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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2008 > October > 02
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wren refuses to give up on vision
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Braves general manager Frank Wren had it right this season regarding his vision for baseball fossils John Smoltz and Tom Glavine. It’s just that the injury gods couldn’t care less about vision. Even so, despite their ongoing aches and pains, those baseball fossils are in Wren’s new vision, but only in a smaller way, which means he still has it right.
That’s because Wren refuses to send his baseball fossils to a museum until he is just shy of having no choice.
You can say the same of Wren’s approach to Mike Hampton, nearly a baseball fossil at 36, and to Tim Hudson, the toddler of the bunch at 33, who is recovering from major elbow surgery.
Wren’s new vision is like this: He is approaching 2009 with the mindset of acquiring a couple of pitching aces from elsewhere to anchor the Braves’ starting rotation. Still, he is keeping Smoltz (recovering from shoulder surgery at 41), Glavine (a free agent recovering from elbow and shoulder surgeries at 42), Hampton (always recovering from something) and Hudson in the mix until their arms show signs of snapping from their bodies.
And why not? Although future Hall of Famers Smoltz and Glavine have been around a combined 41 seasons in the majors, they were significant pitchers as recently as last season. Hampton was Hampton again down the stretch this season despite not throwing a major-league pitch in nearly three years. Then there was Hudson, spending his 12th season in professional baseball without a losing record.
“It’ll be the last month of next season before Hudson can return, and the prognosis is good on him,” Wren said Thursday. “I think in both cases [for Smoltz and Glavine], they’re ready for spring training. We won’t know for sure until they increase the intensity on their throwing programs later in the winter, but I think both of them are on track to be ready.”
As for Hampton, who had a 3.72 ERA during his last nine starts, Wren already has told the left-hander that the Braves wish to re-sign him. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, nothing wrong with any of Wren’s approach to his baseball fossils, because the New York Yankees proved often during the latter part of their dynasty run this century that age is just a number these days regarding some pitchers.
In 2003, for instance, each of the Yankees’ top four starting pitchers won at least 15 games. They also threw more than 200 innings apiece along the way to the American League pennant. One was 41 (Roger Clemens), another was 40 (David Wells), another was 34 (Mike Mussina) and the other was 31 (Andy Pettitte).
Sounds like Wren’s vision for the Braves before the injury gods took over. Still, with the acquisition of a No. 1 and a No. 2 starter through trade or free agency and the continued growth of Jair Jurrjens into stardom, Wren’s new vision has some of his older pitchers in the back of the rotation. If the injury gods are kind, those pitchers could reach more of the rotation.
“There are just so many advances in medicine — sports medicine, in particular, whether it’s an elbow or shoulder surgery that used to take a pitcher out maybe when he was 30,” Wren said. “Now they can fix it, and he can pitch until he’s 45. It’s just a different era totally. It’s that, and we also have a track record with this group of [older] pitchers that is strong.”
Very strong. Strong enough to keep throwing them out there.
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