Notes From the Season Ticket Holder Town Hall
The Braves held another town hall for season ticket holders over lunch at the 755 Club on Thursday. Frank Wren spoke and took questions from fans (a brave [no pun intended] move just a week after letting Smoltz sign with the Red Sox). Wren addressed the things that have happened so far this offseason and talked about the upcoming season.
While he didn’t break any news, he did give some indication about a few rumors going around. Here are are my notes on the luncheon.
(To be clear, everything that follows is strictly my interpretation of what he said. Of course, he was just as politic with his answers as he would have been with the media. You know never know when someone you’re talking to is one of those pesky bloggers, after all.)
- John Smoltz. He made the same point that they couldn’t afford to pay Smoltz to not pitch, but he also talked about knowing how much money the Red Sox had coming off the books and how much they still have to spend ($50 million) made it pretty clear that they were going to have a hard time matching their offer.
- Chipper Jones. They intend to make an offer to Chipper to extend his contract. I wouldn’t expect it to happen until the season is underway.
- Andruw Jones. He didn’t rule it out, but didn’t seem enthused. He talked about Josh Anderson and Jordan Schafer as their main options for center field. He didn’t mention Gregor Blanco; make what you will of that.
- An outfield bat. He seemed pretty down on the available players on the free agent market, including Adam Dunn. I would pretty much count that out as an option. He said there are several trade opportunities available, but he thought their potential partners wanted to wait to see how things shaped up during spring training. He also mentioned the possibility of a Matt Diaz platoon with either Brandon Jones or Jordan Schafer.
- Tommy Hanson. To say he is high on Tommy Hanson would be the understatement of the year. He said they didn’t want to put too much pressure on him to be a successful major league pitcher this year (or whenever he debuts), but regarding a rotation position coming out of spring training this year, he said they would keep an open mind. The way he said it leads me to believe the fifth spot is his to lose.
- Jake Peavy. He says that they had an agreement with the Padres on players for a Peavy trade, but Peavy didn’t want to come to Atlanta.
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