In addition to being a Twins fan, I’m also a pretty big Braves fan, and I love Kelly Johnson. There’s a general agreement among Braves fans that Terry Pendleton, Atlanta’s hitting coach, sucks. The team really seems to emphasize aggresiveness. Early on (back when he was good), KJ used to take a ton of pitches. Then he gives some quotes talking about how they want him to be more aggressive. He starts swinging at more pitches, and he starts sucking. I would seriously love to get him over here and put him in the same dugout as Mauer though.

The only problems are: one, he’s left handed. Two, I don’t really know what the Braves would want. They don’t really have any glaring holes. They’re not a great teams by any means, but there’s a whole lot of adequicivity. Kelly Johnson isn’t valuable enough right now to bring back anybody who’s an upgrade to them. The only place they might need an upgrade is a back-up middle infielder, but they seem pretty happy with Hernandez.

But KJ for Casilla? Casilla’s cheaper since KJ is in his first arb. season, but Casilla sucks and pretty much always has, whereas KJ used to be pretty good. Casilla can also, supposedly, play SS, which KJ can’t, so he’d make a decent back-up option.

I’m pretty biased. Like I said, I love KJ, so I might be blind to a genuine change in talent level, and you probably shouldn’t take my word as gospel. But he’s probably my favorite current Brave, so it’s crushing me to see him benched. The Twins trading for KJ and then starting him would make me very happy.

but did you really have to include Uggla’s photo? That thing is going to give me nightmares.