Winter Meetings and Such

-Well, I would have updated yesterday but I had a date. Yes, it's actually possible.

-Anywho, the Braves had a slightly busy week. They traded a young arm for two players, DFA'd half of their starting LF platoon, released a shitty player, lost another shitty player in the Rule 5 draft, and announced who will be making sure our kids is learning next year. Let's get to it.

-First, the trade. Jose Ascanio, a guy I really liked, was traded to the Cubs for Will Ohman and Omar Infante. The latter was picked up in the Jacque Jones deal last month so his time as a Cubbie was pretty short. I will go more into each player in my meet and greets over the next day or so, but suffice it to say I am indifferent. Ohman can get lefties out, important when facing the Phillies, but you also lose a young power arm.

-To make room for the players acquired, Willie Harris joined Peterson Orr and Lance Cormier on the DFA'd list. Unlike Orr and Cormier, Harris could still possibly stick in the organization, but here is hoping the Braves can find someone willing to pass along a high-reward prospect our way. By the way, Cormier was the shitty player released spoke of earlier. The Braves decided to not even attempt to keep him around.

-The Rule 5 draft passed with the tragic loss of Sergio Valenzuela to the Reds. Why the Reds felt it incumbant on themselves to pick up Valenzuela is beyond me. In four years stateside, Valenzuela had yet to make it out of A-ball, though he was on the Richmond roster (probably to protect him from the AAA and AA portions of the Rule 5 draft). He has not pitched often in four years, but has pretty well sucked either way. Last year, he pitched for both Rome and Myrtle Beach and posted a 7.00 ERA and a 1.93 WHIP. The Reds pissed away $50K they could have given me.

-The Braves have announced their 2008 coaching staffs for the minors. Chris Chambliss returns to the organization as the R-Braves hitting coach. The rest of the R-Braves staff remains the same. Crazy ass Rocket Wheeler is back with Mississippi and the M-Braves and Pelicans staff remain the same. Rome's staff was bolstered with promotions from Danville. Carlos Mendez, a former Braves farmhand, joins the Danville coaching staff as a hitting coach. Danville also includes Derrick Lewis, another former Braves farmhand who was GCL's pitching coach last year. Lewis last played in the Braves organization in 2003.

-A couple of former Braves joined new organizations. The lesser known one, Jose Capellan, was traded by the Tigers to the Rockies for Denny Bautista in your typical "I got a great arm who doesn't get it and you do too. Let's swap~!" It was not that long ago that Cappy was running neck-and-neck with the Andy Marte's of the world as top dog in the Braves organization. But he is already in his third organization since those Brave days.

-The other more noticable former Brave to find a new employer is Andruw Jones. Did you hear he signed with the Dodgers...or, the Braves West. In recent years, they have targetted Jason Schmidt, Rudy Seanez, Rafael Furcal, Wilson Betemit, and even Roberto Boom-Boom Hernandez. Now they add Andruw, though for a nice paycheck of $36M over the next two years, hardly the 5-7 years Scott Boras wanted. Andruw is paired with Furcal and gives the Dodgers some legitimate power for a team that finished near the bottom in the NL in homers and SLG. I actually think this is a good deal for the Dodgers. J.C. believes Andruw was worth $40M for the next two seasons and I have stated that he is clearly better than Torri Hunter, who got the big deal. Win, win.