Atlanta Braves Top 10 Prospects
1. Jason Heyward, OF – Heyward is the top hitting prospect in baseball and #2 overall (list forthcoming). There are no flaws with his bat and he’s still improving. If an outfielder is struggling this year, Heyward could be a shot.
2. Freddie Freeman, 1B – Freeman profiles as the [...]

As the second part of our baseball preview, we are working with members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance to offer 4 questions in a roundtable format.
Our guest bloggers is Matt Seybold from The Sporting Hippeaux.
Question 1 – Have the moves made Atlanta competitive with Philadelphia? They’ve had one of the better post seasons in [...]

Last Season: 86-76 (-7)
Over/Under: 85.5 (-115)
Notable Additions

Eric Hinske
Troy Glaus
Billy Wagner
Melky Cabrera
Jesse Chavez

Notable Subtractions

Rafael Soriano (RHP)
Garrett Anderson
Javier Vazquez

Three Things To Love
1) The Return Of Tim Hudson: The most exciting thing for the Braves’ Faithful is the fact their rotation features three guys who have had ace stuff at some point in their careers. Tim [...]

Tyler Durden: i am ordering chinese for lunch and i’m going to eat it at my desk as a sort of middle finger to those around me.
Marc Bulger: nice
Tyler Durden: has anybody ever dropped some serious science at their desk and then about 2-3 seconds later had somebody come up to your desk to talk [...]

Yesterday MLB clubs had to decide if they were to offer contracts to players under team control; i.e. players that had less than 6 years MLB experience. Depending on amount of service time, the teams can either assign contracts or they can go to arbitrations (Players with less than 2 years service time are [...]

Finally out of the snow of Des Moines, which was a nightmare for travel. Everything else seems to be going better for some teams in Indy…
Wolf, Pettitte Sign New Contracts
Randy Wolf finally agreed to terms with the Milwaukee Brewers. He’s getting 3 years, $29.75MM. It’s not a bad deal for the pitcher, [...]

Day 2 was busier than day 1. Tons of news coming out of Indianapolis. First, congrats to Whitey Herzog on being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Whitey was the first manager that I was exposed to growing up. He’s a class act and deserves this like you wouldn’t believe…
Granderson to [...]

The MLB GMs are in Indianapolis for the winter meetings, and there were some interesting developments to kick them off:
3 players accepted arbitration: Carl Pavano of the Twins, Rafael Betancourt of the Rockies, and Rafael Soriano of the Braves.
Pavano is a safe bet for the Twins. He’ll see a decent sized raise if they [...]

23 players were offered arbitration yesterday:
Type A:
Jason Bay
Rafael Betancourt
Chone Figgins
Mike Gonzalez
Matt Holliday
John Lackey
Marco Scutaro
Rafael Soriano
Jose Valverde
Billy Wagner
Type B:
Rod Barajas
Adrian Beltre
Marlon Byrd
Mark DeRosa
Justin Duchscherer
Brandon Lyon
Jason Marquis
Carl Pavano
Joel Pineiro
Fernando Rodney
Ivan Rodriguez
Brian Shouse
Gregg Zaun
There weren’t too many surprises on this list. I didn’t think the Cardinals would offer arbitration to Pineiro, but it’s low risk because he’s [...]

I was watching a baseball game on television during the 2009 baseball season, and I started to wonder about the teams that were playing and how they got their names. I started to do a little research into some team names and found the history interesting. This is the fourth of six [...]

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be looking at the 2010 free agent class by team. I’ll list all of the free agents along with their Free Agent Status (A/B).
Part 4…
NL East
Atlanta Braves
Garret Anderson – B
Mike Gonzalez – A
Tim Hudson (Option)
Adam LaRoche – B
Greg Norton
Rafael Soriano – A
Max Potential Picks Added: 6
The Braves will retain [...]

The New York Mets have traded Ryan Church to  the Atlanta Braves for Jeff Francoeur, and the Mariners have traded Yuniesky Betancourt to the Royals for a couple minor leaguers. Who got the better of the deals? Let’s see…

Recently, on April 20th 2009 an article was written by Jamin Leger of the Middlesboro Daily news, entitled Fixing the Braves.  Truth be told, with respect to the author, I strongly disagree with some of the points written on within the article.

With Pitchers and Catchers reporting to camp a month from tomorrow, I’m looking at which teams are winners and losers. I’ve selected a winner and loser from each division; some we easy to pick, while other divisions had no clear cut winner (mainly the NL Central and West).

As everyone has heard, Jake Peavy is on the market. As as everyone has heard, he wants to stay in the NL (there are conflicting reports that he’d be willing to go to certain AL teams). As the current situation stands in San Diego, I can’t blame them for putting him up for auction. He’s one of the top pitchers in baseball and his value could be at it’s highest.

As in the past few years, the first wave of MLB in 2009 will be a Toys R Us exclusive. Here is the assortment:
-Carlos Zambrano (Chicago Cubs)

Angels clinch AL West crown with win over Yanks, Rangers’ loss…ChiSox slugger Konerko has sprained MCL, return up in air…Braves manager Cox vows to return next year…Twins to push for 2014 All-Star Game…Brewers claim Coffey from Reds…Rays C Riggans needs knee surgery…Reds’ Phillips to have surgery on broken finger…Giants’ Lewis to have season-ending surgery…Grievance hearing [...]

Smoltz wants to return…Big Mac making a comeback…Alvarez arbitration hearing…More on Pujols surgery…

Hello, and welcome to the first McFarlane SportQix on Tailgate Crashers! You guys will be getting Pulse Figures’ weekly McFarlane Quickies article, with the non-sportspicks news taken out! Without further ado…