By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Trading Matt Kemp was a good thing, that’s true. Not keeping Matt Adams was fine. He had nowhere to play. Trading Brandon Phillips at the end of the season was the right thing to do as well, or at least it was the nice thing to do. The fallout from that is the loss of a ton of last year’s already meager home run output by the Atlanta Braves.

If you’re keeping score, the Bravos hit 165 dingers in 2017. That was good enough for 28^th in the Majors and 28 of those came from Freddie Freeman. No one else had 20.

More pressingly, no one has been added to the roster to replace the 49 that Kemp, Adams and Phillips produced. There is a serious lack of power on the Braves’ roster going into spring training and there’s no indication much will be done to change that.

So, who will protect Freeman from the cleanup spot in the batting order?

Yes, Tyler Flowers and Kurt Suzuki combined to crank out 31 bombs from the catching position and they certainly are an option; but I do question the idea that they’d be able to duplicate that level of success.

That being said, 10 homers each will still likely make them the number two power-producing position on the lineup card, depending on what a certain number one prospect manages to do when he shows up.

The most intriguing option is, of course, Ronald Acuna. All signs point to him starting the season in Triple A Gwinnett but a call up isn’t likely to be too far down the road.

Part of this rationale is seasoning. Acuna spent very little time in Gwinnett last year and part of it is player control: if they wait to bring him up, they’ll have another year before he’s able to hit free agency (the Cubs pulled this same maneuver with Kris Bryant). Both excuses are perfectly valid and either way we’ll be seeing him soon enough. The question is where does he hit when he arrives?

Cleanup is a tough spot to thrust a rookie into right off the bat (no pun intended). It may be a lot to ask of a 20 year to be called upon to protect Freddie Freeman in his first game with the big club.

On the other hand, he may have just the right make up to succeed under that kind of pressure. The problem is you won’t know until he’s there.

Failure can shake a young man’s confidence pretty fast and there will be a lot of eyes pointed at this kid.

Maybe it would be more prudent to see if he can produce from the fifth or sixth spot in the order first. He’ll be hitting cleanup (or second) eventually.

When GM Alex Anthopoulos addressed the Braves’ power deficiency at Fan Fest, he offered up two possible roads: one, in which the Braves roll with what they’ve got, which we’ve explored, or two, when he knowingly pointed out that there are a lot of free agents still available.

That’s true. There are over one hundred unsigned free agents, including some that could add some pop to the Braves’ lineup in 2018. The most obvious place for a free agent to slot in would be third base and there are options there.

One is the very unlikely Mike Moustakas, the other is the slightly more likely Todd Frazier.

Frazier is a third baseman with pop and will be much less expensive with Moustakas.

His batting average is fairly horrendous, reaching a career low last year, which he split between the White Sox and Yankees, but if you’re into OPS+ then his 105 is a little bit above average.

More to the point, the later it gets in the year the more likely it is that he’d look into a one or two-year contract, whereas Moustakas seems to be holding out for a multi-year deal.

It’s not a perfect solution but other than turning newly-minted Hall of Famer Chipper Jones back into a 25-year-old and signing him to a team-friendly contract, there don’t appear to be any.

Flowers and Suzuki. Acuna. Frazier, or another free agent. Whoever it is, the Braves need some pop.