Drew Hutchison, Todd Redmond Primed for Huge Seasons

They had fucking well better be.

If you haven't yet heard, the Atlanta Braves have emerged from various woodworks to sign Ervin Santana, pulling the rug from under our collective footsies.  And I mean, all things considered, I'd have probably signed in Atlanta too in his situation, so I don't think I'm pointing any more of my scorn towards Santana than I typically would.  It's a business, afterall, and that business is made up of many individual independent contractors such as Santana.

It's not the $14MM vs. $14.1MM that's the issue here, because Santana probably has a better shot at success in Atlanta than he does in Toronto.  AA, via Gregor Chisolm, all but confirms that Santana wanted to pitch in the NL, which really makes total sense, given Santana's desire for a 1-year deal.  Atlanta is one of two good teams in the NL East, which makes the competition a whole lot weaker.  The idea is to get something closer to that 5-year, $100MM contract that he was looking for, just a year later, and there's a much better chance at him getting that when he's artificially inflating his numbers against a team like Miami.  I still don't see him getting that kind of contract, even with another 3-WAR season, but he becomes a lot more likely to get 4/$60 or something, probably beating Ubaldo and Garza and all those guys in the end.  And of course, he might just lay another steaming turd this year, but I think that's a lot less likely in the NL, rather than when he's facing the Rays, Orioles, Yankee's outfield, and Jays.

As for the Jays... yep.  Good offseason.  I assume Santana would be a Jay if it weren't for the injuries to Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy, so this would maybe have been a totally different post if those injuries showed up, say, a few days from now instead of a few days ago.  Having said that, it would have been something completely different if AA had taken his shit and wiped a month ago, so the Braves' situation should be totally irrelevant given that we're halfway through the fucking preseason.

All things considered, it's pretty clear that AA is pretty good at building up a farm system, whether it's through trade or through the draft, and he does a pretty good job of trading for under-appreciated guys who have fallen out of favor with their organizations or management or whatever.  Everything else could probably use some work.