1996 Braves Acquire Drabek

Drabek joins an already stellar rotation.

The Braves have been no strangers to the injury bug, we have lucked out majority wise, but we still suffered a tough blow late in April when Chipper Jones broke his hand, losing him for 5 months... We hope to have him back in time for the postseason.

The pitching rotation was stellar again, but we decided to shop around Steve Avery who is finally showing signs of struggles to come; His OOTP version has outperformed his real-life counterpart up to this point.

When I was initially shopping him around, I was hoping to shed his payroll for maybe a couple prospects, to save $5.2 million ($2.6 million-per-year). My owner hopes to shed $4.1 million in payroll when this season is over, so that was part of the goal...

At the same time, I am still trying to get the Atlanta Braves over that World Title hump, they have yet to win a title in the city of Atlanta.

So when I saw that the Pittsburgh Pirates were offering Doug Drabek, who is still pitching great, and definitely pitching better than Avery, I couldn't say no.

Our team is pretty solid, while we own a MLB best 67-34 record (.663 pct), while we sit on top of the N.L. West 7.5 games up on the Pedro Martinez & the Dodgers.

The Montreal Expos seem to be waking up in the N.L. East, with Barry Bonds (.295, 37 HR & 82 RBI) & Andres Galarraga (.313, 14 HR & 50 RBI) leading the charge. Their big investment in their reliever trio of Dennis Eckersley (1.71 ERA), Randy Myers (2.79 ERA) & John Franco (1.53 ERA & 11 Saves) is paying off.

Some familiar faces in strange places.

Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Phillies are flirting with the worst record in MLB history with a 24-76 record (.240 winning pct). So it appears that the Detroit Tigers won't have the top pick this time, the last few years they have drafted Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran and Roy Halladay... they should still have a top 5 pick.