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Hurá, miluji baseball! an Atlanta Braves season preview

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

In 1961-62, MGM commissioned Gene Deitch and Associates to produced 13 episodes of their classic Tom and Jerry cartoon. It was kind of a big deal because Deitch was based in the city of Prague in Communist Czechoslovakia. Famously, Tom and Jerry had been produced in Hollywood, USA as the credits so proudly stated.

The Deitch pictures are widely considered among the worst of the Tom and Jerry canon. There's a great documentary about the dude and his adventures, though.

See, back in the 60s there was a little-known clash of cultures between East and West that most folks called The Cold War. Here in the USA, folks didn't look kindly on the strange and backward Communists. There were a thousand points of conflict, but for our purposes the most important one was the image that American products were far superior to the poor, cheap-looking replicas produced in the Communist bloc. There was a real element of propaganda that perpetuated this image, but there was some truth to it, too. The Czech Tom and Jerrys are an example of this.

The animation is grainy and the sound is tinny. Which, I mean, their equipment was 30 years old in a medium that had experienced quantum leaps in technology in Hollywood. Where the Hollywood pictures featured full orchestras performing the score, the Czech pictures sound like they were scored by four old men playing a Bohemian polka in a dank parlor.

Freddie Freeman is the ersatz Communist Tom and Jerry compared to Joey Votto.

What Did They Do This Winter?

Oh, boy. For as much abject contempt as I have for the Braves organization, I feel real sympathy for their true believers. Their offseason was as strange and ridiculous as most any pro sports franchise has ever weathered. General Manager John Coppolella was ousted and given life without parole (he is banned for life) for shady doings with a bunch of international prospects. Basically, they spent enormous amounts of cash on some of the top talent available and tried to get around the international signing bonus caps. They were signing big-ticket players for a cut rate and then signing lesser players for a lot, and then having the lesser players move some of the extra money to the better players.

As punishment, not only did Coppolella get axed, but also their international scouting director got a one year suspension, President of Baseball Ops John Hart lost his position, a number of their best prospects were granted free agency, and they have to deal with tight restrictions on the international free agent market for some years to come.

Don't ever break the rules, kids. Never ever.

Needless to say, the Braves were kinda quiet on the player movement front. New top decision-maker Alex Anthopoulos hardly had time to save his desk phone number in his cell, so roster management was kind of tertiary. However, they did make one interesting move that caused quite a stir. Former baseball player Matt Kemp was traded to the Dodgers in exchange for Brandon McCarthy and Adrian Gonzalez and others in a move that was way more about the teams' financial obligations than about talent.

They also declined a team option for RA Dickey.

Starting Lineup

C Tyler Flowers
1B Freddie Freeman
2B Ozzie Albies
3B Rio Ruiz
SS Dansby Swanson
LF Lane Adams
CF Ender Inciarte
RF Nick Markakis

Freddie Freeman is the core of the Braves lineup, and he is pretty good. I mean, he's no Joey Votto, of course. But he's okay. Flowers is a solid receiver coming off the best season of his career. Inciarte is best known around here as the guy who has stolen two Gold Gloves from Billy Hamilton. He's a strong defender for sure, and he has the added bonus of being able to hit baseballs even a little bit. Lane Adams is a guy they made up to hold a roster spot until Galactic Prospect Ronald Acuna is released from service time manipulation detention.

The Braves are putting a lot of their hopes and dreams on their young keystone patrolmen. Albies made his debut last season as a 20-year-old and notched a slashline of .286/.354/.456 in 57 games. He also has the same birthday as Edwin Encarnacion, Tucker Barnhart, and Me! Swanson is way older than Albies at 24 and he struggled mightily last season. He is a way better baseball player than his 69 OPS+ would suggest, or at least, he and the Braves sure hope he is. Johan Camargo is yet another excellent young infielder with significant upside. He is just 23 and he slugged 27 extra-base hits last season in 256 PAs.

Rotation

Julio Teheran
Mike Foltynewicz
Brandon McCarthy
Sean Newcomb
Scott Kazmir

Teheran has alternated great seasons with merely okay seasons for the last five years, and this year he is scheduled to be great again. Foltynewicz is a decent mid-rotation type who should help hold down the fort along with McCarthy and Kazmir until their wave of talented pitching prospects is ready to slam dunk on some bustas. Kyle Wright, Mike Soroka, Luiz Gohara, Kolby Allard, and Max Fried are all top-100 prospects and they could all be ready to crack the big league rotation by the end of the season.

Bullpen

Arodys Vizcaino
Jose Ramirez
AJ Minter
Dan Winkler
Rex Brothers

Vizcaino has established himself as the teams' closer and he's not bad at it. They don't really have any seasoned shut-down lumber splitters here, but Winkler and Minter are somewhat promising. As with the rotation, this squad is mostly conscripts from the local farmland pressed to keep the town out of enemy hands until the cavalry arrives.

Outlook

The Braves lost 90 games last year and didn't do anything to markedly improve their big league roster. This is by design though, as they have an entire generation of prospects that should be ready to step up before the season is over. I mentioned his name in passing above, but he deserves an entire section of this thing all by himself. Ronald Acuna just turned 20 this winter and he is a near-unanimous pick for best prospect in all of baseball. Don't barf you guys, but he gets a ton of Eric Davis comps. As a 19-year-old last season, he split time among A+, AA, and AAA and posted an eyeball-inverting OPS of nearly .900 with 44 stolen bases. In his first big-league camp this spring, he slashed .432/.519/.727 in 52 PAs with many saying he was the best hitter in the entire Grapefruit League. He'll cut the heads off of International League pitchers for a few weeks this spring before moving up to Atlanta because of service time issues, so you have a bit of time to stock your bomb shelter. He's gonna be nuclear. The entire organization is counting on it.