The Braves have added Antonio Alfonseca to their annualy revamped bullpen. this worries me. our bullpen always worries me, but he cant be any worse than Ray King was in the 7th and 8th innings last year. alfonseca is coming off a 5.83 ERA. All we need is someone who can consistently get the ball to John Smoltz with the lead. Mike Remlinger was the best setup man weve had in a long while, it was a shame to see him go. right now, alfonseca isnt close to remlingers level, but leo mazzone has turned pitchers careers around before. heres hoping he can do it again this year with alfonseca, john thompson, and whoever else we pick up.

http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/a...t=.jsp&c_id=atl

thank god, i hated him. how can a pro athlete be so fat? he should be playing football.

not as fat as that guy that used to pitch for boston rich garces

was he any good? cuz alfonseca sucked. did the cubs get anyone good?

garces wasnt anything special either from what i remember. i sure wish we had a big red sox fan here, lots going on in boston right now. and no, alfonseca was a free agent. we signed him to a 1 year, $1.5 million deal, with a chance to earn another $1 million from incentives. i have added a link to the full story in the first post

Atlanta needs more starting pitching, they've done absolutely nothing in the offseason. except for drew who is overrated.

and they signed John Thompson, who pitched for texas last year. they say he is greg maddux's replacement in the rotation. thats bs if you ask me

john kruk was fat and he owned. and he only had one testie.

the bullpen patchwork continues.. today we added Armando Almanza, a lefty reliever who will replace ray king in the bullpen
http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/a...t=.jsp&c_id=atl

Antonio Alfonseca is the worst reliever in baseball. Atlanta will be furious with him. He blows almost every game he enters, and just when you think he's improving, he blows another game and ruins the team momentum. I'm SO GLAD he's gone. AHHHHHHH.

Lifelong Boston Sports fan here. Boston is truly like no other fanbase when it comes to baseball. Just to give an example: First week of February every year, they lead the nightly news with pictures of the Red Sox' equipment leaving for Florida. It usually snowballs from that point until elimination in August or September. This winter has been outrageous however, the ARod thing was bigger than even a 12-game winning streak by the Pats.

Anyway, before I completely hijack the thread: Rich Garces was actually pretty good over his first few seasons in Boston. He was only good for one inning at a time, but El Guapo, as he was called, was good at getting the job done. In 2000 he was 8-1 in 64 appearances with a 3.25 ERA. Then in 2002 his weight caught up with him, and not too long after, everyone else's bats did the same. I doubt he is still in baseball today.

Rich Garces' career stats

Man do I feel bad for you. I said through this whole season that the only time you bring him in is when you're up by 7 runs because he's the only pitcher who could give up a 6 run HR. He sucked in '02 and yet the Cubs brought him back for like $4 mil. It's sad what happened to his friend and all, but really that money could have been spent much more wisely.

Leo's done this before, turning careers around and making stars out of nobodies. John Rocker anyone? We'll just have to wait and see. I for one am soooooo glad he's no longer on the Northside.

People will be very surprised with Thomson this year. Solid K/BB and a decent GB/FB ratio which will be helped by Turner field. With Mazzone, a 3.5 ERA could be expected....also, Alfon is horrible...no BB/K...no control...average at best stuff

lmfao.. why dont the braves actually go and get a good player?

because they are owned by AOL Time Warner, and the more money AOL loses, the more the payroll has to get cut. Attendance keeps dropping. Its almost like they are daring someone else to win the division. no fun watching all the other teams pick up the good free agents while we get john thompson, antonio alfonseca, and armando almanza