I kept putting this off, but it really looks like the Braves, barring some NRI playing out of his head in spring training, really are going to go into the season with this guy as the backup shortstop and only real backup infielder. Hurrah. Hernandez has had 103 career major league plate appearances (83 in 2009, 10 last year) and hit a robust .138/.190/.234. Last year, he was 1-9, though the one hit was a homer. There really was no evidence that he could hit major league pitching. All he really has going for him are his AAA numbers, which are fairly impressive for a shortstop in a batting-average-heavy kind of way, .300/.344/.398, hitting .319 over the last two years (in just 84 games thanks to injuries and time on the major league bench). His overall minor league numbers, however, are worse, and as noted he hasn’t hit in the majors. If he could hit even an empty .280 and play good defense, you could live with him as a bench player, but (a) he hasn’t hit, and (b) he hasn’t fielded that well either. The Braves have some other options, but they’re all minor league lifers with even more suspect gloves, plus Brandon Hicks, who simply cannot hit.

In the starting rotation, there are two pitchers who might go if something goes wrong with one of the top five, though unless someone gets hurt or Mike Minor is really bad, I don’t think anyone has much of a chance of pitching himself onto the roster.

Two ragarmed righthanders in their thirties. Linebrink was a second-round pick of the Giants way back in ’97 who flopped as a starter and was dealt after all of three major league relief outings to the Astros for the immortal Doug Henry. In 2003 the Padres picked him up off waivers, and that year and for the next two he was just about as good of a reliever as there was in baseball, posting ERAs of 2.82, 2.14, and 1.83. Unfortunately, his ERAs did not continue to dwindle to nothing, but he was still quite good in 2006 and 2007. During the latter season, the Padres shipped him to the Brewers for three players, one of whom turned out to be Joe Thatcher. In case you were wondering, this is how the Padres keep being able to compete.

Brought in to do the LOOGY thing even though there’s little evidence that this is the best way to use him and last year he couldn’t get anyone out no matter how they hit. Sherrill’s career splits are much, much better against lefties (.500 OPS) than righties (.800) but he did his best work when used as a closer.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to my mini-fundraising drive. It’s much appreciated.

Missed much of the season with mono, starting around the All-Star break and sidelining him, or confining him to mopup duty, for most of the second half. When healthy, he was excellent, working mostly as a lefty specialist but occasionally pitching full innings; Bobby was always willing to try to move his LOOGYs into a larger role. It remains to be seen what Fredi will do. O’Flaherty is a better bet for a seventh-inning guy than Moylan or the Scotts. While he’s better against lefties than righties, it’s not extreme; he tends to walk some of the tougher ones. He did pitch more full innings than in 2009, but some of that is from late in the year when he worked a lot of long relief. He probably would have topped 80 appearances if he’d been healthy; as it was, he still had 56.

Did not make the expected and normal gains the second year back from Tommy John surgery; in fact, he declined somewhat, though his ERA was only up a little (2.97 from 2.84). Most notably, after allowing zero homers in 2009, he allowed five (one inside-the-park) last year. His strikeout and walk rates got a little worse as well, but the added power was the big concern.

Came out of nowhere last year to anchor the Braves’ bullpen, leading the team with 83 innings pitched in relief, second with 79 appearances (sixth in the league), and finished eighth in the rookie of the year voting. Not bad for a non-prospect who didn’t make the team out of spring training. He made a couple of appearances in the suburbs before being called up after Jo-Jo Reyes‘ latest (and last for the Braves) implosion, and pretty soon was the reliever you wanted on the spot when things got hairy. Throwing a heavy fastball with velocity, he combined getting lots of ground balls (more than twice as many ground balls than fly balls) with lots of strikeouts (10.1 per nine).

While turning over the top bullpen role to a mostly untested (21 mostly low-leverage appearances last year) 23-year-old near-rookie with a history of massive control problems is perhaps not unpredecented, it is nonetheless unusual. He has ridiculous stuff, a near-100-MPH fastball and a vicious breaking pitch, and he gets ground balls. There’s just one little fly in the ointment. I described Kimbrel’s control before last season as “Dalkowski bad” and while he made some strides and it was perhaps an exaggeration, he still doesn’t always have a good idea of where the ball is going once he lets go of it.

Seems to be pencilled in, very heavily, as the #5 starter, both because he’s lefthanded and all the other starters are righties, and because really he’s the best man for the job, even if he didn’t look it in the majors last year. Minor, a controversial #1 draft choice by the Braves in 2009 (7th overall, considered a signability pick by many) out of Vandy, was impressive in his first professional action that year, then pitched well in the first half for Mississippi, earning a promotion to Gwinnett. He demolished the International League, going 4-1 with a 1.89 ERA in six starts before getting called up to bolster the rotation when injuries took out Kris Medlen and Jair Jurrjens, making his debut only a year and three days after he was drafted. He went 3-2, but that was due to run support, as his ERA was a hefty 5.98 and opposing batters hit .314/.353/.527 off of him. The general consensus is that this doesn’t represent his true ability, that he was worn out after already having pitched more innings than in any season prior; he wound up, I believe, going over the innings limit that the Braves set for him before the season. But he wouldn’t be the first Braves lefty to put up impressive minor league stats and not succeed for the major league team.

That’s the other side of the coin. Jurrjens’ ERA went from 2.60 to 4.64, while his strikeouts and walks stayed almost exactly the same as in his two previous campaigns. So a lot of that was “luck”, balls finding holes that they didn’t before or runs getting scored “earned” instead of “unearned”. But not all of it. His homers allowed went from .6 per 9 IP to 1.0, and that was a lot of it. But still not all of it.

I guess that’s about the best we could have hoped for. Lowe went out every fifth day and gave the Braves league-average pitching, which with the Braves’ offense and relief pitching was enough to win more than they lost. It wasn’t worth $15 million, but in the current market, it was worth $10 million, maybe. He saw a rebound in his strikeout rate, from a very borderline 5.1 per nine in 2009 to 6.3, which is about what he averaged in 2007-08, and helped him go from allowing a .301 batting average to .271.

NEW YORK (AP): In a surprising turn of events, Major League outfielder Jeff Francoeur has purchased a controlling interest in the New York Mets from the former owners, the Wilpon Family. The purchase, effective immediately, of 69 percent of the team was for a reported $550 million.