He's back baby!

Heyward .328 42 HR 126 RBI no prob

Watched the replay of the game. Simmons looked pretty incredible defensively. That play up the middle was elite level.

Heyward looked great too. Is it just me or did he seem to have a little more bend his knee in his stance than normal? Seemed to have a bit more of a crouch right before he swings. Maybe I was just seeing things. Either way he made harder contact tonight than he did basically all September last year and one of them was off a 96 mph fastball of Strasburg. You guys remember last year when he was just straight swinging through 92 mph fastballs right down the middle? Looks real good.

Uggla was hitting the ball hard all night, too. He has a pretty unreal good history against Strasburg though.

Teheran keeps showing flashes of greatness, but clearly still has a bunch to work on. Not sure how I want to see the starting 5 look come Opening Day.

I want Medlen over either Teheran or Delgado for the temporary spot. Neither are really ready, though if I had to choose one it would be Delgado. Don't think he is capable of putting up a good K:BB ratio either but both last season and in spring training, he doesn't seem the hard contact that Teheran does.

Heyward looked great last night but then you look at his numbers this spring and they're pretty terrible. 31abs 10ks 2bbs worries me the most. hopefully yesterday was the turning point.

delgado > teheran for sure

Simmons = Best starting SS for Braves opening day

Medlen = Best 5th starter opening day

Ah, there's the Beachy we know!

4ip, 2h, 1er, 1bb, 6k

Ya, he looked good. I always enjoy watching Beachy pitch.

And tonight... man.. Minor is looking really SHARP! anyone else see this?

Predictions- Terdoslavich is gonna cement himself as Chipper's heir apparent with a big year at AA.

Beachy and Minor will be our most productive starters by far as Huddy, Hanson, and JJ all struggle with injuries.

Because of the injuries to our starters and Freddy being Freddy the bullpen will again be worn down by September and we limp to the finish line.

Simmons wins the job at SS out of spring training and never loses it.

Heyward struggles for long stretches but still puts up 4 fwar.

Philly 96-66
ATL 91-71 (WC)
Miami 90-72 (WC)
Wash 82-80
NYM- 70-92

We lose in the WC game after blowing a 9th inning lead.

Predictions on the rotation to start the season?

Hanson/Jurrjens/Beachy/Minor are locks. Teheran and Delgado are competing for the 5th spot...both have been meh so far. I think Delgado has the edge because he had a few ok starts late last season but who knows.

Hudson won't be back til May i think.

yea sounds right

ty

omg agame itt

Medlen: 8ip, 6h, 1er, 1bb, 9k
Delgado: 8ip, 9h, 8er, 6bb, 8k
Teheran: 9ip, 14h, 11er, 4bb, 6k

lol Frediball
"A multiple-innings option as a reliever" must be about the most worthless role on the ****ing staff. Sigh.

Yea the optimal play would be to have Medlen start and let Christian Martinez be the long relief guy.

holy **** @ Medlen this spring. 8 IP.. 46 pitches thrown..41 strikes. WAT. no doubt this dude should be starting if he's physically capable.

odelay

Wow, where did you find the balls/strikes stat? It seems kinda ridiculous - that's less than 6 pitches per inning, and he walked 1 guy so he could have only thrown a ball to one other batter.

And assuming he walked that guy on 4 pitches and he struck out all 9 batters on 3 pitches, he would have had to get the other 15 outs on the first pitch.

Hmm, I guess the 41/46 must have been from a single outing? Still damn impressive.

Gotta think Wren is the one deciding who gets to start the season as the 5th starter and what they want to do with Medlen. Might be some stuff between the lines here, also, like they want to trade one of the 3 at some point soon.

Also, if Teheran or Delgado isn't the 5th starter then they will both be in AAA obviously. So, the combo of Teheran or Delgado starting as the 5th starter AND Medlen pitching out of the pen might be better for the Braves now as opposed to Medlen being the 5th starter and whoever our 4th best reliever will be if Medlen isn't in the pen getting a bunch of innings he probably shouldn't (Gearrin? Varvaro?). With Arodys having elbow issues our bullpen isn't exactly deep after O'Ventbrel.

Medlen as hybrid guy out of the pen who can get lefties and righties out might also take some major workload from O'Ventbrel, which is also a plus. I don't think Medlen in the pen is that bad of an idea assuming Wren briefs Fredi on how he should be used (a lot, in high leverage situations, etc) and isn't just a long guy. I guess that part could be the problem.

mlb.com says that's includes all 8ip from this spring. http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/team/p...level='ALL'

Look under game logs.

You're right though that has to be a mistake.

ahh yea it looks like all the pitcher's pitch counts are too low. Delgado and Teheran are both below 10 pitches/inning lol

Don't worry guys, I'm not gonna start posting itt. I just asked the question about the staff and had the thread open and happened to see these comments, and it peaked my interest because I made a bet xbooking constanza vs. heyward last year with PwnMaster during constanzas hot streak.

The only thing I wanted to point out, mostly on tdomeski's quote, is that Heyward was only more valuable due to PT. Despite getting benched for him later on, heyward still played more than 3x as much as constanza.

Value is based on PT......if you prorate respectively, Constanza was more valuable.

lol agame

you can't just extrapolate a 3 week stretch of results and use that to determine someone's value.

It was more than 3 weeks, but regardless.......you also can't claim Heyward was the "most valuable OF" when he got to play much more than his counterparts lol (well you can, but it would be like saying Jason Kidd is a more valuable 3pt shooter than Joe Johnson because he's made more in his career)

It makes sense doesn't it? If I provide .3 runs in value per game, and you provide .5 runs in value per game, I'll have a higher WAR if I get to play 3x as much as you.

It doesn't mean I was better.

I understand what you are saying. There was a perception by some posters in this thread that Jason Heyward was a detriment to the team (as in negative WAR) last season. That was clearly wrong, and that's why I originally made that statement. Pretty easy to see what I was talking about in the context of the entire thread. My comment was also made mainly to suggest that if an OFer should be sitting in favor of Constanza it should be Prado and not Heyward.

It's also clearly unfair to make a statement like "Constanza would have been more valuable than Heyward if he played as much" when it's incredibly clear to everyone he was playing way over his head and there is no reason to think he would have been able to maintain that in as many games as Heyward played (as in he's been in professional baseball for a bunch of years and one can make a pretty reasonable projection of his capabilities at this point).

I really wish we would have gotten some kind of value in a trade of JJ this offseason... I have a feeling he is going to have a major down year and we'll see his value be destroyed