Is Troy Glaus The Next Raul Mondesi?

The season is just two weeks old. Troy Glaus is struggling at the plate. But this situation looks and feels eerily similar to one that the Braves experienced not to long ago.

Take a quick trip down memory lane and you come to the year 2005. The Braves roster seemed set. The lineup went as follows:

C - Johnny Estrada

1B - Adam LaRoche

2B - Marcus Giles

3B - Chipper Jones

SS - Rafael Furcal

LF - Kelly Johnson

CF - Andruw Jones

The only question was who would play right field? The Braves decided that young star to be Jeff Francoeur could use a little more seasoning in the minors so they decided to sign a veteran RF, former ROY, with some good past numbers to play right field. He also had some slight off the field baggage but the Braves seemed to be confident that he could fill this spot. His name was Raul Mondesi.

I don't need to remind Braves' fans how that experiment went, but for those who might have forgotten his line went like this: 41 games played, .211 batting average, 4 HRs, 17 RBI and 35 strikeouts in 142 ABs.

Is this starting to sound, as Yogi Berra said, like Deja-vu all over again?

So far this year Troy Glaus has played 12 games for the Braves. He is batting .195 with 1 HR, 6 RBI, and 12 strikeouts in 41 ABs. At this pace if Glaus' production was consistent in 41 games his stats would be: .200 batting average, 4 HRs, 21 RBI and 41 strikeouts in 158 ABs.

Deja-vu all over again? It seems to be.

The comparisons are eerily similar. Glaus, like Mondesi, was coming off a year where he didn't play much if at all. Glaus, like Mondesi, has past career exploits that would seem to say he can produce in the bigs. But Glaus, like Mondesi, has produced very little with his time in Atlanta.

This season is still young and Glaus might be able to turn things around, but how long should Atlanta go with him at 1B? With Mondesi it was only a few months before a young hotshot named Jeff Francoeur got called up. With Glaus, his time might be slowly waining.

The Braves do have Freddie Freeman in AAA but he has struggled so far this year and might not be ready to come up to the bigs like Francoeur did. So that leaves one of two options. 1) See if Glaus will turn it around or 2) make a trade for a more established 1B.

Right now the jury is still out on what to do. The Braves are noted for being very loyal but loyalty can only go as far as performance, and right now Glaus' performance is not very good. That leaves the option of trading for a more established 1B and right now the jury is still out.

The Braves could make a trade for someone like Adrian Gonzalez from the Padres, or they could stick with Glaus and hope he turns things around before Freddie Freeman is ready.

The Braves are in a sticky situation with Glaus, but it is not a new one. Let's hope for our sakes that Glaus does not turn out like Raul Mondesi.