Julio Teheran is the Braves' #1 prospect

Jason Heyward was the no-brainer #1 prospect in the Atlanta system going into last season. His graduation obviously hurts the strength of the farm system, but Julio Teheran makes a worthy top prospect as well. The Braves signed Teheran for $850,000 as a 16-year-old based on his raw projection, but as a 19-year-old in 2010, Teheran started to turn that raw projection into actualized skill.

The right-hander demolished the opposition at High-A Myrtle Beach, striking out 76 batters in just 63 and 1/3 innings pitched against 56 hits and 13 walks. Upon advancing to Double-A, Teheran struggled with his command, compiling a 38:17 K/BB ratio in 40 innings pitched. The jump from High A to AA is widely thought to be the second-toughest jump behind AAA to MLB. Look for Teheran to begin 2011 with the Double-A affiliate.

If Julio comes out of the gates in 2011 blowing hitters away with his mid-90s fastball, devastating curve, and above-average changeup like he did in A-ball while demonstrating improved command of the strike zone, he could be in a position to help the major league team down the stretch in September and into the playoffs. Personally, I think the Braves play this one conservatively given the wealth of young pitching talent already at their disposal, and we don't see Teheran until 2012.

But when he does arrive, we're looking at a top of the rotation starter with several All-Star seasons if he reaches his ceiling.

Teheran was ranked the 7th overall prospect by Keith Law and the 10th overall prospect by MLB.com.

>> Next (#2: Freddie Freeman)

Einhorn is a man!

On Monday the Tigers traded RHP Armando Galaragga (of imperfect perfect game fame) and cash (of Vernon Wells fame) to the Diamondbacks for Kevin Eichorn and Ryan Robowski.

Really, guys? EINHORN? Wouldn't it have been worth it to sign a guy named Finkle off of the street so he could be included in this trade and we could have another excuse to watch THIS?!

I and an entire generation of people who were still young enough in 1994 to find Ace Ventura funny sure as hell think so.

The Return of the Screaming Indian

Hey guys. Is anyone still reading this? Probably not. Let's face it. Why would you? It's been almost a year since I posted. But I'm hear to let you know that we're back.

My lack of posts - while partly derived from general laziness - was mostly a conscious decision. Basically, I felt like I didn't have anything to say about the Braves or baseball in general that wasn't already well-covered by a variety of other sources.

And if I'm not bringing a perspective that I feel advances the discussion instead of just repeats what you've already read five times over, what's the point? With that in mind, the revamped Screaming Indian will not try to be something that I don't have the time to turn it into - namely, an incredibly through, almost beat reporter-esque type of blog.

Instead, I'm going to take a more whimsical look at baseball and write about what I feel like writing about rather than what I feel like I'm supposed to be writing about. (Yes, using the word 'whimsical' hurts me as much as it hurts you to read it, but it's appropriate here).

With that out of the way, I'm very excited about the encroaching dawn of spring training.

It's good to be back.

Braves go west to take on Giants

The Braves are set to kick off a West Coast road trip this afternoon with a three-game series at San Francisco's AT&T Park.

Probable pitchers:
4/9: Tim Hudson (RHP, ATL) vs. Jonathan Sanchez (LHP, SF)
4/10: Derek Lowe (RHP, ATL) vs. Todd Wellemeyer (RHP, SF)
4/11: Jair Jurrjens (RHP, ATL) vs. Time Lincecum (RHP, SF)

Sanchez will be the first lefty-handed starter the Braves have faced in 2010. Since we haven't seen Bobby Cox fill out a lineup card yet 2010 when the Braves are facing an LHP, I'll submit my recommendation:

2B) Martin Prado: .285/.362/.474
LF) Matt Diaz: .346/.383/.537
1B) Troy Glaus: .277/.399/.558
C ) Brian McCann: .267/.334/.425
SS) Yunel Escobar: .280/.357/.380
RF) Jason Heyward: .000/.000/.000
CF) Nate McLouth: .244/.317/.392
3B) Omar Infante*: .266/.310/.381
P ) Tim Hudson: .103/.143/.149

*Assuming Chipper can't play.

Jonathan Sanchez may be the best pitcher the Braves have faced so far. Certainly, his handedness will be a problem for a lineup whose platoon splits lean so heavily in the other direction. Sanchez took a big step forward as a starter last season, and the 27-year-old has the stuff to develop into a front line starter if he can build on those gains - particularly if he can keep his walks under control and pitch efficiently.

Tim Hudson will be pitching for the Braves, and - if the last month of 2009 and spring training are any indication - Huddy seems set to have a strong 2010 after spending most of 2009 recovering from Tommy John surgery.

This is what the Giants' lineup has done against RHPs:

CF) Aaron Rowand: .279/.337/.429
SS) Edgar Renteria: .283/.333/.384
3B) Pablo Sandoval: .327/.375/.542
1B) Aubrey Huff: .286/.347/.493
LF) Mark DeRosa: .265/.333/.397
C ) Bengie Molina: .270/.300/.392
RF) John Bowker: .260/.308/.439
2B) Juan Uribe: .255/.297/.425
P ) Jonathan Sanchez: .092/.148/.118

I will be live-tweeting today's game, which starts at 4:35 PM ET.

FanGraphs impressed by C.J. Wilson's first start

FanGraphs chimes in on C.J. Wilson's (LHP, Rangers) first start yesterday since 2005. They came away as impressed as I was:

Overall, it was a very encouraging start for both Wilson and the Rangers. It wasn’t against one of the better offenses in the league, but it still looks like Wilson will be here to stay as a starter in the major leagues.

Cubs shut out Braves in Atlanta's first loss

Last night's 2-0 shutout was a bitter defeat for the Braves in the style of many of the Braves' losses over the past couple of seasons: solid pitching backed by an offense that could get runners on base but couldn't drive them in. (The Braves stranded 12 baserunners on Thursday night).

Tyler Colvin's solo homerun in the top of the second put the Cubs ahead for good. In the fourth inning, Marlon Byrd's second homerun of the year plated the game's final run.

The loss was especially frustrating because - despite the homeruns - Tommy Hanson (5 1/3 IP, 7 K, 3 BB, 4 H) outpitched Randy Wells (6 IP, 1 K, 2 BB).

The Braves nearly won the game in the bottom of the ninth when Eric Hinske took a Carlos Marmol pitch to deep center with Nate McLouth and Yunel Escobar on base. The ball was well-struck but ultimately hauled in by Marlon Byrd for the second out of the ninth inning. Melky Cabrera unceremoniously struck out to end the game.

Lastly, you probably inferred this next bit of news from the fact that I mentioned that the Braves played a baseball game yesterday, but here goes: Chipper Jones injured his oblique and is expected to miss 2-3 days.

C.J. Wilson shines in his first start

OK, so it wasn't first start - but it was his first start since 2005, and it went very, very well for the long-haired 29-year-old known to the Twitterverse as @str8edgeracer. Wilson pitched seven scoreless innings, striking out nine, walking two, and giving up just five hits.

As outlined by Matt Klaassen, a big key in Wilson's attempt to "go all Ryan Dempster" by going from a reliever to an above-average starter was that he sustain the uptick in his groundball rate that we witnessed in 2009. (It jumped up to 55.4% in '09 versus 49.3% in '10).

Mission accomplished... kind of. Wilson's batted ball data came out like this: 6 flyballs, 5 groundballs, and 4 line drives. Looks great, right? Well, 4 of those ground balls came in the first two innings. Wilson only induced one ground ball during innings three through seven. Normally, I wouldn't think anything of such a thing. However, since Wilson is transitioning from a reliever to a starter, it's worthwhile to note how his performance changes deep into the game.

As it turned out, Wilson became a much different pitcher as the game wore on. In the first two innings, he drew a lot of contact, and got a lot of ground balls. But in innings three through seven, he struck out eight batters and had a GB/FB ratio of 0.2.

Another interesting tidbit is Wilson's performance against right- and left-handed batters. Wilson has always dominated left-handed batters. Thursday was no different. He faced eight lefties, struck out half of them - and fifty percent of those he didn't strike out grounded out.

He was still good against righties but not as good. He struck out five, walked two, gave up four hits, and posted a 0.6 GB/FB ratio.

Normally, analyzing one start would be absurd - and maybe it still is in this case. Wilson's still got some work to do with respect to maintaining his extreme GBer profile deep into ball games and being consistently effective against RHBs, but if his first start is any indication, the Rangers look to have planted the seeds of something that could be very special.