Career Hub (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
Looking for a job? Are you familiar with the K.I.S.S. principle? Curious about its origin, I did what people do -- a Google search. It seems that the acronym K.I.S.S. was first coined by Clarence Leonard (Kelly) Johnson, a lead...
MLB Trade Rumors (Free subscription) | 10/31/2009
In today's blog post at ESPN.com, Buster Olney indicates that there is belief among general managers that the "financial restructuring that has been occurring across the landscape is about to hit the arbitration-level players like a tidal wave." He mentions underperforming, but well paid players like Garrett Atkins and Kelly Johnson are prime non-tender bait, especially since their clubs...
Fake Teams (Free subscription) | 10/31/2009
Buster Olney's Saturday blog post Executives say that many of the names being discussed by teams as possible trade bait include a growing number of players with three to five-plus years of service time -- players who are eligible for arbitration. This is being read widely as a precursor to a wave of players in that group not being tendered contracts before the Dec. 20 deadline. "I think the market...
MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
Next up in our Offseason Outlook series, the Braves. Their likely commitments for 2010: C - Brian McCann - $5.5MM C - Dave Ross - $1.6MM 1B - 2B - Martin Prado - $415K SS - Yunel Escobar - $425K 3B - Chipper Jones - $13MM IF - Kelly Johnson - $2.825MM+ IF - Diory Hernandez - $400K IF/OF - Omar Infante - $2.225MM LF - Matt Diaz - $1.2375MM+ CF - Nate McLouth - $4.5MM RF - Ryan Church - $2.8MM+ OF -...
MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
A fresh batch of links for Saturday afternoon... According to John Perrotto of Baseball Prospectus, Pirates right-hander Ross Ohlendorf missed arbitration eligibility by just two days. On the other hand, as Perrotto notes, right-hander Jeff Karstens is eligible for arbitration. Marty Noble of MLB.com fielded a ton of hot stove-related questions from Mets fans for his latest "Inbox" article....
Sportsviews (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
I'm in the midst of one of my hell projects at work, this one just happens to be a little more hellish and is gonna last until December. In order to keep the fun going around here, I thought I'd present some reasonable trade and free agent targets over the next weeks - some of the low-hanging fruit that will probably be more in line with Hendry's budget for 2010. I'm not really going to make a case...
Talking Chop (Free subscription) | 10/23/2009
More photos » by Tom Mihalek - AP Browse more photos » When considering the 2009 season of Garret Anderson , I think it's more useful to look at the alternatives to Anderson that the Braves were considering, or at least rumored to be considering. G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG 2009 - Garret Anderson 135 496 52 133 27 0 13 61 27 73 1 0 .268 .303 .401 G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB...
Talking Chop (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP The Atlanta Braves have a decision to make with second baseman Kelly Johnson this off-season. Browse more photos » People have been hoping for big things from the Braves ' Kelly Johnson for quite some time. The question again this off-season is, "how much longer do you wait?" As bad as his 2009 season was, was it just a down year and can...
The Cub Reporter (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
I'm in the midst of one of my hell projects at work, this one just happens to be a little more hellish and is gonna last until December. In order to keep the fun going around here, I thought I'd present some reasonable trade and free agent targets over the next weeks - some of the low-hanging fruit that will probably be more in line with Hendry's budget for 2010. I'm not really going to make a case...
Sabernomics (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
According to the 2010 Bill James Handbook, Kelly Johnson projects to hit .274/.354/.445. That sounds about right to me. It’s also better than Jeff Francoeur’s »»
Oil Is Mastery (Free subscription) | 10/20/2009
"We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity.... Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do." -- Benjamin R. Rich, aeronautical engineer, 1995 Lockheed CEOs and employees both say UFOs are real. Examiner: CEO of NASA contractor Lockheed knew of...
Faster and Faster (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
In their own way, the Ducati Desmosedici GP9 MotoGP bike and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird military aircraft are two of the most badass machines ever made by man... We love fast motorcycles more than airplanes, no question about that. For most journeys, if we could, we’d rather ride a Ducati 1198S than sit in the first class section of the latest Boeing passenger aircraft. Even the best of food,...
Talking Chop (Free subscription) | 10/19/2009
There may not be Braves baseball on the field, but that doesn't mean that there's nothing to talk about. We've been running several on-going off-season series -- reviewing the major league players' 2009 performance, ranking the Braves top prospects at each position, and holding a round table on the state of each position in the Braves organization -- and all of those continue this week. We'll wrap...
Talking Chop (Free subscription) | 10/15/2009
As part of season reviews for major league players and top prospect ranking for minor league players, we here at Talking Chop thought it would be a fun idea to get all of our bloggers together with the help of Google Docs and debate the various aspects of each position in the Braves organization. The participants are, yours truly (gondeee, indicated by MG), yondaime4 (indicated by MF), royhobbs (indicated...
Talking Chop (Free subscription) | 10/14/2009
The Braves have been fortunate enough to consistently fill their second base position with homegrown talent over the last three decades. Aside from small stretches by Brett Boone and Quilvio Veras, the mantle of starting second baseman has passed from Glen Hubbard to Mark Lemke to Marcus Giles to Kelly Johnson and now to the newest in the string of Atlanta-developed second sackers, Martin Prado . The...
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