Sports Page Atlanta

Mark Kotsay is the talk of the town after hitting for the cycle last night, as he should be. But, all the Kotsay conversations aren’t revolving around last night’s historic hitting display. Dave Cameron just posted an article, this morning, over at FanGraphs where he talks about Kotsay’s reemergence at the plate this season. He also mentions a bit about the trade where the Braves sent Joey Devine to Oakland for Kotsay. I have a few comments to add.

• Remember back to Spring Training when all the talk wasn’t about Kotsay becoming a fixture in center field for the Braves, but how long it would take Jordan Schafer to take over. After Schafer’s bonehead bout with PED’s and his inability to return to the level of play expected from him after 2007, Kotsay’s reemergence is a wonderful thing.
• When this trade occurred I felt that the Braves would surely miss Devine. And with the way he’s pitched in Oakland this season (sub 1.00 ERA and more strikeouts than innings pitched), he’s proving me correct. The question remains which would have been more valuable to the Braves, Devine’s 27.2 innings of sub 1.00 ERA or Kotsay’s almost 300 at-bats of .300 hitting? If Schafer’s development hadn’t been halted by stupidity, and he was ready to take over center field in 2008, I might have been inclined to say Devine would have been more valuable to the Braves. But, now that Schafer probably won’t even be ready for the 2009 season in Atlanta, having Kotsay around is reassuring.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 9:29 am and is filed under Atlanta Braves. 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.