Location: Atlanta, Ga. | Ballpark: Turner Field (50,096) | Spring Training: Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Owner: Liberty Media | GM: Frank Wren | Manager: Bobby Cox | World Championships: 3
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POWER RANKINGS
Power Rankings
Date
Ranking
Previous
07/07/2009
19
21
We can talk all we want about the Braves' starting-pitching depth and how Tommy Hanson looks so awesome that I plan to name my first daughter Thomasina Hanson Dobrow, but the bottom line is that they don't score enough damn runs. Until they get at least one hitter of moderate impact, we can only mete out so many Power Rankings air-kisses. We're not cheap, you know ... They're all-business on the trade front, with rumors circulating about dealing Yunel Escobar or Javier Vazquez for an individual whose primary skill is making contact with pitched balls ... This isn't to dump on the excellently crusty Bobby Cox, but it's amazing that it took him this long to see what has been apparent to everyone else for 18 months now: that Jeff Francoeur sucks. Platoon issues or no, Matt Diaz is the better choice.
06/30/2009
21
19
Holy Tommy Hanson. He shut up and shut down the Red Sox on Sunday despite a sore throat and stuffy-wuffy nose, and his performance would've looked even better statistically if the home-plate ump hadn't enforced a pea-sized strike zone ... Getting hit flush in the neck with a line drive, as Kenshin Kawakami did last Wednesday, can't be pleasant. It's amazing to me that more pitchers aren't maimed this way.
06/23/2009
19
16
Hitting coaches work in mysterious ways; they're equal parts technician and mystic, and forge magical, inscrutable connections with their charges. That said, based on results and results alone, Terry Pendleton has no more business working in that capacity than you or I do ... Tom Glavine has announced, with great sadness, that he won't be pitching this season. I think I can speak for Braves fans everywhere when I say: Whew!
06/16/2009
16
12
Tommy Hanson looks unhittably superawesome right up until the moment when a batter reaches base, at which point he transforms into a trembling baby duck ... I should've paid a little more attention to the bottom-of-the-order hitters -- I use the term "hitters" lightly -- before embarking on last week's I-heart-the-Braves rant ... Yunel Escobar was benched again for failing to hustle/concentrate/give a crap. This might explain why the Braves have never been shy about including him in trade proposals.
06/09/2009
12
13
As mentioned above, I'm optimistic. Nate McLouth lengthens the lineup -- before, once opponents got past Chipper and McCann, they were in the clear -- and the Hanson addition gives them a pair of starters who miss bats, at least in theory. ... Before his demotion, I was thinking that Jordan Schafer would have to either slug a teammate or drown a cat to get sent down. Turns out the Braves had a plan after all. ... They better get fat over the next 10 days against the Pirates, Orioles and Reds, because they face a brutal stretch immediately thereafter: Red Sox, Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies.
06/02/2009
13
9
Just imagine if they fielded a single competent outfielder. ... Along those lines, there are rumors suggesting that the Braves would consider dealing Jeff Francoeur. For the hell of it, I went up and down every major-league roster to see which teams' right-field situation might be upgraded by Francoeur's addition. My answer? Nobody's. Hitters with a .271 OBP who only slug sporadically, it turns out, are quite easy to come by.
05/26/2009
9
17
There's not much to be said about the hitting -- they score runs when Chipper Jones is contusion-free and Brian McCann can see more than 3 feet in front of him -- but the pitching could win them the NL East. They've got more depth than any team located south of Boston, and that's before Tommy Hanson and Tim Hudson arrive on the scene ... As a result, I can see the Braves asking Tom Glavine to make four more months' worth of rehab starts ("no, we totally want you up here, Tommy G. We just think you need some more, you know, conditioning. And to work on, uh, your pick-off move. Yeah, that.")
05/19/2009
17
21
Obviously in an ideal world you'd like to balance the lefty and righty hitters in your lineup, but there is no sane reason why Garret Anderson (.239/.280/.313) should ever find himself hitting above seventh in any lineup anywhere on the planet or elsewhere in the charted universe. ... I can only assume we're continuing with reports on Tom Glavine's injury rehab out of respect for our elders, because he's not one of the eight best major-league-capable starters in the Atlanta organization about now. ... Bobby Cox described Rafael Soriano's latest physical hiccup as "a little groin thing," which prompted a comical misunderstanding that concluded with Cox affirming the girth and elasticity of Soriano's junk.
05/12/2009
21
15
Gotta love Brian McCann's glasses-behind-the-mask look, which combines sleek European angles with the nerd chic of a record-store clerk ... Along those lines, McCann is proving once and for all that it's easier to hit a baseball when you can see it ... See, this is why Bobby Cox is smart. He used closer Mike Gonzalez in the eighth inning on Sunday against the lefty-hitting Philly three-pack of Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez and Matt Stairs. At least 15 of baseball's managers would have saved the closer-with-a-capital-C until the ninth and then acted surprised when the sluggers lit up a lesser reliever.
05/05/2009
15
13
Listen, I'm on the same Tommy-Hanson-NOW! hunger strike as y'all. But the trio of Javier Vazquez, Jair Jurrjens and Derek Lowe have served up six homers among them -- for those counting at home, that's two fewer than Brett Myers has allowed -- so there's really no need to elevate the kid just yet ... So all it takes is a 4-for-39 slump to get Kelly Johnson benched in favor of the inferior-in-every-way-that-matters-and-some-that-don't Omar Infante? Bobby Cox, you're better than that ... Left field for the Braves = quarterback for the Vikings = drummer for Spinal Tap.
Preseason Power Rankings
Date
Ranking
Previous
02/16/2009
10
-
The game's preeminent sleeper? I'd feel much better about slapping them with the fateful "team Larry thinks will be much better than everybody expects" tag if they'd have bothered to address the corner-OF situation with any of the 39 bargains available this winter (insert could've-used-Abreu-or-Dunn blurb here). A Ken Griffey Jr./Matt Diaz platoon in left wouldn't be the world's worst solution, I guess. ... Why not take another run at Jake Peavy? The Padres either have to move his contract or go back to single-ply paper in the clubhouse john. ... I implore those in keeper Fantasy leagues to draft Tommy Hanson. That's right: I said "implore."
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