Welcome to Atlanta, Willy Aybar. Now, if you wouldn’t mind taking over for a future Hall of Famer for a couple of weeks while you get your feet wet with a new club, that would great.

This is the task assigned to the 23-year-old Aybar, acquired less than a week ago from the Los Angeles Dodgers in a deal that sent Wilson Betemit out west. Of course, the very day the deal went down, so did third baseman Chipper Jones, aggravating his oblique injury and forcing the Braves to put their backup in.

Unfortunately, Betemit was that backup.

And so the spotlight fell to a kid with just over 200 career at-bats, who was asked to help keep the Braves afloat at a time when the team is clinging for life, trying desperately to work their way back into the playoff race.

All Aybar’s done is bat .385 with a .467 OBP and play steady defense in his first three games with Atlanta, before taking an 0-for-4 on Thursday as the Braves tried in vain to complete a three-game sweep in Pittsburgh.

Atlanta has a tendency to trust young players and it proved it again by inserting Aybar at the top of the order. Marcus Giles, who’s openly discussed his disdain for batting leadoff, has been shifted back to his more customary second spot in the order, and that could be the tonic for him turning his subpar season around.

Since joining the Braves, the switch-hitting Aybar has fared much better from the right side to date, batting 5-for-9 while going hitless as a lefty, but that’s an abberation. He tends to show almost no platoon split, exactly what you love to see from a switch hitter.

Aybar is a very difficult hitter to strike out and has a tremendous batting eye, with 1.31 walks to every strikeout in his career to date. He won’t chase pitches, rare for such a young hitter, and he tends to be a good situational hitter (.324 with runners in scoring position after batting .471 last year; .333 when there’s two outs in that situation).

The Braves are impressed with the young Aybar in the early going, but it’s doubtful his long-term future will be as a leadoff hitter. The organization sees him batting lower in the order down the road.

In Fantasy leagues, Aybar is being scooped up real quickly in NL-only leagues, so grab him fast. He’s even started to get plucked in very, very deep mixed leagues.

Once Jones returns, expect Aybar to fill the main utility role that Betemit handled previously.

In recent years, during the Braves’ unprecedented run of success, many “experts” have predicted the demise of the club, but Atlanta always found a way to win. We have resisted such portents of doom, always suggesting until it happened, you had to give the benefit of the doubt to the Braves. more

The only problem there is Dellucci couldn’t get a hit against a southpaw with a tree trunk, so he’s better suited as a platoon player. Luckily, Victorino hits lefties slightly better than righties. So we suppose the best bet is a platoon, a situation that would increase Dellucci’s value to some extent, but really render both players as Fantasy non factors. We still really like the switch-hitting Victorino’s chances to be a lead-off hitter down the road. more

Oh baby! That was a seriously fine All-Star game last week. Sure, the whole “this time it counts” mantra is tiresome, but these past three midseason classics have really lived up to the title and been worth watching. The game has evolved into more than just a stupid fly-by followed by four hours of boredom. more

The outfielder, who turns 28 on Thursday, was never quite able to stick in the majors, making brief appearances every season since 2002. All told, he’s appeared in 104 major league games, going 79-for-334 with 14 homers, 44 RBI and four steals. It’s that .299 OBP that hurts and his .416 SLG does not speak well to his power. This season, Ludwick has already produced 19 doubles and 16 homers in 89 games and 330 at-bats for Toledo. He’s racked up 51 runs and 85 hits with an 810 OPS, but is dogged by a horrible K/BB ratio. In fact, the Florida native has already topped 100 Ks. Still, considering he hit just .191 at Triple-A Buffalo last year, at least Ludwick is showing something in the minors this year, perhaps enough to earn another call at some point. more