With tonight's loss to Philadelphia, the Atlanta Braves are officially eliminated from the playoffs. With Andruw Jones's disappointing season and the fact that the Braves employ 3/5 of a starting rotation, it's surprising they made it this far.

Strengths

Around the horn, the Braves have a strong set of infielders. Chipper Jones has once again proven that when he is on the field (I was going to say healthy, but even when playing, he's never healthy), he is still a great player. He was joined this year by Edgar Renteria, Kelly Johnson, and midseason acquisition Mark Teixeira. With the emergence of Yunel Escobar this season, there has been talk of Edgar Renteria being on the trade market, and given the holes that I will discuss later, John Schuerholz just might pursue that option.

Out in the outfield, Matt Diaz, Willie Harris, and Jeff Francoeur have had pretty good seasons. Diaz and Harris have been a great platoon in left, and Francoeur is proving that talent and age truly do trump poor plate discipline over time. Diaz has hit .356/.384/.580 against lefties, and Harris has hit .291/.370/.428 against righties. Meanwhile, Francoeur has been great defensively and is learning to manage the strike zone offensively. After only 23 walks in 2006, Francoeur has walked 41 times this year at 23. He's lost some of his power stroke, but again, he's only 23 so he should figure things out. Unfortunately, the Braves don't have an easy replacement for Andruw Jones, which means they'll need to re-sign him, sign one of the other free agent center fielders (Torii Hunter and Aaron Rowand), or pick one up in a trade.

Behind the plate, Brian McCann has regressed from his tremendous 2006 season, but it is very rare for a catcher to have back-to-back .333/.388/.572 while playing well defensively. His .272/.322/.456 is certainly nothing to sneeze at from your backstop.

Pitching to McCann, the Braves have seen #1 seasons from both John Smoltz and Tim Hudson. They should both be in the NL Cy Young race, but since their teams weren't good enough to make the playoffs, they won't get enough votes to win (nor should they, Jake Peavy should be the runaway winner). As a #3 starter, 25 year old Chuck James has done well.

Weaknesses

Aside from the center field problem that everyone knows about, the Braves need .... pitching help? A few years ago, that would have been unheard of. Although they have Smoltz and Hudson at the front of the rotation and Rafael Soriano and Peter Moylan doing good work out in the pen, the Braves need to fix the back of the rotation and the rest of the bullpen. Mike Gonzalez won't be back from Tommy John surgery until midseason, and Octavio Dotel has been horrible since coming over to the NL. Dotel has a player option at $5.5M for 2008, but the club has the option to void it. The Braves aren't usually big players on the free agent market, but they might be able to find some answers on the trade market. Schuerholz has had a lot of success there.

Overall

The Atlanta Braves have several pieces in place, but they still have some holes that need fixing. If they fail to keep or replace Andruw Jones in center field, that could be a problem in terms of putting runs on the board and keeping them off. The NL East will continue to be a tough place to compete, but the Braves are no stranger to the top of the division. I don't expect 2008 to be their year, but it wouldn't surprise me either.