Ervin Santana Yet to Disappoint With the Braves

For the second straight year, the Nationals are the favorites to win the National League East division, and for the second straight year, the Braves are looking to surprise many, despite being the overall weaker team on paper, by winning the division. While it’s still early, the Braves are off to a good start.

But it didn’t appear that it would turn out that way.

When the Braves announced last month the loss of two of their big name starters, Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy, for the entire season due to Tommy John surgery, many people felt that it was a crushing blow to the team, and would keep the Braves from doing much of anything this year.

However, despite a few poor games, the Braves currently stand at the top of the division, having had great pitching and an explosive offense leading the way as of late.

A lot of the great pitching is coming from guys you wouldn’t necessarily expect to dominate. With Medlen and Beachy out for the season, and Mike Minor out for a little while longer, the Braves don’t have any front line starters beyond Julio Teheran. But their offseason additions of Aaron Harang and Ervin Santana are proving to be well worth it, as they are pitching like top notch pitchers so far.

For Santana, though it took all offseason for him to find a team, it’s looking like the one-year, 14.1 million dollar deal he agreed to could be a bargain for the Braves. Having so few pitching options heading into the season, the Braves picked up Santana merely because they were weak in starting pitching and needed a boost. Coming off a decent season of a 9-10 record with a 3.24 ERA for the Royals in 2013, Santana certainly had the ability to provide the upgrade.

However, I’m not sure anyone predicted Santana to be so good so soon. In his first start of the season against the Mets, Santana threw eight scoreless innings, earning the win as well as the respect of a lot of people around the baseball world. Going into his second start on Monday night, all eyes were on Santana again, and he was even better, overall. Striking out eleven batters in six one-run innings, Santana dominated, yet again, but had to settle for a no decision, due to poor relief pitching by the Braves’ bullpen.

While there are still a lot of critics who feel that the Braves will fall down behind the Nationals in the division standings as the season goes on, if their pitching can continue to be consistent along with their offense, they could surprise people, with Ervin Santana being a big reason for their success.

The Injury Bug: Numerous Players To Miss Time

Another day, another injury. It seems that’s been the common theme as of late, with Michael Bourn, Yu Darvish, Aroldis Chapman and Jurickson Profar being the most recent players to fall victim to what’s become somewhat of an injury epidemic around Major League Baseball.

While every year brings injuries throughout both the offseason and the regular season, this year seems to be above average in that department, and the season hasn’t even begun yet. Including names such as Patrick Corbin, Manny Machado, Matt Kemp, and Jarrod Parker, among many others, the list of players set to miss Opening Day — the entire season for some players — due to injury continues to grow larger. Although some players aren’t that big of a loss overall, some will have a drastic impact on their team’s success.

None more so than the loss of Brandon Beachy and Kris Medlen for the Braves. Both are set to miss the entire season due to the second Tommy John surgeries of their careers, and losing these key pieces to the Braves’ starting rotation will likely have a profound impact on how they perform as a whole. I had the Braves winning the National League East division in 2014, as they did last season, however, the subtraction of these players from the roster could cause them to fall down in the rankings a bit.

But the Braves aren’t the only team that could fall down a bit due to an injured player.

Patrick Corbin being out for what could be the entire season will have an effect on the Diamondback’s performance this season. Corbin really broke out last year, and was set to lead their starting rotation throughout the coming season. But without him, while the D-backs should still be a good team, they won’t be able to give the Dodgers a run for the division title like they previously would’ve possibly been able to do.

However, the team that will likely see the second biggest drop, behind the Braves, from their predicted finish will be the Athletics, who will be without A.J. Griffin for a good bit of time, but more importantly won’t have Jarrod Parker for the entire season. He, like many pitchers I’ve discussed, is undergoing Tommy John surgery that will keep him out until 2015. With Parker out, the A’s will have a difficult time overtaking the Rangers in the American League West division as they’ve done the past two seasons.

Not all of these injuries have occurred recently, though. A few players that won’t be ready for Opening Day had their injuries happen much earlier than this offseason or Spring Training.

Manny Machado, Jose Iglesias, Matt Kemp, and Matt Harvey are all missing a good deal of time due to nagging injuries from 2013, with Matt Harvey (and possibly Jose Iglesias as well) out for the full length of the season. When healthy, all have extreme impacts on their respective teams, so, obviously, not having them being their productive selves is a big loss.

But despite all of the injuries that seem to grow in number everyday, these are the types of things teams just have to play through. You have to compete with what you have. And therefore, it’s sure to be an interesting and exciting 2014 season, with there now being just six days until Opening Day.

Arizona Fall League TTM Requests Update #2

Several weeks ago I blogged about the through the mail (TTM) autograph requests I was planning to send off to players during the Arizona Fall League. At the end of the post I stated that I was going to be publishing a blog post every time I received back a couple autographs. Having received two more TTM autograph requests since my last update, I figured I’d post another update:

JORGE BONIFACIO — ROYALS’ ORGANIZATION

Jorge Bonifacio is the Royals’ number five prospect, and the number eighty-nine overall prospect in all of baseball. Batting .298 with 4 home runs and 57 RBI’s this past season, Bonifacio still has a ways to go before he’s big-league-ready, but at just 20 years old, he has a lot of promise. Bonifacio should become an everyday player for the Royals in the next couple of years.

ANDREW HEANEY — MARLINS’ ORGANIZATION

Andrew Heaney is the Marlins’ number two prospect, and the number fourty-eight overall prospect in all of baseball. Unfortunately, he smeared his last name of the autograph, but after going 9-3 with a 1.60 ERA this past season, this is an autograph (even though it’s smeared) I’m glad to have. Heaney is going to be a great pitcher for the Marlins fairly soon; joining their other young Ace, Jose Fernandez.

This might end up being the final autograph update post I do until Spring Training. (If I don’t get one back before the end of this year, it will be.) Things are slowing down, and the odds that I’ll get anymore autographs from players in the 2013 Arizona Fall League are getting slimmer. But you never know. I got an autograph from Kris Medlen thirteen months after I sent it during the 2011 Spring Training, so it’s always possible.

I still have autograph requests out for Corey Seager, Austin Hedges, Kyle Crick, Jorge Soler, Delino DeShields, Jorge Alfaro, Taylor Lindsey, Adalberto Mejia, Kyle Parker, James Ramsey, Kris Bryant and Colin Moran. When/if I get any of those back, assuming it’s before the end of the year, I’ll be sure to post another update. Though, there’s no guarantee I’ll get any more back at all.