Jason Heyward News

The mother of former major leaguer Victor Zambrano has been kidnapped. Zambrano's agent Peter Greenberg says Elizabeth Mendez Zambrano was abducted Sunday morning from her son's farm near Maracay in central Venezuela.

As promised , here is the early-offseason decision-making series. Let's go in the order of the questions I posed in the linked piece above, and start with Adam LaRoche.

Phoenix a ' Greetings from the desert Southwest, where it's a cloudless day with the temperature headed to 90 and another slate of Arizona Fall League games starting at 12:30 p.m. before intimate gatherings that are typically made up of couple dozen scouts and about 75-100 others including autograph hounds, girlfriends, potential girlfriends and ...

The Braves are hoping baseball writer Bill James is right about Jason Heyward. I would imagine when Braves general manager Frank Wren starts his day, he doesn't think, "Before I call another general manager this morning, let me see what Bill James thinks." But here we go.

If only we had brought Hanson up a few months sooner, we would have had a chance to watch the Braves still.

Top 20 Atlanta Braves Prospects for 2010. All grades are EXTREMELY PRELIMINARY and subject to change.

The offseason lull may have made its way to us Reds fans a few weeks ago , but for most Reds minor leaguers, there's not much of an offseason.

Church had no idea what to expect out of the Arizona Fall League, but it didn't take the young outfielder much time to realize he was about to face a challenge unlike any other he had encountered on a Baseball diamond.

The Braves are losing scouting director Roy Clark, who accepted a job with the Washington Nationals after 20 years in the Braves organization.

After two days into the playoffs, we'll reach into the mailbag: Q: I'm a Tigers fan and now that it's over officially, I'm trying to look forward to free agency, but I can't find the date it starts anywhere.

What about Heyward? Yes, when Jason Heyward gets here, he should eventually give the Braves a rare blend of power, pure hitting ability, and speed.

Twenty-one major league teams hit more homers than the Braves this season, but not a single team had a better earned run average from its starting pitchers.

He's a big dude with bigger ability -- seriously huge ability -- and many believe Jason Heyward will be the face of the Braves before long.

With the season over, the Braves are already back to the drawing board, beginning to look where to add, subtract and possibly move people around.

Expect three of these jerseys to remain filled next season. They finished the season on a six-game losing streak and wound up third in the division, but ESPN.com's Insiders sees the Braves as perhaps the NL East favorite in 2010 .

Matt Diaz is a keeper for the Braves, but Jordan Schafer remains a mystery after this season's flop.

Ken Rosenthal has been the senior baseball writer for FOXSports.com since Aug. 2005. He appears weekly on the FSN Baseball Report and MLB on FOX.

"The greatest driver to asset appreciation in baseball teams is winning, getting to the playoffs," said Terry McGuirk, Braves chairman and chief executive officer.

Gary Gilmore has assembled what may be the most talented group of players in Coastal Carolina baseball history.

Photo by Tim Evearitt Cory Gearrin pitched for the Mississippi Braves at AT&T Field this past June.