Braves 2009: Bullpen and Bench

The bullpen and the bench will be an interesting situations for the Braves to figure out going in to the beginning of the season. Both are seemingly deep with the bench having far more experience than the bullpen.

Bench: The Braves are very wealthy when is comes to bench players. At least three of our bench players could start on other major league teams. Omar Infante hit .293 last season in 317 at-bats no less, Martin Prado hit .320!! in 228 at-bats, Greg Norton was one of hte best pinch hitters in the game, Josh Anderson or Gregor Blanco provide crazy speed off the bench and solid defense. Then Matt Diaz is probably one of hte top 5 hitters on the squad. In all honestly I would be happy with a lineup that included those 5 guys. With that kind of depth and skill the Thrashers have incredible protection from injury devastation. Which we all know is incredibly important. Another fantastic thing we have going is that Corky Miller is no longer our 2nd catcher. His paltry .083 batting average p[retty much guaranteed an out in the 8th AND 9th spots of hte lineup, killing many possible rallies at the end of games. He's replaced with David Ross who played and hit .225 with Boston and Cincinnati last season. In short, I'm super pumped about the bench. They have a legitimate shot at collective .275 this season. If they provide some power, we could add another huge dynamic to our offense in the late innings.

Bullpen: This is a worrisome area for me. On paper we have a chance to be dominant on the back end with Rafael Soriano, Peter Moylan and Mike Gonzalez. But all three have dealt with severe injuries and have had major surgeries with in the last 18 months. Gonzalez was inconsistent in his return at the end of last season, Moylan has been solid in the spring, but had his tommy john surgery only 10 months ago(usually a 12 month recovery), and Soriano has already been dealing with injury in the spring. And outside of those three there isn't much. Charlie morton, Buddy Carlyle, Blaine Boyer and Jeff bennett look to be incumbents(JoJo got sent down to Gwinnett today Bobby wants him to get more starting work, JoJo looked unstoppable in hte spring). Carlyle has been solid, so has Boyer but Morton and Bennett have been nothing too short of terrible. Kris Melden has been spotty, but good in a couple situations. THe lefties are beginning to look more and more questionable though. Going into spring, newcomers Eric O'Flaherty and Boone Logan looked to be shoe-ins for the pen, but they've sucked. Especially Logan who has struggled mightily in two consecutive appearances against late inning players (mostly minor leaguers). Either way, the bullpen is the biggest question mark for hte entire Braves team. But as long as our starters dominate like I think they will, the bullpen wont get taxed liek they did last year.

Also, hopefully we give good ole Will Ohman a call. He's still sitting at home waiting to get signed. He's a solid lefty who's just demanding far too much money for teams to spend. But if he lowers his price tag just a tad, we might see him in a Braves uniform again next year.

Tomorrow, Corner Infielders.