re: Braves sign Ervin Santana

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Playing for KC Royals where he got the lowest run support of all their pitchers, he still had 3.24 ERA, pitched 211 innings, gave up only 190 hits, 76 earned runs, 26 home runs, 51 walks, and had 161 strike outs, with an opponent BA of .238. Just to give you an idea, KC scored 648 runs last year, the Braves scored 688 with two guys batting .150 (BJ and Uggla). Santana is solid, and with fair run support, if he can keep around that .238 BAA, he'll give us 15 wins, which is enough. Teheran is going to beast it up this year and get 20 wins and be in the running for a Cy Young. He's having an incredible Spring. Minor is looking really good too and should give us at least 15. And Wood could break out this year too. 5-3 in 11 games with a 3.13 ERA as a rookie. No doubt he should take a step forward. Who knows what Beachy will be if he's already having arm issues. Maholm and Garcia are inconsistent, although Garcia is having a hell of a Spring too. Add to all this that Uggla and BJ have both changed their swings completely and are having very good Spring's (Uggla is hitting .318, 7 for 22, w/ 2 HR's, and BJ is hitting .270, 8 for 27 w/ 1 HR), plus Ramiro Pena is back from injury and having an incredible Spring too, and we could have a huge offensive year behind a very solid starting pitching staff and a top 2 in the league bullpen.

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