There's been some discussion over on the Capital Avenue Club blog about the long term future of the team depending on IF they trade for Upton or Not. I am of the opinion it won't make much difference as the $$$ will work out about the same.
(for the purposes of this I am assuming no extensions for any players nearing free agency)

But let's take a look!

These are the players who should still be under control as the team enters the 2017 season:Mike Minor,Andrelton,...

With all the controversy over suspected PED users and the recent HOF voting. Be it the guilty (Palmerior,Clemens,Bonds,Sosa,McGwire) or just guilt by association (Piazza,Bagwell). Many people may have missed that Jack Morris ,in his 14th year of eligibility, almost got in. and very well may get in next year as he got over 68% of the vote (75% needed for election).

Now, lets look closer at his career and see how much he merits election shall we?

254 -186 record, career...

There's been a lot of speculation (a bit early too,IMO) that Wren may be done with the free agent and trade markets and will instead fill our 3B/LF vacancy with Francisco at 3B ,Prado in LF and maybe a little Reed Johnson platoon action.

Now, this isn't "ideal" by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm going to show you why this might not be the worst thing that can happen (like say spending $7-$8m a year on Ross, or trading for a mediocre speed guy like Dee Gordon)....

I have decided that with the emergence of Medlen, we don't need to go after a starter.

I hate to do the salary thing, but here we go:

Only guaranteed contract is Uggla at $13 mill

Mac- $12 m option
Huddy-$9 mill option
Maholm- $6.5 mill option


arbitration eligble: (with estimated salary)

Prado: $7.5 mill
EOF- $3.5 mill
Janish- $1 mill
Heyward- $4mill
Hanson-$2.5 mill...

We all know Kimbrel is dominant, we all know he's lights out and having an even better year than last year. But what some of you may not know, is he is putting together what may be arguably the greatest season for a closer in MLB history.

Here's the numbers (and they are eye popping)


K/9- 15.94

BB/9- 2.57

K/BB ratio - 6.20

GroundBall% - 57.9 (nobody strikes out 16 per 9 and also gets 60% groundballs, not Mariano...