There was no fried-chicken-and-beer story for the Atlanta Braves. There wasn't a single reason to isolate; there wasn't a mustachioed villain to blame. A hundred different things had to go wrong for them to miss the playoffs, and 101 of them did. The only saving grace for the Braves in 2011 was that the Red Sox were gracious enough to steal the bulk of the attention.
The Atlanta Braves’ Winter Hibernation
The Atlanta Braves haven’t done much of anything this offseason. Are they being thrifty, overconfident, or smart?
The rest of the NL East, with the exception of the Mets, got better over the winter. You can probably set up a hotkey on your computer to insert that sentence with a single keystroke if you want to save some time over the next few years. The Miami Marlins put on an old coat that they hadn't worn in a while, and they found $100 million in one of the pockets. The Washington Nationals chased after several free agents before trading a huge chunk of their farm for Gio Gonzalez. The Philadelphia Phillies spent over $50 million on their new closer, and they also jumped on bench help, signing Jim Thome and Juan Pierre.
The Braves paid Derek Lowe to go away.
That's the only move made by an 89-win team that just missed the playoffs -- exactly the kind of team that could benefit from even modest upgrades. Wait, they also signed Jack Wilson. Or Josh Wilson. One of those. Maybe both. I guess that makes two moves. Yeah.
The offseason strategy for the Braves was something like this:
1. Hope that everyone gets healthy with rest and rehabilitation.
2. Like, really, really hope that everyone gets healthy.
3. Make them see doctors and everything.
4. Finally watch The Wire so everyone would just get off their back already.
The Braves' strategy is somewhere between confident and arrogant, but even if it's a risky strategy, they could be right. Tommy Hanson, still just 24, looked like he was making the jump from above-average starter to staff ace. If he can go back to the pitcher he was in the 17 starts before the All-Star break, and sustain that for a full, healthy season, the Braves will be a better team.
Jair Jurrjens was pitching so well heading into the All-Star Game that a vocal minority of Braves fans was insisting that he deserved to start the game for the National League over Roy Halladay, which just seems adorable now. But the Braves, absent a late-winter blockbuster trade that makes this whole article useless, are counting on Jurrjens to have his first healthy season since 2009, hoping that he'll retain some of the effectiveness he had when he was on the mound last season. If he can, the Braves will be a better team.
Most importantly, the Braves are counting on the real Jason Heyward. Here's a partial list of the players who had a season when they were 20 that rivaled Heyward's age-20 season: Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Al Kaline, and Frank Robinson. You might think that it's cherry-picking to name just those guys instead of the Dick Hoblitzells, Stuffy McInnises, and Tony Conigliaros.
You’d be right. Except those three are the only players who hit as well as Heyward did as a 20-year-old and didn’t get at least a few Hall of Fame votes. And between World War I and a rogue beanball, a couple of those guys had some good excuses for not following through on a Cooperstown career. The majority of the 20-year-old prodigies became -- or will become -- Hall of Famers. Jason Heyward had a start to his career that rivaled just about any of them.
If the Braves get the Jason Heyward from 2010, they’ll already be a better team. If the shoulder heals, and he’s able to repeat the production he provided as a 20-year-old, the Braves shouldn’t just challenge the Phillies (and Nationals and Marlins) for the NL East crown -- they should be considered one of the favorites. He’s the key to the 2012 season, and by extension, the key to the 2011/2012 offseason.
The Braves didn't have a lot of gaping holes to fill. They entered the offseason with a starting lineup that was almost completely set, a bullpen that was complete, and eight starting pitchers for five spots. Now they have seven starting pitchers for five spots. The Braves probably could have used Jose Reyes or Jimmy Rollins to fill the one hole they did have (and make a division rival weaker in the process), if not a lesser upgrade like Marco Scutaro, but that would be the only quibble before dissecting the fourth-outfielder options out there.
Instead of manically filling holes that might not have needed to be filled, the Braves are just going to kick back and hope for better health. Jurrjens might be irredeemably fragile. Tommy Hanson could go the way of Steve Avery. Heyward’s shoulder could be a chronic problem that dogs him for the rest of his career. That could all be true. But it’s far, far too premature to jump to apocalyptic thoughts like that just yet.
The Braves have a strategy. It’s not exciting. But it makes sense. The strategy is to convince everyone that they already had a fantastic team in 2011, and that all they need is a do-over. They’ll get 162 games to do the convincing.
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