No team other then possibly the Oakland Athletics have lost as much talent in the past five years as the Braves. Year in and year out though, they’ve still managed to win the division. That is, until last year. Now the Braves have two tough competitors in the Mets and Phillies to contend with and while the Braves made some nice moves, but as this preseason preview of the Braves talks about, it’ll be interesting to see if it’s enough.
The primary focus seemed to be on the bullpen. The Braves added Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez to go along with Bob Wickman so hopefully the Braves can turn around that record in one run games. They’ve also had to contend with losing Marcus Giles and now Adam LaRoche but the farm system has able replacements for both guys so that shouldn’t be a huge problem.
The final prognosis is that the Braves will probably be out of the postseason again. While you can never count the Braves out, I tend to agree that this season will be tougher then probably even last year. Then again, the Braves have proved us all wrong before so you never, ever know.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:52 am
I disagree about this year being tougher than last year. The bullpen blew something like 37 out of 47 save opportunities last season. If we had even half of those back, we’d have been right in the post-season race. With the addition of Wickman (who’s already proved himself), Soriano and Gonzalez we now have one of the strongest bullpens in the league. They’ll essentially make most games a 6-inning game, and with Smoltz, Hudson and Hampton as the starting trio, we should be in great shape there as well (although I worry a little about Hudson). I think we’ll take the division this year. Go Braves!!
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