Around the NL: Braves head for losing season

Incredibly, the Braves are headed for their first 90-loss season since they averaged 100 losses from 1988-90. 
 
Injuries and ineffectiveness destroyed what should have been one of the league’s top pitching staffs. Reuniting an aging Tom Glavine with an aging John Smoltz didn’t prove to be such a good idea after all.
 
So, what next for the Braves? Will they break things down even further next season?
 
Doesn’t sound like it. Instead, first-year General Manager Frank Wren makes a compelling case the Braves could make a few key tweaks and be right back in the playoffs.
 
“We’re going to be very young,” Wren said last week. “You look at our infield from a standpoint of first, second and short, we’re going to be very young. We’re young behind the plate, young in right field, young in center field. We’ve got a young cast of characters.”
 
Young, yes, but talented as well.
 
“Now if we can add a big guy here or there to go with Chipper [Jones], we should have a pretty productive offense,” Wren said. “So we’re not that far away. We’ve just got to figure out a few things. … We’ve got a good foundation. That makes me optimistic.”

Dealing Mark Kotsay to Boston last week opened up the auditions in center, where next year’s starter should come from a group that includes Gregor Blanco, Josh Anderson or Jordan Schafer, who overcame a 50-game HGH suspension to regain his bosses’ trust.
 
AROUND THE HORN
 
* Teams are already jockeying for San Diego State righty Stephen Strasburg, expected to be the No. 1 overall pick next June despite his loss to Cuba in the Olympic tournament. Strasburg had a 23-strikeout game last year against Utah, and the general thought is he could reach the majors within a season or two of turning pro. One caveat for those daydreaming teams: Scott Boras is advising him.
 
* Boras, meanwhile, has created quite a mess with his request to void the $6 million signing bonus of Pirates draftee Pedro Alvarez. Not only has Alvarez, the former Vanderbilt third baseman, been placed on the restricted list, but slugging first baseman Eric Hosmer (another Boras client) could see his $6 million bonus voided by the Royals. Somehow you figured it had to get ugly between Boras and Pirates President Frank Coonelly, formerly a top MLB management figure and the man who essentially launched the slotting system for draft bonuses. “I’ve sat in arbitration cases before where those two were just going at it,” one club executive said. “It was pretty hilarious. What’s happening now is no surprise.”

* Ben Sheets recently missed a squeeze sign and nearly took off baserunner Craig Counsell’s head by swinging away. Of the four times manager Ned Yost has put on the squeeze play this year, the Brewers have missed the sign all but once. Carlos Villanueva brought home Prince Fielder on April 26 against the Marlins in the only successful try.

* Yes, that really was Nationals GM Jim Bowden parading around the field in a Manny Ramirez wig and Nats cap during batting practice last week. Bowden insisted he wasn’t trying to launch the first shot in an unlikely offseason recruitment of the pending free agent. He merely likes to watch Manny hit.

* Former Dodgers great and current ESPN analyst Orel Hershiser caused a stir with his on-air comments critical of his old team’s passion and chemistry during a game last week against the Phillies. Hershiser declined to expound off the air, but Dodgers manager Joe Torre wasn’t pleased. “This game really is about determination more so than showing somebody else what they think it should look like,” he said.

* Marlins reliever Matt Lindstrom, after riding 22 floors on the hotel elevator with the fantasy/science fiction conventioneers at Atlanta’s Dragon*Com 2008: “Everybody has their own little piece of the world, but you need to bathe once in awhile.”

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