Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Braves punt Glavine, bring up Hanson and get Nate the Great

Quite the afternoon for the usually stoic Atlanta Braves:

  1. Waive HOF-to-be Tom Glavine, right as he was about to be called up to the big club in a move deemed "not a business decision" but rather a "performance decision". Good luck selling that to fans. Dumping Glavine a 2nd time, especially this way, seems cruel and cold.
  2. In the wake of Glavine's departure, uber-prospect Tommy Hanson will start on Saturday. Fantasy fans, if you don't have him already, go get him. Seriously, go. Then come back.
  3. Trade three prospects for Nate McLouth. Pittsburgh is rebuilding and sending away one of the guys who were leading the rebuilding process is a good move? Yeah, talk about a tough sell to the good fans of Pittsburgh. Various blogs weigh in here.
Guessing Braves fan Shysterball won't be too happy with the Glavine treatment but happy to see Hanson and Nate. Guess what, he's spot-on, as usual:
I thought the Braves were obligated -- out of both a sense of history and based on Glavine's commitment to rehab and apparent, though qualified success -- to at least give him a chance to pitch.

1 comment:

tHeMARksMiTh said...

I'm still pissed you took Hanson one pick before I could. ;)

As for Glavine, I'm still not sure what to think, and I'll reserve judgment for now. Good business decision. Probably poor emotional one.

As for McLouth, the announcers at last night's game screwed with me. They said the Braves traded for an All-Star outfielder, NL Central, big bat ("huge"), and I got all excited to find out it was McLouth. Not that McLouth was bad, but I was thinking Lee or Ludwick. So we traded three pretty good prospects for a guy who's pretty overrated in my book. However, he is a clear upgrade that we needed, and I'm willing to just be skeptical.