Crooked Pitch

I’ve spent a good portion of the day thinking about the corner infield situation in Atlanta, now that the Braves have picked up Troy Glaus and announced that he would occupy first base — leaving Chipper Jones to play third base.

My first inclination was to scoff at this move by the Braves, hoping that the two aging infielders could combine to play 162 games in 2010. Once I’ve looked a little bit at their three-year trends, I’m not as worried now as I was at the beginning of the day.

It’s true that Glaus played in only 14 games last season. But, the two years prior he played in 115 games and 151 games, respectively. He also belted 20 home runs in 2007 and 27 in 2008. That’s power that the Braves could sorely use in 2010. All Glaus has to do is prove he can bounce back and play in 120-plus games.

Jones, over the last three seasons, averaged 135 games played. He also won a batting crown in 2008 and is averaging 23 home runs overh his last three years.

This low-cost free agent acquisition (one year - $2 million) screams low risk/high reward for the Braves. If Glaus performs and stays healthy it’ll pay dividends. If he’s hurt by June 1, hopefully the Braves have a backup plan.

With his injury history, Glaus isn’t draftable at this time. But watch his progress through Spring Training and the first weeks of the season to see if he could turn into a waiver wire gem.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 24th, 2009 at 12:57 am and is filed under Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.