By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

As this long stretch of time without any baseball games continues stretching out even longer, we’ve got time to look back on games, players, and teams of the past, and reflect.

The Atlanta Braves are one of the most celebrated franchises in baseball, with three World Series championships across three cities (a record), a run of 14-straight division titles (a record), and some of the greatest players the game has ever seen donning an Atlanta uniform.

It’s those players I want to look back on today and try to figure out the best ever player at each position for the Braves.

That is, I’m going to make up an all-time Braves roster – the greatest to ever suit up at each position, with one starter and one reliever.

Some of these will be easy. You’ve already thought them up after reading these first few sentences; some of them will be tough to single out just one player; and some of them will seem like I’m bending the rules, which I will be, because there are no rules. I’m making this up with impunity.

Let’s do the position players first.

Catcher: there are actually a few good options here, beyond what you may think of off the top of your head: Brian McCann, Javy Lopez, Joe Torre, even Dale Murphy, if you felt like it.

I, however, don’t feel like it, and therefore I’m going with Javy Lopez.

Lopez caught the best pitching trio of all time in Atlanta (ironically the only no-hitter he caught was thrown by Kent Mercker), and won the division every year he was on the team, compared to 3 out of 10 for Mac. Javy also had some of the biggest seasons at the plate when he was behind it.

First Base: Fred McGriff should be in the Hall of Fame, but Freddie Freeman is the guy here. He’s in the top 10 all-time for the franchise in WAR and he’s 30.

Second Base: There are a lot fewer options here than most other positions: Marcus Giles and Glenn Hubbard are the only two with long and memorable stints in the past few decades, and while both were notable, I’m going to jump the gun a little and go with Ozzie Albies.

Albies is locked up to a long-term deal, so I’m looking ahead here and assuming that if his production at least stays consistent to what it has been, he’ll be the obvious choice.

Shortstop: here’s one where the Braves keep almost having a franchise player, but then don’t: Andrelton Simmons being the most recent example (jury’s out on Dansby). I’m going to go with Rafael Furcal. He was an above-average defender and a better hitter than he has ever been given credit for.

Third Base: Eddie Mathews. The only guy to play for the Braves in all three cities. Hall of Famer. 512 home runs. He gets overshadowed in the Braves lore a lot by another Hall of Fame third baseman, but Matthews was the real deal.

And before you riot…

Left Field: Before you accuse me of riding a crazy train, keep in mind that Chipper Jones was the full-time left fielder for two and a half seasons. Yes, he’s a third basemen by trade, but the years he spent patrolling the outfield were enough to allow me to squeeze both him and Mathews onto this roster (if I weren’t allowed to put Chipper in left? He’d be the third baseman. Sorry, Eddie).

Center Field: Andrew Jones. Duh.

Right Field: Hank Aaron. Duh.

Starting Pitcher: Okay so originally I was going to provide a full starting five, but I decided to make myself pick one guy from the wealth of starting pitching legends the Braves have employed dating back to Hall of Famer Kid Nichols (who played 11 season with the Boston freakin’ Beaneaters and was apparently never replaced by a relief pitching in his entire career).

So, given the limitation I placed upon myself, I narrowed it down to Nichols, Warren Spahn, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Mike Hampton (just kidding).

Maddux is the guy. Spahn is close, but Maddux gets the edge because I got to watch him play and I could rarely believe what I was seeing.

Closer: I could go Smoltz here and include two of the three greats of the 90s, but in truth the best closer the Braves have ever had is Craig Kimbrel. The stats back it up.

There you have it! Disagree? I’m sure you might.