the pitching (which was superb) but the inconsistency of the offense
Hoops Dawg
February 10th, 2010
1:34 pm
I haven’t read the 300 posts and somebody may have already said this, but I am old enough to remember when the the Braves traded their best pitcher away–Doyle Alexander to the tigers who subsequently won a division title. What did we get–John Smoltz and 14 division titles. If Vizcaino turns out to be half the pitcher that Smoltz was, the Braves win this trade by a mile.
chuck
February 10th, 2010
3:48 pm
I would love it if Vizcaino was ready in 2 years though…to replace KK. Turnaround on Smoltz was 2 years i believe from trade to majors.
In 2-3 years there will be no complaints about the pitching we have at the prices we pay for it. The only arguments will be whether we promoted/kept the right kids.
The economy has changed things. Teams aren’t willing to part with their players as easily, they are all working to sign them long-term earlier as well. So the number of players available via trade, or waiting til the deadline has shrunk. Prospects are at a premium, because every team needs at least 5-7 spots filled with close to major league minimum players.
People on here can’t have it both ways. You can’t sit here and complain about not paying guys, and then complain about paying them too much on the flip side. Especially when the market is being re-defined and right-priced.
I for one don’t think Johnny Damon is worth a penny more than $4MM…5 years ago, this guy is commanding $12MM or more for similar production. When markets correct like this, it lends to some errors being made. Although one could say that when dealing from weakness (as we were last Winter in the Lowe deal) you have to overspend at times.
luvthosedawgs68
February 10th, 2010
4:09 pm
The wildcard is Kawakami. I believe for a pitcher like Kenshin, it’s imperative for him to get off to a good start. I really believe he’ll have a good idea of what he wants to do with certain hitters this year, which wasn’t the case at the beginning of last year. I predict he wins 13-15 games this year.
Sutton's 'Fro
February 10th, 2010
5:46 pm
While I think we’ll miss Javy, I like the young pitchers we got back. My problems with Wren are 2-fold: 1) he overpaid for Lowe and KK, which backed us into a corner this year; and 2) we didn’t use any of the savings to get the big bat we needed. I think this is Mark’s main problem, too.
Any reasonable observer knows that the Braves didn’t trade Vazquez to get Melky — they did it to get room on the payroll (and to get more young pitchers). But they payroll space so far has only gotten us Troy Glaus and possibly Damon — two aging players with avg. power and sub-par defense. Add the fact that we lost Adam LaRoche, and I don’t see that much net improvement in our offense this year.
So we have a weaker rotation, an older bullpen, and a (possibly)slightly-improved offense. Exactly how does this improve our playoff chances again?
fieldofdreams
February 10th, 2010
7:02 pm
Totally disagree. Hanson’s going to win 20 games this year with or witthout run support. If the Braves hit we’ll win the East.
Taylor
February 10th, 2010
7:28 pm
I’d put the Braves rotation above the Phillies. Not sure about the others.
Sutton's Fro
February 10th, 2010
7:41 pm
Field…
Unfortunately “If the Braves hit, we’ll win the East.” has been a yearly sentiment for too long now. Having Chipper and “one-and-done power guy” ain’t enough, whether it’s Galarraga, Bonilla, Sheffield, J.D. Drew, Teixeira, LaRoche, Glaus, etc.
Robert
February 10th, 2010
10:44 pm
The only problem with the Braves rotation is the guy making the decisions about when where and how to deploy their services
scottbravesfan
February 11th, 2010
3:44 am
Buster Olney?
That guy is an idiot anyway. Anyone that works for ESPN is out of their mind.
brent a.
February 11th, 2010
7:04 am
Is the Braves offense better? Because pitching sure wasn’t our problem last year, nor will it be our problem in 2010.
Don
February 11th, 2010
10:07 am
Our pitching could and should be very good; and our offense (if properly managed) could produce enough runs. However, the problem is that Bobby Cox is the manager; and he does not understand or implement even the most simple and basic fundamentals and procedures for maximum run production. With his management, you are already 10 games behind before the season begins. To win, the pitching has to be great enough (so far superior to the other teams) to overcome his management procedures and lack thereof.
jared
February 11th, 2010
11:45 am
You are forgetting 1 thing. The Braves HAD to get rid of either Derek Lowe or Javier Vazquez in order to get rid of payroll. Even though it seems that the rotation will be worse this year, you’re forgetting something: Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson are young and still developing and should be better this year than last year. Plus we will now have a full season of Hanson in the Major Leagues.