Casey Kotchman Signs

You little beauty.... arbitration was avoided by some nouse on both sides.

WTF am I talking about ?

Casey Kotchman - our Atlanta Braves, gold glove calibre 1st base man. I for one GUARANTEE, yes guarantte that the young Casey will rebound in 2009 (pending no family health problems) and put up some excellent offensive and top of the league defensive numbers.

TODAY, we the Atlanta Braves avoided arbitration by signing Casey to a $2.88 Million deal.

Excellent news all around.

Now, let us look at what happens in all things BRAVO, in 2009.

To start 2008 (and 2007 for that matter) Atlanta lead the National League until MANY PITCHERS decided to roll up and die...... our injuries and 11-30 record in 1 RUN games, yes BLOODY 1 run games killed us !

2009 - The difference between the chokers (Mets), over-rateds and us is minimal...

Let us play the young studs, Anderson in LF with Diaz in a platoon, Schafer in CF and Frenchy in RF (maybe with a back-up in case 2009 is really 2008). Let us throw the awesome Tommy Hanson in at the deep end (as it were) and see if he swims with the big "White Pointers"

............ a lot of ifs and lot of heart will get us back to 1999 levels again

"SHAKE AND BAKE BRAVES"

So Kawakami is UNDERRATED

Having seen baseball games in many different countries and having played the game at a high level as a junior I am quite surprised at the lack of enthusiasm for Kenshin Kawakami.

"Kenny" has good stuff, just not in a fundamentally normal American way (remember one Greg Maddux was not a flame thrower either). Kawakami's best pitches are; a quite slow and nasty 12-6 curveball which "accelerates" his modest 88 mph fastball.

He also throws a type of shuto and a cutter which can be effective "out pitches".

The plan with this blog is to follow "Kenny" quite closely as he plays in his rookie MLB season and to post on any other things of note not limited to;

The Braves
Pitching
Food
Music
Movies
TV Shows
Being a Braves Fanatic in New York City
Travel

and pretty much anything I bloody well want to write about.

Which brings me to todays thoughts...

1. Wall Street has totally lost the plot and any semblance of connection to the real world.
2. Skip Bayliss is an old tool who needs to be taught some R-E-S-P-E-C-T (go Aretha)
3. I hate the bloody shitty cold NYC weather except when the border collie and I are in Central Park

Spring training starts in 15 days.... lets rock on BRAVES