AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2008 > November > 17
Monday, November 17, 2008
One last blog before DOB comes home
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Guess who’s making a cameo…..No, it’s not DOB yet. Really sorry, folks, but he’s got one more big, long off day coming to him today and deservedly so. He’ll be back on-line tomorrow. In the meantime, you guys have been crashing blogs I hear - actually saw for myself on Friday - and I know are itching to be heard.
So let me take a break from a little post-Falcons game brainstorming (weird, I know) and slap a blog up here, so you guys can have a clean slate.
At last check you had blown past 1,000 comments on DOB’s latest blog.
Watching the Jake Peavy trade talk from afar pick up more and more momentum and then totally fizz on Friday was interesting in and of itself. I was surely like most of you, thinking going after Peavy was a great answer to a very pressing need. His age, the finances, the upside, his potential to lead a pitching staff.
But then, as more and more names were thrown onto the pile, and the trade seemed to get bigger and bigger, I, like Mark Bradley, thought pulling the plug was the right thing to do. It actually felt like a relief.
The one little doubt that had crept into the back of my head in the last month was what about the elbow. You can’t predict the future, and maybe the time he missed last year wasn’t the signal of anything. But don’t you think the absolute last thing the Braves need is to trade the house on a guy who comes in and blows out his elbow next year?
Granted, I’d doubt the Braves would have put so much time and effort into this trade if they had serious concerns about his health, but they can’t predict the future either. And look what happened with both Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano. Great deals, yes, but then elbow, elbow, elbow problems.
To me, that makes a guy like Derek Lowe even that much more appealing. He’s a horse. He has never been on the disabled list in 11 seasons. Two more outs in 2007 and he has four straight seasons of 200-plus innings and six out of the last seven. He’s 35. But is that the new 30?
Giving up Yunel Escobar was something you have to do to get a player of Peavy’s caliber. But the likes of Gorkys Hernandez, Charlie Morton, and Blaine Boyer too? And maybe the Padres wanted something even more, with the way things broke down so abruptly.
Yes, I know, to get a big piece you’ve got to give. Just saying there was cause for exhaling on Friday.
And…there’s also that chance that once the dust settles, the Padres call again. It doesn’t sound like the Cubs can offer enough in trade, the Dodgers are all that interested and while the Yankees are, whether Peavy would agree to play in New York. So maybe, the Padres call back, and we get right back into this.
Can’t predict the future, eh?
In the meantime, I throw out a personal vote for Ryan Dempster because this is my blog (for the moment) and I can say what I want. He’s still available after the deadline passed for teams to negotiate with their own free agents. My honorary cousin Phil Rogers of the Tribune says the Cubs offered him $48-$50 million over four years.
But here’s the personal part: I went into the Cubs clubhouse in spring training in 2004, unknown to most everybody in the room except for Greg Maddux, whom I was waiting to interview about spending his first spring training away from the Braves in 12 years.
And Dempster, seeing me standing there by myself, probably looking a little bewildered, came up and introduced himself. Yes, “Hi, I’m Ryan Dempster.” And he asks me where I’m from and what I’m working on.
Unreal. I’m telling you, that doesn’t happen in clubhouses. You’re supposed to know who these guys are, for one thing. And I did. But what an impression that made.
See? It’s years later and I’m still talking about it, and thinking he’d make a great addition to the Braves clubhouse. And OK, OK, there’s got to be a baseball part too. Seems to me he’s on the upswing. Just put up a 17-6 season with a 2.96 ERA for the Cubs in his first year back in the rotation since 2003 with the Reds.
Oh and Phil also writes that the Sox may be dangling Jermaine Dye for a potential trade. Boy, he’d do a thing or two about the Braves power deficit in the outfield. He hit 34 homers and drove in 96 runs last year for the White Sox.
I think the Braves goofed in ever letting him go in the first place.
There, blow that one up and leave the blog? Gotta. It’s time to head up to Flowery Branch…..See how confusing this is. DOB come home!
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
