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Talking Chop

Your one stop shop for everything Atlanta Braves

Latest Entries

How would you prevent waiver wire vacillation?

To be clear: I’m not even saying the phenomenon referred to in the title even needs a fix. Maybe, if you’re a fringy utility player or hurler, it’s just your lot in life to change teams five teams before you suit up in a Spring Training uniform during the upcoming season. Still, it seems kind […]

Offseason open thread: January 27

Piggybacking off of this Feed post from DJourn from earlier: Are y’all going to Braves Fest on Saturday? Granted, it’s forcasted to be absolutely brick cold in Cobb County on this coming Saturday but hey, it’s Braves Fest. We didn’t get it last year and it only comes once a year. I’m planning on going, […]

Three Braves make ESPN Top 100 Prospects

Today ESPN and writer Kiley McDaniel – who is a former Braves scout, put out their Top 100 Prospect list for the 2026 season found here. Once again Cam Caminiti leads the way, but for the first time this year Didier Fuentes is also included, along with JR Ritchie making the third of the four […]

Braves prospects who could make Top 100 lists in 2027

Now that the 2026 Top 100 Prospect lists are out, it’s time to take a look at some of the Braves prospects who could make a push to be included on the 2027 versions of the Top 100 Prospects in the game. Of course Cam Caminiti will not make this list, as he is already […]

What will Spencer Strider produce in 2026?

Sigh, this is a depressing one of these to do. Everything about Spencer Strider was, in theory, so awesome, that it didn’t seem like a little thing like a year-long layoff due to elbow troubles was going to derail his career. Surely someone so diligent in being in tune with his body and mechanics could […]

MLB

Braves News: Cam Caminiti, Bounce Back Braves, More

If it is late January on the the MLB Calendar, that means it is prospect lists galore. And for Cam Caminiti, it is further validation that he is emerging as one of the best young pitching prospects on the game. Both Keith Law and MLB Pipeline see the young southpaw as the Braves best prospect, […]

Offseason open thread: January 26

Ivan asked about it earlier but yeah, hopefully everybody out there in the path of this weekend’s winter storm rode it out both warmly and safely at the same time. Spring Training will be here before we all know it and we need everybody locked in and ready to go without freezing out there. Anyways, […]

MLB

Braves bring back José Suarez

Not even two weeks ago, the Braves ended up seeing lefty pitcher José Suarez get claimed off waivers by the Orioles after Atlanta had designated him for assignment. As fate would have it, Suarez’s time with the Orioles ended up being extremely short after the Orioles decided to DFA him last week after they claimed […]

Cam Caminiti makes Keith Law’s Top 100 Prospects List

Keith Law has released his updated Top 100 Prospects List on The Athletic, in an article found here. The only Atlanta Braves farmhand to make the list was Cam Caminiti, coming in at No. 35. This means prospects such as JR Ritchie, Didier Fuentes, and Owen Murphy came up shy of cracking the Top 100 […]

MLB

ESPN tabs Braves as top breakout team for 2026

We’ve definitely hit a lull here in the offseason — one where no news is good news as you hope that players and coaches are continuing to make personal preparations for the season while hopefully avoiding pratfalls such as, oh, I don’t know, slipping on ice or something like that. As such, this is a […]

How’d you make out in the storm?

I look at weather.gov a lot. It’s not that I need to, for any reason. It’s kind of like a tic, or perhaps more accurately, a low-stakes dopamine search. So, the past few days have been somewhat amusing, because the home page of that site was particularly colorful — pinks, light blues, dark blues, purples […]

Braves News: Starting Pitching, More

As we enter the last week of January, Spring Training is coming into full view and is about three weeks away for most teams. But many teams still have a need or two to address before the prep for the season arrives. The need for the Braves remains starting pitching, with some intriguing names still […]

Was 2025 as bad as it will get?

The Braves only managed 76 wins last season. It’s hard to imagine the Braves doing worse than that. And that 76 win team had a 10 game winning streak in September. That team lost their Opening Day starting rotation. Well, you all know all that. But was 2025 as bad as it will get? At […]

Braves News: Craig Kimbrel, Yu Darvish retirement, more

Things are largely quiet on the Braves’ front, as we wait for the last of the free agent market and the trade market to settle, going into Spring Training in two weeks. There are still starters that would make sense for Atlanta (Framber Valdez, Chris Bassitt, Nick Pivetta, etc.) on the open market and via […]

MLB

Will there be a MLB snow out this season?

Unless you missed the news on The Weather Channel, local news channels, national news channels, from Facebook, Twitter, your co-workers, your mama and your grandma; there’s a storm brewing. Anywhere from four to eighteen inches of snow is headed. The grocery stores in my part of Braves Country were at DEFCON 2 on Thursday and […]

Braves News: Luke Williams returns, Baseball America’s Top 100, and more

Earlier this week, utilityman Luke Williams signed a minor league contract with the Atlanta Braves. 29-year-old Williams joined the Braves in 2023, and since then, he’s appeared in 89 games. In 2025, he logged most of his innings at shortstop, but he’s also been known to be on the mound when necessary.  The move was […]

Offseason open thread: January 23

I hope you’re staying warm out there. I also hope you’re staying safe this weekend, as the winter storm that figures to hit the core area of Braves Country figures to be a pretty nasty one. Anyways, the floor is now yours and here’s a random clip:

Atlanta Braves land two prospects in Baseball America’s Top 100

It’s January which means it’s Top 100 time and Baseball America kicked us off two days ago announcing their updated pre-season Top 100. With a lot of the top positional talent in the system under 20 years of age, it’s no surprise that the two players that land in the Top 100 are both pitchers. […]

MLB

Where will innings per start go in 2026?

In 2017, starters averaged five and a half innings per start. Now, there’s no such thing as half an inning, but that’s the beauty of math. That number dipped slightly in 2018, to 5.4 innings per start. Even ignoring 2020, where teams felt more comfortable and/or harried into just getting through the 60-game season, the […]

MLB

Luke Williams returns on MiLB deal

The Atlanta Braves snuck this through the transaction wire earlier this week, but the team has brought back utility player/pitcher Luke Williams on a minor league deal. The moved happened the same day the team announced that Ha-Seong Kim will be lost for most of the first half of the regular seasons. The move to […]

What will Chris Sale produce in 2026?

Prior entries: Chris Sale led Braves pitchers with 3.6 fWAR in 125 2/3 innings of work last year. When the Braves acquired Sale for Vaughn Grissom, they were able to do so because it was perfectly reasonable to assume that Sale would make fewer than ten starts in 2024, given his propensity for both baseball-related […]