7 weeks in your teams best offseason transaction

Oh....my......gawd.

Well if you had any respect for me I'm sure its already been lost after my first post. You'll have to forgive me but whenever I here off season pickups I always think about.......Russ Ortiz or Sydney Ponson or Rondell White or a slew of other middle of the road guys we've picked up over the last 3 years and they end up being cut by mid may.

Yes Carlos Gomez has been nothing short of spectacular for a rookie. Tori Hunter did his best to fill the Kirby Puckett shoes and now it seems the Twins have a new breed of CF being a leadoff SB guy who can actually steal bases. Not to mention the range he covers in the outfield.

But seriously Livan Hernandez has been dang good so far.

I'm posting at work so my full attention isn't really here.

So far, Torii Hunter as been as advertised, doing it with the glove and the bat.

The best transaction may be the trade of Orlando Cabrera for Jon Garland, as Garland has been serviceable, but it opened up SS for Erick Aybar, who is playing great ball.

He has a huge upside, but he shouldn't be in the bigs yet. The Mets rush all their prospects (they suck at that part) and the Twins need him now... bad deal for Gomez. Or good, I guess, he hits FA earlier.

In any case, how are we defining "best" transaction? If your talking about who swindled the other, its clearly the Church/Schnieder trade. No questions asked. If its "who traded value for value", my vote goes to Hamilton for Volquez.

This is what I am hoping for as well.  The weakness of the Braves now, which is the bullpen, should turn into its strength once all their arms return!

As far as the best  pick up it is definitely Jair Jurrjens for Edgar Renteria.  The kid has been fantastic!  Think the Tigers are missing him right about now?!?

The Mark Kotsay for Joey Devine trade also worked out well for the Braves when you factor in the $5M or so that the Athletics also paid on Kotsay's salary.

If their arms return to full strength. Smoltz will be Smoltz out of the bullpen. Solid and a stud.

However, you don't know what you will get from Mike Gonzalez. He might be back in late June, but it might take him till next year to really get into the swing of things again. It works so much differently for relievers than starters coming off of surgery like that.

And for Soriano. I think the best thing for him is setting up Smoltz. He won't have the pressure on him anymore. Now, however, he still has to show that he's healthy too.

I think the biggest concern is Gonzalez as he is a lefty that is very much needed.

I love that Jurrjens deal. He's the real deal. I got him in my auction keeper league for $3. How bout that for a steal. I still think that the starting pitching will be a problem down the stretch for the braves and the only real sure thing will be Hudson.

Glavine has been pitching descently so far, but he was like that early in the year last year. His 40+ year old body will catch up to him as it did in September when he got bombed way too often.

Jurrjens, while awesome is still pitching in his first season in the bigs. You have to be concerned about stamina issues as he has never pitched more than 142 innings in a season before. Right now he's on pace for 210. Remember last season John Maine was very good in the first half of his first full year as a starter and he really tailed off in the 2nd half.

You have Jo Jo Reyes right now as one of your starters. He can't be expected to be thrusted into a big time start in late september.

I think the Braves have a ton of young talent. however, with smoltz going to the pen, it leaves a big hole in that rotation, not for now, but for the stretch run in august and september.