Atlanta Braves News: The Morning Chop, Jaime Garcia, Chris Sale Rumor, Eddie Perez Drama
Garcia’s uneven Cardinals career ends with trade to Braves
Tomahawk Take Editor’s Note: The Braves acquired left-handed starting pitcher Jaime Garcia yesterday. If you follow Tomahawk Take on twitter, you probably saw the displeasure I had for this trade. Usually, I can see the positive in the trades the Braves have made, but this one just didn’t make sense to me. I was a huge fan of Luke Dykstra and how he played the game. I was looking forward to watching him climb up in the minors.
Chris Ellis and John Gant were the other pieces in this trade. It’s tough letting prospects go and we saw Gant in Atlanta last year. His strange delivery threw batters off, but he was just a little too inconsistent. Hopefully St. Louis gives him more chances.
As for the Braves, we get a guy that’s already had Tommy John elbow surgery, rotator cuff surgery and thoracic outlet syndrome surgery. He missed all of the 2009 season and made a combined 16 starts in both 2013 and 2014. Whether it’s in fantasy or in real life, I’ve never been a fan of Garcia, but I can only hope he can have a decent first half of the season and the Braves can flip him before the trade deadline in 2017.
Jaime Garcia was a little like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “little girl with a curl.” As Wadsworth wrote, “When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad …”
Wadsworth’s 19th century sentence ended with “horrid,” which wasn’t exactly the adverb by which the former Cardinals lefthander should be defined. But, mostly due to injury, there were great gaps between the good Jaime Garcia and the one not so good.
The 30-year-old Garcia, traded to the Atlanta Braves Thursday night for three minor leaguers, including big-league righthander John Gant, finished his Cardinals career with an impressive 62-45 record and 3.57 earned-run average. He was a starter for the 2011 World Series championship season and he won in double figures in four of those seasons, including the last two. His pitches constantly darted, even to the point where Yadier Molina had trouble catching him, and when he was on, he sometimes was almost unhittable and, when healthy, Garcia was one of the best in the National League at inducing ground-ball outs and double plays. His best year was 2010 when he was 13-8 with a 2.70 ERA
Venezuelan stars threaten WBC boycott after manager Vizquel replaced
Tomahawk Take Editor’s Note: What a strange occurrence developing for the World Baseball Classic. Braves first base coach Eddie Perez was named the Venezuelan manager and all was well. Congrats to Perez for getting that job, hopefully that can turn into something in the MLB. But wait, now the players for Venezuelan are threatening to boycott the games because former manager Omar Vizquel isn’t leading the team??
Wow…I saw the photo and post from Hernandez last night, but didn’t think too much about it. It was in Spanish so I didn’t do the translation, I just thought it was a nice photo of the team. Nope. Let’s translate what the picture says….”Together in the name of baseball, Venezuela, and our manager Omar Vizquel. The united team, without Vizquel we do not participate in the World Classic”. Guess who is in that photo? Braves own Ender Inciarte. Hmm, I guess we’ll keep an eye on this situation.
Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Omar Vizquel – the former 11-time Gold Glove shortstop and legend of Venezuelan baseball – had been replaced as manager for the 2017 WBC in favor of Eddie Perez. That news was not greeted warmly by Venezuela’s current crop of major leaguers, who are now rallying in support of Vizquel.
On Thursday night, Seattle Mariners ace Felix Hernandez posted a group photo of several Venezuelan stars that was captioned with a message from Hernandez and the other players threatening to boycott the tournament if Vizquel is not reinstated as manager.
Venezuelan baseball federation president Edwin Zerpa lashed out at the players’ boycott threat in a statement to ESPN Beisbol that was translated by Woodberry, calling them “unprofessional” and wondering if “they’d do the same if the Yankees change(d) managers.”
MLB Hot Stove Trade Rumors: Here are the six teams in hot pursuit of Chris Sale
Tomahawk Take Editor’s Note: The rumors that won’t stop! Ha, the Chicago White Sox are shopping Chris Sale and want something exceptional in return for him…as they should. Sale has a team friendly contract, has been on of the dominant pitchers over the past five years and is still only 27-years-old (will be 28 in 2017). He’s the ace every team is looking for — including the Atlanta Braves. Could we trade some of our top prospects and maybe include Julio Teheran or Mike Foltynewicz? Possibly, can never count out Braves GM John Coppolella. Giving up the prospect that the White Sox want will be awfully painful if Coppy somehow pulls this off. If you’re sick of this news/rumors, I’m thinking nothing will be settled until the Winter Meetings or after.
We’ve known for a while that the White Sox may trade Chris Sale this offseason. The club’s attempts at contention over the last two seasons have come up short, and the increasing sentiment on the South Side is that a reset is needed. They’re reportedly not inclined to move core contributors still under long-term control — Jose Quintanaand Jose Abreu, for instance. However, those with a somewhat shorter free agency horizon — Sale, Todd Frazier and David Robertson, for instance — are thought to be available. The greatest of these is, of course, Sale.
It’s hard to call the Braves contenders in 2017, but they’re emerging from a deep rebuild and are looking to reinvigorate the fan base as they move into a new suburban ballpark. They’ve also been committed to improving the rotation this offseason, what with the free agent additions of Bartolo Colon and R.A Dickey andthe recent trade for Jaime Garcia. Sale would of course be a longer-term asset who should still be performing at a high level when the Braves are truly ready to contend again. Given the Braves’ embarrassment of riches at the minor-league level, there’s little doubt that they could put together a compelling offer. You can of course argue that the Braves are set up well enough with starting pitching, especially considering that they have a great deal of minor-league pitching on the way, but they’ve got no one on Sale’s level.
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