Atlanta Braves: Why They Will Be The NL's Best in 2010

(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

The Braves season ended in disappointing fashion after getting swept by the Nationals at home and seeing low attendance in the Marlins series.

To make the fans feel better, there is really not much the Braves can do after the Rockies won four straight in the week and may be more if they were not already clinch the wild card on Thursday.

However, the Braves ended the season with 86-76 record and leading the NL in starter ERA, with 3.52. I personally thought they did pretty well in the major part of the season and Wren built a team (and still improving) can win championships for next four seasons or more.

The Strength of Starting Pitching

In 2008/2009 offseason, Frank Wren improved the pitching staff by inserting three starters into the 2008 injury plagued rotation. They performed satisfactorily and improved the starters win total by 15 games (65 wins over 50 wins) and decrease the starter ERA by 1.08 point.

Not only the offseason signing shows promising for the Braves’ future, the even better feat that Braves possess is that Jair Jurrijens proves his fine rookie season was not a fluke and the super hyped prospects Tommy Hanson shown that not only he has one of the best stuff in the major league level, he has the mental strength to be the elite pitcher like Roy Holladay or Tim Lincecum.

Note that Tommy Hanson did not pitch full season. Before he joins the Braves, the fifth starters for the Braves have the stats: 1-4, 6.50 ERA for 44 innings pitched and what is sad is that was in total of nine starts, which means they did not even make it through fifth inning on average.

Note that a lot of spots for the fifth starter this season are started by Derek Lowe (the No.1 starter…well) because of the way the schedule arranged.  Braves did not have to use the fifth starter. Therefore, they might lose a few more games in 2009. Say they have Hanson from start of the year with the same schedule and he would probably perform at the same level. Based on this existing record, he would have 5-2 in those nine starts. That record alone can possibly bring the Braves to tie with Phillies in the NL East with eight games to play to end the season and two-game lead in wildcard.

Remember, Braves did hit reasonably well in April and beginning of May before the abysmal June offense. In addition, Hanson averaged seven innings every outing against less than five innings for the Braves fifth starter. It may mean about three less outing for Peter Moylan, who had miserable beginning of the season.

Now, assume that they don’t change anything this offseason. Hudson will definitely improve Kawakami’s W-L record based on the way he was throwing. Kawakami will stabilise the bullpen much better than any Longman Bobby used. The pitching staff alone will bring Braves 10 more wins in the standing even without any improvement for the line-up even with Francoeur, Schafer and Kotchman for their part of season in 2009. That is how good the Braves stuff will be in 2010.

A Decent Line-up

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