Out of this World?

First off I’m going to apologise for last week, both the quantity and quality of my writing was barely acceptable for the seventh grade let alone someone aspiring to be a sports writer. If you read it you will know what I mean if not I will briefly recap what I did: completely disrespect the Braves legendary third baseman as well as the team’s brand new free agent slugger. So yeah, not a great week on my behalf. So now I’m going to try and right some of last week’s wrongs with a sparkling endorsement of the insanely exciting outfield the Braves will be trotting out in 2011.

Let’s start in left where, no don’t adjust your glasses/tv/computer, that’s Martin Prado the Braves All-Star second baseman and batting king. Prado started 2009 as a utility back-up who could play any of the infield positions perhaps with the exception of shortstop, after struggles by incumbent second baseman Kelly Johnson that included a career worse .224 average with career lows in homers, RBI’s and walks. Just as Kelly was reducing each of his at bats to nervous breakdowns for Braves fans Martin Prado broke out of the dugout and into an everyday player with a sensational .307 average and very impressive .822 OPS. This convinced the Braves front office enough that Prado deserved to be an everyday player leading to Johnson being non-tendered and Martin being awarded the second base job. This all from a dirt poor Venezuelan who nobody expected to get into the majors let alone become an everyday player for Bobby Cox and the Atlanta Braves. Whilst this alone sounds like some Hollywood script it simply doesn’t include the best bit. Like ending the Departed before everyone got shot. With the competition for the job now residing safely in the Arizona desert Prado caught fire early and stayed hot right up until his hip pointed towards an early end to his season. While not quite as impressive season as 2009 Prado still posted another .307 average with career highs in home runs and RBI’s while proving to be the team’s spark plug moving into the lead-off spot early in the season as the Braves and former lead-off man Nate McLouth slumped in April. In the first month of 2010 while the rest of his team scuffled around, seemingly finding offence as rare as a rain out in Atlanta in April, Prado hit anything and everything fishing the month with a remarkable .357 average with a .422 on base percentage. He was hitting .333 at the end of June and was really denied a run at the batting title and most hits by injuries that resulted in sub .260 months in both July and September. One of the more touching Prado stories of 2010 occurred around the All-Star when Prado finally managed to fly his mother into Atlanta and then to Los Angeles giving her the opportunity to see him play Major League Baseball for the very first time. When the Braves acquired slugging second baseman Dan Uggla from the Florida Marlins fans immediately began wondering what the new arrival meant for Martin, in fact Martin wondered what this meant for him. Apparently having been told that Prado played the outfield a couple of times in summer league Frank Wren decided this would work well for the Braves, apparently someone miscalculated how many times Prado appeared in left field with the move causing Martin some worried he had somehow disappointed the organisation with his play at second. His concerns show as much about Martin as they do about the organisation, here the Braves have one of the hardest working players in the game who was concerned that he had let the team down and was being moved because of it. Stories have already emerged from Dark Star about how hard Martin has worked to perfect left field in Spring Training and, according to reports; he is well on his way to doing it. Prado is set to have a long and successful career hopefully all of it with the Braves, now he only needs two things to become the star he should be; a lucrative multi-year contract and a nickname.

The Braves will be counting on the man Prado replaced in the lead off to play center field and hit a lot better than he did in 2010. Nate McLouth came off 2009 having been an All-Star and rewarded with the kind of contract that Prado now deserves, unfortunately for whatever reason it should have been McLouth paying the Braves for the opportunity to play, it certainly looked at times that Nate had at least changed his last name to Cox. It all started with struggles in Spring Training when it seemed to take McLouth longer to get a hit than it did for the leaves to grow back in Piedmont Park. Nate carried his difficulties into April with his hitting going in exactly the opposite direction the Prado’s with McLouth hitting just .175 in the season’s first month before hitting .181 in May. It took the Braves 19 at bats in June to decide that 2010 wasn’t going to be McLouth’s year sending him up the road to Gwinnett to try and hit some balls unfortunately for the Braves Nate only hit at a .234 clip at AAA before getting recalled in mid-July not for anything he did but more because the other options included Melky Cabrera. Whilst struggling upon his recall in July McLouth he had better fortune during the stretch run in September hitting a very respectable .275 going into the postseason including 3 homers, two of which proved key in a couple of crucial wins. The offseason saw McLouth work hard on his hitting as well as his hair highlighting and hopes are that McLouth at least returns to 2009 form when he hit .256/.352/.436 as well as belting 20 home runs. Should Nate return to that kind of form the Braves will at least feel content with him in the line-up, should he struggle again he may not get until June this time.

One thousand words on the Braves outfield and I still haven’t mentioned the Kid, that’s right, that one. Whether it is more myth than man that has arrived at Disney this year is yet to be determined, what with the protective tents in the executive parking lot and the SI cover, it is undeniable that a lot more is expected from year two of Planet Heyward. After all the hype there was some expectation that Jason Heyward may in fact hit for a higher average than Ted Williams, hit more homers than Barry Bonds and at some point in the season actually fly. It turned out that actually J-Hey was a pretty normal rookie, hitting .277 with a hugely impressive .393 on base percentage while still having the power to hit 18 homers with a .456 slugging percentage. When he injured his thumb sliding into third base at Turner Field against the Diamondbacks on May 14, a month he still managed to hit .337 with 4 long balls. It was a horrid June that really damaged Heyward’s rookie numbers when his thumb pain was at its worst, his line for June looked something like this .181/.287/.245. Given such a difficult injury and natural rookie struggles Jason’s first year in the majors should be considered a success despite the hype, just think of the Heyward highlights of 2010 beginning with the Opening Day home run off of Carlos Zambrano. According to FanGraphs Heyward should hit somewhere between .286 and .295 with 15-24 home runs and another ridiculous OBP. As fans we should remember he is still only 21 years-old and still has plenty to learn about being a Major Leaguer, likely this year Jason won’t have the same pressure to perform that he did last year, especially given the new arrivals at second and first base. Maybe the opportunity to actually relax and have some fun could yield results better than any graphs could predict.

Whilst the organisation is putting a lot of stock in these three to perform they have loaded up some very interesting back-ups. Personally I have developed a bit of a fan-crush on Matt Young and can’t understand why the Braves aren’t given the diminutive Center fielder/second baseman more of a look in. Despite being 28-years-old and 5’8 tall Young has been improving during his five years in the Minors, his average has been good throughout his minor league career with averages of .312 in 2005, .274 in 2006, a disappointing .269 in 2007, .289 in 2008, .284 in 2009 and a career best .300 last year in his first full year at AAA. Young also has incredible speed both on defence and on the base paths where he has stolen 158 bases in his five minor league seasons. There is also former super-Prospect Jordan Schafer still waiting to find out if he might realise his enormous potential that he briefly flashed when he earned the starting center field job at the start of 2009. The organisation also added former Cardinal Joe Mather who could, if healthy, morph into a less powerful version of Eric Hinske which would make Mather a steal for the price tag the Frank Wren managed to put on him.

The outfield has the potential to be one of the best in the league if not the whole of baseball; it should also be one of the more exciting and potentially frustrating. Whatever happens we all could be in for a fun ride.