It's hard to believe, but the Atlanta Braves traded for Mike Hampton before the 2003 season -- he's been a Brave for six years... well, technically it's been six years. We forget that for the first three years (what I like to refer to as "the healthy years") Hampton was one of the best bargains in baseball for the Braves, as they were only paying him $2 million or less from 2003 to 2005. In fact, when the Florida Marlins won the World Series in 2003, Mike Hampton was their second highest paid player (and he didn't even play for them).

The sad reality of Mike Hampton's tenure in Atlanta, is that the injuries happened right when he was finding his ace material in 2005, and didn't let up until... well, they may still be a factor, but no longer our concern.

The Braves have said in the past that they spread out the money they owed Hampton over the six years they had him, but since we aren't privy to the team's exact accounting, and we didn't find out that they spread out the payments over six years until after Hampton got injured the second time, I take that admission with a grain of salt. So while Hampton was a bargain to begin with, his contract occupied valuable payroll space the last three years.

Beyond just being money on paper (even if much of it was covered by insurance), it was money the team was reluctant to spend on anyone else. So the bottom line is that the money owed Mike Hampton in the final three years of his tenure with the Braves ($13.5M, $14.5M, and $15M) was money we could have spent on someone else, but couldn't in case Hampton was healthy and we had to pay him.

Remember too that Colorado paid $49 million and Florida ponied up $23.5 million of Hampton's salary and signing bonus and buyout... in fact, Colorado is still paying Hampton, and will continue to pay Hampton his deferred signing bonus until 2018 -- at least the Braves no longer have that kind of obligation to him.

At the time of the Hampton trade it was considered a masterstroke. One of John Schuerholz's greatest trades. We acquire a former ace, one who most everyone considered only temporarily damaged by the high altitude of Coors Field, we get the other two teams in the trade to pick up more than half of his remaining salary, and all we have to give up is a reliever with an attitude problem (Tim Spooneybarger) and an undrafted organizational arm (Ryan Baker) -- both of whom never amounted to anything in professional baseball.

It may have gone down at the best trade Schuerholz ever made if Hampton never got injured, but injury is always a risk and one shouldn't fault Schuerholz or Hampton for the failings of a ligament in the pitcher's elbow. The ugly truth after the fact is that the Braves paid Hampton $571,000 per start, and $1,386,000 per win when he was in Atlanta. It was perhaps the second-worst unfortunate fleecing of the Braves payroll since Nick Esasky got dizzy.

The underlying reality for the Braves that Mike Hampton's injury brings to the surface, is that his disabilitude and that of several other's in recent years, is likely luck catching up with the Braves. For the majority of our 14-year run of division titles, at least three and mostly four of our starting pitchers were toeing the mound for around 30 starts each year (or the strike-shortened equivalent of 30 starts). It has only been in the last four years that the majority of our starting pitchers didn't make at least 30 starts, with last year being the worst as only one of our starting pitchers went to the mound 30 times.

This, I suppose, is what this off-season is, or should be, all about. Perhaps it's not just about getting guys who should be starting 30 games, but that seems like the place where we should begin. We've seen the trickle down effect of starters not making consitent starts and reaching that 200 inning mark. The bullpen gets overused. Minor leaguers, who may not be ready, are called up to fill in for long periods of time. Minor league four-A pitchers are given multiple starts; and the list goes on.

Somehow the Braves need to return to that place where their stable of starting pitchers is the cornerstone of their success. And because we need more than one, and maybe even more than two of these guys, I wonder how wise it is to spend so much on just one of them. If Mike Hampton taught us anything, it should probably be that big long-term contracts for pitchers are a bad idea, whether we do the signing or we trade for a pitcher with an already established long term contract.

From Baseball America's writeup of the top-20 prospects in the Hawaiian Winter League, our lefty starter Jonny Venters was ranked as the 14th-best in the league:

Venters ranked as the league's second-best lefthander (among U.S.-affiliated players) for several observers, trailing only [Jeremy] Bleich. A draft-and-follow signee, Venters has taken his time to develop but showed three average pitches in Hawaii. His fastball sits in the 87-90 mph range, at times touching 92. His slider remains too inconsistent for some scouts, but others saw it as an average pitch that flashed plus at times. His changeup is his best pitch, and he projects as a back-of-the-rotation starter.

"His fastball is deceptive and heavy," Cole said. "He hides it well, and his change gives him a putaway pitch."

Nice review of Venters, though I think the jury's still out on him, and even with a good year in Mississippi next season he will likely only turn into next year's James Parr. Gosh, it sure seems like so many of the young pitchers the Braves had high hopes for are turning into back of the rotation starters. Even guys like Chuck James, Horacio Ramirez, and Kyle Davies, who had strong starts to their careers fell into a back-end of the rotation starter mold at best. While I like the good news on Venters, I'm still not going to get too excited about these kinds of guys... I'm waiting on Tommy Hanson.

In 8 games, 7 starts and 31 innings pitched, Venters had a 2.90 ERA, 33 hits, 1 HR, 8 walks, and 26 strikeouts. He is elidgible for the Rule V draft this year, though it's unlikely anyone will take a chance on him.

I saw this several weeks ago over at Rain Delay and thought I'd pilfer it and re-post (click picture for larger version):

This is a perfect example of a pitcher who didn't show dominance early on. The most impressive and prescient note here is when the scout writes, "doesn't give in to the opposition, [...] he attacks the hitters on every pitch."

Consider this post the blog equivalent of a sitcom clip show. Since we've had so many new readers lately, I thought it would be a good (and easy) idea to rehash all of the Braves prospect reviewin' I did just after the end of the regular season. If you're looking for some holiday reading material, here you go:

First Base:  Freddie Freeman, Kala Ka'aihue, Ernesto Mejia, Barbaro Canizares, Alberto Odreman, Daniel Falcon, Gerardo Rodriguez, Ryohei Shimabukuro

Second Base:  Travis Jones, Robert Brooks, Diory Hernandez, J.C. Holt, Cole Miles, Elys Blanco

Third Base:  Jon Gilmore, Eric Campbell, Van Pope, Adam Coe, Jake Hanson

Shortstop:  Brandon Hicks, Brent Lillibridge, Michael Fisher, Shayne Moody, Travis Adair

Catcher:  Tyler Flowers, Daniel Elorriaga-Matra, Matt Kennelly, Braeden Schlehuber, Clint Sammons, Christian Betancourt, Phillip Britton

Left Field:  Cody Johnson, Luis Sumoza, Willie Cabrera, Matt Young, Layton Hiller

Right Field:  Jason Heyward, Jon Owings, Chris Shehan, Concepcion Rodriguez

Center Field:  Jordan Schafer, Gorkys Hernandez, Calvin Culver, L.V. Ware, C.J. Lee

RH Starting Pitcher:  Tommy Hanson, Julio Teheran, James Parr, Eric Cordier, Jacob Thompson, Randall Delgado, Zeke Spruill, Todd Redmond, Deunte Heath, David Francis, Casey Hodges, Cory Rasmus, Ryne Reynoso, Kyle Cofield, Michael Broadway, Paul Clemens, Kyle Farrell

LH Starting Pitcher:  Cole Rohrbough, Jeff Locke, Brett DeVall, Scott Diamond, Richard Sullivan, Edgar Osuna, Jose Ortegano, Johnny Venters, Steve Kent, Steve Evarts, Chad Rodgers, Brett Oberholtzer, Luis Avilan, Dimaster Delgado

Closer:  Kris Medlen, Craig Kimbrel, Stephen Marek, Kevin Gunderson, Cory Gearrin, Benino Pruneda, Nick Fellman, Lee Hyde, Rico Reid, Brett Butts, Michael Nix, Tyler Wilson, Luis Valdez, Sung Ki Jung

While you're out-and-about today, or maybe in-and-plugged-in, here are three shopping suggestions for the most import person in your life, yourself.

Cole and Mason King Pepper Mill The first item is something I came across on Amazon.com, and it's a must for every culinary baseball fan. It's actually baseball bat sized, and boasts, "two and a half feet of pure pepper grinding power." How can you turn this down... really. ...$50.00

The Baseball Prospect Book 2009 This next item is one I pimp quite often on the site, but for good reason -- it's well worth it. Yes, there are other prospect books out there, but this is the only one with comprehensive reviews of players written by one guy. That may not seem like a selling point, but when comparing prospects, it's good to see how one person feels about one player verses another, as opposed to other prospect books where multiple people write about prospects and an opinion of one guy may not take into account the other guy. As you can tell, I'm not a good salesman; just buy the book and you'll be happy. ...$29.95

Graphical Player 2009 No holiday shopping list is complete without a bit of self-promotion. I was lucky enough to be able to contribute the Braves' player writeups to John Burnson's Graphical Player 2009. This is a great tool for all you fantasy baseball players out there, as it gives you tons of graphs depicting each players recent historical performance as well as comparable stats for his position, and of course a writeup from an expert (like me) that followed each player's team last year. ...$21.95

I hope I've been able to help you stimulate our economy... happy hunting.

Here's to all the chefs out there, and all the chefs we are or have been thankful for.