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Sad to see Mark go after saying he wanted to stay in Atlanta... I guess no Atlanta teams are willing to pony up big bucks to resign their star players (thank God for Arthur Blank).

On the bright side we get first base replacement Casey Kotchman in return. He's still young (25) and a very solid fielder, not quite the bat big Tex has been but he could develop and already has decent power.

players don't mean a thing in baseball..... as long as the Braves keep Mazzone, Cox, and Schuerholz together, they will always be in the pennant hunt. as soon as Mazzone left and the three where broken up, the Braves have not been able to find magic since.

Harry10 wrote:players don't mean a thing in baseball..... as long as the Braves keep Mazzone, Cox, and Schuerholz together, they will always be in the pennant hunt. as soon as Mazzone left and the three where broken up, the Braves have not been able to find magic since.

I didn't know Mazzone could magically keep the players healthy on the team! Because that's the main reason why we're struggling this year. Soriano, Glavine, Hampton, Smoltz, Chipper have all struggled to stay healthy this year. Oh wait, but if Mazzone was still here, they would of never gotten injured.

Libid21 wrote:

Harry10 wrote:players don't mean a thing in baseball..... as long as the Braves keep Mazzone, Cox, and Schuerholz together, they will always be in the pennant hunt. as soon as Mazzone left and the three where broken up, the Braves have not been able to find magic since.

I didn't know Mazzone could magically keep the players healthy on the team! Because that's the main reason why we're struggling this year. Soriano, Glavine, Hampton, Smoltz, Chipper have all struggled to stay healthy this year. Oh wait, but if Mazzone was still here, they would of never gotten injured.

actually yeah, that was what Mazzone was known for, keeping his guy and teaching how to stay healthy.

Braves tried to keep Tex. Wren said during the game they offer to make him one of the highest paid players in the league. Tex turn them down. Rangers made an offer around $140-$150 million. Braves probably made a similar offer. Tex isn't worth anywhere close to that. They were willing to pay Tex. He is follows whatever Boras tells him. Best to trade him now and get something in return. Braves needed a MLB ready 1B and Kotchman is the guy. He is only 25 and Braves control him for 2-3 more years.

Sorry, Libid, Harry's right. Leo was really famous for it.

All of these injuries, Hampton's tommy john, McCann's concussion, Smoltz's injury, could of never been prevented IMO. Players just get injured more often than others. Are we really surprised to see Hampton injured? I'm actually not surprised Hudson injured as he is right now. With such a small body to have a lot of 'torque' in it, his body takes a lot of tolls. For example, you can look at Pedro Martinez.

Libid21 wrote:All of these injuries, Hampton's tommy john, McCann's concussion, Smoltz's injury, could of never been prevented IMO. Players just get injured more often than others. Are we really surprised to see Hampton injured? I'm actually not surprised Hudson injured as he is right now. With such a small body to have a lot of 'torque' in it, his body takes a lot of tolls. For example, you can look at Pedro Martinez.

that is another thing, i don't keep up with baseball, but i remember any new young stud coming up for the Braves when a guy gets injuried.

i remember Leo would coach guys and keep guys healthy, Schuerholz would bring truck load after truck load of talent and Cox would get everybod to play as a team...... but it seems like Braves don't have those young triple A stars that you can fill in for those injuried players anymore.

Leo, follower of Johhny Sain, taught that the human arm was meant to be exercised on a regular basis. His position was that the present way of resting between starts is too extreme of a difference to the arm muscles.

Besides, he felt that, the more you pitched, the better your control.

Scoff if you wish, but with Leo we had an unbelievable run of good health, where our pitchers stayed healthy and unhealthy pitchers joined and got healthy.

This season, we've had Smoltz, Glavine, Hudson, Gonzalez, Soriano, Moylan and Bennett hurt. I don't think Leo had 7 pitchers hurt in 15 years, much less one calendar year.

Now, to be fair, some think Leo's regime wears out the pitchers' arms by the end of the season, weakening them for the playoffs. But they stay healthy.

^ well pitching in the playoffs wasn't the major issue for the Braves short comings in the playoffs, it was always the huge drop off in batting in the post season.