Atlanta Braves News: The Morning Chop, Freddie Freeman Best At 1B? Mike Trout A Free Agent?
Top first basemen: New standard shakes up rankings
Tomahawk Take Editor’s Note: In case you missed it and I hope you didn’t — well, it is ESPN’s words so I’m not sure how accountable you can take them — but Freddie Freeman was ranked as the best first baseman in the MLB by ESPN. In an article released yesterday by Buster Olney, it is an ESPN Insider article, they ranked Freddie as the top followed by Joey Votto, Anthony Rizzo, Paul Goldschmidt, Miguel Cabrera, Eric Hosmer, Jose Abreu, Adrian Gonzalez, Chris Davis and Carlos Santana. Coming off a year where he should have won the Silver Slugger award over Rizzo, it seems as though Freeman is finally being acknowledged by ESPN. Can’t wait to watch our 27-year-old in action in a few short weeks!
Last season, Chris Carter did some big, old-school damage while serving as the first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers: 41 homers, 27 doubles, 94 RBIs. He also generated a fair number of walks with 76 and played in 160 games.
After all of that, Carter was cut — outright released before free agency, presumably after the Brewers assessed his value in the market. He’s currently unemployed with his case demonstrating that the industry’s expectations of what a first baseman needs to be have changed markedly over time. Mere power isn’t good enough anymore.
In Part III of our top 10 positional rankings, we present the first basemen, with lots of input from baseball evaluators — and there is a much broader range of opinion on who should be No. 1 than with the starting pitchers (Clayton Kershaw) and relievers (Zach Britton). Five first basemen were nominated at No. 1 by various scouts and executives. Five.
California law could lead to free agency for Mike Trout
Tomahawk Take Editor’s Note: Not happening…plain and simple. If this ever happens, many puzzle pieces would have to fall in place and seem very unlikely. Yes, there could be a very slim chance that something like this happens in the future, but I don’t see it happening. It would take a guy like Trout, who has a extensive amount of years on his contract, and a guy young enough to withstand all the troubles and tribulations that this would occur. The Angles wouldn’t be happy with this at all so they would take it to court and drag their feet. A Trout trade would seem more evident to me. Especially since the Angles have been to the playoffs just once in his six year (five full years) career. Also, the team’s farm system is awful so not really much sign of improvement soon. This absolutely made me think this morning so thank you California Labor Code, but somehow this wouldn’t ever happen.
A relatively obscure provision under California law — specifically, Section 2855 of the California Labor Code— limits all personal services contracts (i.e., employment contracts) in the state to a maximum length of seven years,” Nathaniel Grow of Fangraphs detailed. “In other words, this means that if an individual were to sign an employment contract in California lasting eight or more years, then at the conclusion of the seventh year the employee would be free to choose to either continue to honor the agreement, or else opt out and seek employment elsewhere.”
As Grow detailed, there has been some discussion about eliminating the protection for Major League Baseball players (among others), that has not happened yet.
So, Trout conceivably could make himself a free agent. The same applies to teammates Garrett Richards and Matt Shoemaker, Los Angeles Dodgers players Pedro Baez, Carlos Frias, and Yimi Garcia and Oakland Athletics reliever Sean Doolittle.
All-Stars’ of Braves’ minor league system
Tomahawk Take Editor’s Note: Now this is fun! Atlanta Braves Minor League All-Star team from the 2016 season. Newcomb was a surprise for me on this list just because of the amount of walks he had and how he struggled early in the season. He picked it up late last year and actually finished the season well, but overall I would have selected someone else for that slot. If you haven’t joined the Braves minor league bandwagon yet, please hop on! We’ve got some exciting young players in our organization and you should go check them out at your local ball fields. 2017 is going to be great!
C – Jonathan Morales: Rome
1B – Carlos Castro: Rome
2B – Ozzie Albies: Mississippi/Gwinnett
SS – Dansby Swanson: Mississippi
3B – Austin Riley: Rome
OF – Dustin Peterson: Mississippi
OF – Ray-Patrick Didder: Rome
OF – Emilio Bonifacio: Gwinnett
P – Patrick Weigel: Rome/Mississippi
P – Sean Newcomb: Mississippi
P – Stephen Janas: Mississippi/Gwinnett
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