Andruw Jones did what he does best, again, solidifying himself as one of the elite OF in the game, knocking in 129 runs while only hitting .278 with RISP.  He hit 41 homeruns, good for a second straight top five finish in the NL.  Jones showed more patience at the plate as well in 2006, finishing with a .363 OBP; a number that has gone up for four seasons running. His 82 walks were the most he’s had since the 2002 season. At 29 years old, Jones has shown no signs of slowing down, and will be one of the top power hitters again in 2007.

Brian McCann was the biggest surprise in the entire division.  I knew he was good, but he just had a tremendous year. I think the most telling statistic was that he hit .335 against the NL East and Interleague opponents, which accounted for a good percentage of his AB.  He's still young, hit well before and after the All-Star break, and has effectively replaced Michael Barrett of the Cubs as the top backstop in the National League.
 

I still believe that Jeff Francoeur is amazingly overrated, and this is the kind of year you're looking at from him until he improves his god awful walk rate.  He actually regressed a little bit in his first full season, but still managed to hit 29 HR.  At just 23 years old, he's still young, so he'll improve if he can stop swinging from his heels. I would guess 2007 will be another transition year for him, and he'll start to make some real improvements in the 2008 season.
 

What can you really say about the rotation? After Smoltz and (at times) Hudson, it was in shambles all year long.  The only reason Chuck James looked good was because his defense turned roughly 76% of batted balls into outs.  Speaking of Hudson, his strikeout rate has improved slowly over the last three seasons, but his walk rate has declined. More importantly his homerun rate has more than doubled.  

Smoltz on the other hand was dominant. At 39 years old, he struck out more batters than he has in almost ten years. There is no reason to worry about his durability as he’s pitched better than 200 innings with no issue for two straight seasons. 200 innings, 200 strike outs, and around 15 wins are a very reasonable expectation for Smoltz in 2007.

They finally gave up on Horacio Ramirez, sending him to Seattle in a tremendous deal for Rafael Soriano. They also said goodbye to John Thomson.  And I'm sure that Marcus Giles being non-tendered after a few failed attempts to deal him has something to do with the economics of the game. It’s unbelievable that San Diego got a player like him for free (well, without giving up a player anyway). They also brought in utility-man Chris Woodward and RP Tanyon Sturtze.  There’s no real fantasy value for either one.

There's a lot of players blocked at certain positions hanging around in Triple-A Richmond that could have been called up.  One guy who earned a mid-season call-up to Richmond from Double-A Mississippi is RHP Matt Wright, who had pretty intimidating numbers in AA, but struggled in 10 starts at Richmond.  He could be someone to watch, if he can adjust to the hitters in the International League in 2007.  He allowed just 102 base runners in 89 Innings in Double-A before being promoted in mid-July.