He hesitates to say it because of the revolving-door nature of Triple-A baseball.

But yes, Richmond Braves manager Dave Brundage admits, the Braves could be pretty good in their final season at The Diamond. At least at the start.

"We got a lot better on paper, like a lot of Triple-A teams did, in the last few days," he said, referring to some of the players shipped down from Atlanta. "Some of our weaknesses actually turned out to be some of our strengths."

The Braves return nine players who were on their International League championship playoff roster. They have experience (10 players saw time in the majors last season) and highly regarded prospects (left fielder Brandon Jones, shortstop Brent Lillibridge, center fielder Josh Anderson, and pitchers Jo-Jo Reyes and Charlie Morton).

They have speed (Anderson and Lillibridge) and power (Jones, Scott Thorman, Joe Borchard and Barbaro Canizares).

"There's numerous ways for the Richmond Braves to score runs," Brundage said. "We'll probably have speed as good as anybody at the top of our lineup. That's going to put a lot of pressure on the opposing pitchers."