John Smoltz

How about John Smoltz?  The veteran right-hander will begin the season in the broadcast booth rather than on the mound, working as a color analyst for TBS.  Smoltz did some commentating back in 2008 while on Atlanta’s Disabled List.  If Smoltz is truly finished as a player, he combines with former teammates (and fellow retirees) Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine for 873 career wins and 154 saves.  Not surprisingly, both Maddux and Glavine will remain in the game in some capacity, the former serving as an assistant to Cubs GM Jim Hendry, and the latter as a special assistant to Braves President John Schuerholz.

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, with 216.  (The next-closest – pitcher or position player – is longtime teammate John Smoltz, with 136.)

Thomas hit 521 home runs, collected 2,468 hits, and finishes with an impressive line of .301/.419/.555.  He won back-to-back MVP awards, four Silver Sluggers, and one batting title.  Additionally, he had 11 seasons with 100+ RBI’s and was named to five consecutive All-Star teams (1993-1997) at a very competitive time for American League first basemen.  (Mark McGwire, John Olerud, Mo Vaughn, Tino Martinez, Cecil Fielder, Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro were perennial contenders.)  The Big Hurt’s best year came in 1994, when he set career highs in batting average (.353), on-base-percentage (.487), and slugging percentage (.729), and despite being limited to 113 games by the players’ strike, hit 38 home runs and drove in 101 runs.  Thomas’s monstrous slugging percentage that season puts him in a club with guys named Ruth, Gehrig, Williams, Hornsby, and Foxx.

Continue reading "Two more great careers reach the end of the line"

o Cabrera, Brian Giles, Jermaine Dye, Gary Sheffield, Mark Mulder, Erik Bedard, Pedro Martinez, and John Smoltz are among the proven veterans who remain unsigned entering the last weekend of January.  They may not like it, but many of the seasoned vets will have to settle for one-year, incentive-laden contracts, or face retirement.

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With four wins during his team’s run to their 27th World Series Championship, Pettitte passed John Smoltz for the all-time Major League lead with 18 career postseason wins, 17 of which have come as a member of the Yankees.  Yankee fans are anxious to see whether Pettitte will decide to retire or play another year in the Bronx.

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Smoltz should have known better

Forty-two-year-old John Smoltz was designated for assignment by the Red Sox last week after an unsuccessful six weeks in the Boston rotation.  As I said when he signed with Boston this past offseason, he never should have left Atlanta.  The Braves would not have done such a thing to their longest-tenured player – a future Hall-of-Famer, at that – even if he had an 8.32 E.R.A. after eight starts.  Even if management felt he was not helping the team in his current role, they would have found a better solution.  One way or another, they would have found a way to make everyone happy.

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After two decades with the same team, John Smoltz is now a member of the Boston Red Sox.  What a shame.

1st anniversary of my blog Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of

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Wishy-Washburn: Randy Johnson ($15.1M)Mike Hampton ($15.975M, courtesy of his monster Rockies deal) John Smoltz ($14M)Josh Beckett ($10.1M)Carlos Zambrano ($16M)Mark Buehrle ($14M)Javier Vazquez ($11.5M)Jose Contreras ($10M)CC Sabathia ($11M)Jake Westbrook ($10M)Roy Oswalt ($13M Gil Meche ($11.4M) Jon Garland ($12M)Jason Schmidt ($15.2M) Derek Lowe ($10M)Ben Sheets ($10.1M)Johan Santana ($16.9M)Pedro Martinez ($11.8M)Andy Pettitte ($16M)Mike Mussina ($11M)Carl Pavano ($11M)Matt Morris ($10M)Greg Maddux ($10M) Barry Zito ($14.5M)Chris Carpenter ($10.5M)Vincente Padilla ($11M)Kevin Millwood ($10.3M) AJ Burnett ($13.2M)Roy Halladay ($10M)

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Eric Gagne and John Smoltz have both threatened to unseat Thigpen, each coming within two saves in 2003 and 2002, respectively.

The latest guy to challenge Thigpen is the Anaheim Angels’ Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez, who has been their closer since taking over in 2004 from Troy Percival. Since then, he’s notched 178 saves for Anaheim, including a 47-save 2006 and a 45-save 2005, and has averaged 32 saves throughout his career (including about two seasons as Percival’s setup man).

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But this year, luck may be catching up with him. On the DL right now are: John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Mike Hampton, Rafael Soriano, and Peter Moylan.

And that's only the pitchers. They're also missing Matt Diaz, Martin Prado and Mark Kotsay, while Chipper, Esco and now Infante are all aching in one way or another without (yet) going to the DL.

Continue reading "Not Your Daddy's Braves"

efore, these are the key questions facing each team.

Atlanta Braves

How much do Tom Glavine and John Smoltz have left?

The Braves figure to be loaded on offense and their pitching could potentially be pretty strong depending on how this pair of 40 year-olds fair this season. Smoltz, who will turn 41 this season, is the safer bet as he has pitched over 200 innings in each season since returning to the starting rotation in 2005, each time with a sub 3.50 ERA. At his age though, a pitcher can rapidly begin to decline and he has experienced some shoulder problems already this spring. Nonetheless, I would expect him to put up another solid year.

Continue reading "MLB 2008 Season Preview: National League East"