Atlanta Braves: Five All-Star Pitcher Wish List

I know that Big Game James Shields won’t become a free agent until 2019 after signing a five-year deal with the San Diego Padres last season.  But that doesn’t mean San Diego won’t make another trade with the Atlanta Braves in the coming years.  Okay, maybe not.  John Hart did rob them blind with the last two trades Atlanta made with San Diego.  Perhaps the Padres could want back a few of their former top prospects in exchange for Shields in the next couple of seasons.

Big Game James has this uncanny ability to take teams that have long been bad and turn them into Pennant Winners.  He along with David Price and Matt Garza took the long downtrodden Tampa organization to not only its first playoff appearance but its first World Series back in 2008.  Shields spent the last two seasons in Kansas City getting the Royals ready to become title contenders.  After a 29-year playoff drought, KC took the San Francisco Giants to Game 7 in the 2014 Fall Classic.  Shields was the leader on that rotation and in the clubhouse for a young albeit talented KC club.

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Shields came to San Diego this past winter to effectively do the same thing for the Padres, an organization that has only made the playoffs five times in its existence and have not made the postseason in the better part of a decade.

Though he has only made one All-Star game as a big leaguer (2011 with Tampa Bay), I would still want a pitcher like Shields in the Atlanta Braves rotation as a number two starter.  While the Atlanta Braves have been competitive for the last fifteen seasons, the team has not advanced in the playoffs since 2001 after beating the St. Louis Cardinals only to run into the buzz saw that was the Randy Johnson–Curt Schilling Arizona Diamondbacks.

I’m not sure if there is a better leader as a starting pitcher in all of baseball than James Shields.  While he doesn’t have a World Series ring yet, I do believe that he will ultimately get one before he hangs up his spikes.  Hopefully he does with the Atlanta Braves before 2020.

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