Buster Olney names what he thinks fits that bill anyway. His list, in order: Red Sox, Yankees, White Sox, Angels, Cardinals. He has the Phillies at 5a.
Yes, I’m a fanboy, but shouldn’t the Braves crack the top five? Olney has them “in the conversation” and said he would have ranked them third if they hadn’t traded Javier Vazquez.
Call me crazy, but while Tim Hudson, Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson, Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami aren’t going to lift the Braves to the playoffs all by themselves, that’s a solid, solid group. Top five in my mind anyway. I don’t know, maybe Olney is docking them because Hudson is coming off an injury, but he’s not docking Peavy and the White Sox, so who knows?
If I had to guess I’d say that this is just the latest example of the near criminal over-rating of Javier Vazquez we’ve seen ever since the trade went down (I think it was meant to offset the criminal underrating he received during the season). Yes, the dude had an outstanding year -- easily his best season -- but would you be comfortable betting on him doing that well again? The Braves may not have gotten what they should have got for him, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were at least trying to sell high.
Oh well. Just throw it on the pile of things we can argue about until people start throwing pitches in anger.