The Sports Bizzo

By Christian…

The Braves aren’t dominating this year.  Hell, they’re barely hanging onto .500.  And, yet, there’s a lot of room for hope.

Consider this:  their offense sucks.  At 152, they’ve scored the sixth fewest runs in the National League.  But we knew that would happen.  You don’t put together a lineup without any speed at the top, that kind of sucks at fundamentals (bunting, situational hitting, etc.), that has a rookie center fielder, an aging (though still quite nasty) third baseman as its three-hole hitter, Garret “Good Only in MVP Baseball on XBox” Anderson as your cleanup hitter, and Jeff Francouer as the incumbent right fielder after a horrific year, and expect that to be a potent offense.

What we didn’t know was how good their pitching would be after a dismal year last year.  I mean, for crap’s sake, they started Buddy Carlyle, Jojo Reyes and Jorge Campillo for much of the year.  That’s just flat out depressing.  That’s like being asked to name one U.S. president for a million dollars and responding, “Dane Cook.”  Borderline inconceivable and enough to drive some people batshit crazy.

Then Frank Wren went out over the winter, promising big free agents and impressive free agent acquisitions.  And for a while there, the big moves were trading hot-hitting catching prospect Tyler Flowers for Javier Vazquez, whom Ozzie Guillen labeled as being one of the worst big game pitchers of all-time (after Vazquez’s horrific implosion the previous September) and signing an unknown, 31 year-old Japanese pitcher for a lot of money.  Frank Wren looked like a real boob at that point.

But, as luck would have it, Wren added Derek Lowe at the last minute and, lo and behold, he, Vazquez, and Jurrjens have anchored a pitching staff that’s 4th in the National League in ERA at 4.03.  Take Jojo Reyes out of there, who has been pretty awful and keep your fingers crossed that Kenshin Kawakami figures out something other than throwing 88 mph fastballs belt high down the middle, and you’ve got one hell of a rotation.

Plus, the National League East is eminently winnable.  The Mets, for all they did to address their bullpen, have crap for starting pitching behind Santana (don’t even try to convince me Maine or Pelfrey or frickin Livan Hernandez have any chance of being good, and Oliver Perez’s contract makes me smile every day because I love when the Mets do incredibly stupid things).  The Phillies, as well, don’t have much behind Cole Hamels and even he hasn’t looked that strong.

So, the Braves could be in a much worse situation this year and if a few things go their way, which after everything that went wrong the last few years with injuries and Frenchy sucking ass should totally happen, they could make a legit run at the title.

But, what you should really be excited about?

How about this rotation in 2010:

Derek Lowe, Tim Hudson, Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson, and one of Kawakami/Vazquez/Charlie Morton/Kris Medlen/Reyes.

Lowe’s been stellar as the team’s ace this year.  Hudson will be well past the typical 12-14 month recovery period for Tommy John surgery.  Jurrjens, who’s been sensational thus far in his career, will be entering his third season and have that much more experience.  Tommy Hanson, if all continues going as it has, will be a bonafide ace-caliber pitcher as the fourth man in the rotation, and picking one out of the other five to round out your rotation gives you amazing depth and means your rotation is intensely good in the first place.

The Braves can certainly still be good this year and I’m glad they didn’t blow up the team and look toward the future for that reason.  But, I’m also not exactly putting all my balls in 2009′s mitt, if you catch my drift.

Give Jordan Schafer time to learn how to hit in the big leagues, trade Francouer away because I can’t stand him and he hits like a girl, make Garrett Anderson disappear, and get one decent power hitter in the outfield and, voila, you’ve got a team like the ones that won so many games in the 90s.

Hell, I’d even like to see Crime Dog be the first base player/coach…you know, in case Casey Kotchman gets hurt or his lineup card pictures get any more retarded looking and I can no longer stand them.