Spring Training

Ahh, you know the long dark tea-time of the soul is almost over when pitchers and catchers report. Everyone's arm is healthy, even the ones that aren't. There are daily updates from David O'Brien. Random bloggers get their heads chewed off by same for criticizing his taste in music. The grass is green and so is the money Frank Wren needs to shell out to sign Tex and Frenchy to a long term deal. There are brief shining rays of light through the gloom of 24-7 college basketball when a random spring training game makes it on the radio or - joy of joys - TV. Rookies and fringe players actually have a shot at making the team. And some of those fringe players are ones you'd never expect to see in your team's uniform.

I was looking over the Braves depth chart and saw some weird names on there. I try to keep up with my Bravos but these guys snuck onto the team when I was distracted with '08 Topps or something. Now, Joe Borchard I knew about. I wish he could have been here 3 or 4 years ago, but at least I can put that signed baseball I got out of a box of Just Minors officially in my Braves collection now. He has no shot of making the team. Seriously no shot. Even if he hits about 80 homers in spring training, about 6 outfielders would have to be carried away by a freak tornado during a split squad game for him to make it. I don't know when Ryan Drese showed up either. I thought he was pitching for the Indians to be honest. Well, any staring pitcher is a good starting pitcher though. I wish they had ponied up for Mark Prior, Kris Benson and Bartolo Colon to be honest. Even if the rotation miraculously had no injury problems, at least Richmond could have a nice staff in their last year. The one that really threw me for a loop was Matt DeSalvo. It wasn't that long ago I was making fun of his odd fake signature on his Topps card and how he's trying to win a spot on the staff. Apparently Bobby Cox is raving about him too, although Bobby is known for raving. A lot of times raving right before we ship a guy off to some sucker for a piece we really need. Apparently Matt's a bit of a bookworm, which is ok in my book. The Braves could use an egghead or two just to balance out the lingering John Rocker karma. With all the starting pitchers on the team, maybe it's time to go to an 8 man rotation. It couldn't hurt when the average age of the top 4 starters penciled in is about 39.