Braves get Derek Lowe for $60 million

ATLANTA — The Braves bounced right back from the disappointment of losing John Smoltz.

Determined to rebuild a once-proud pitching staff that fell into disarray, Atlanta reached a preliminary agreement Tuesday on a $60 million, four-year contract with Derek Lowe and finalized a three-year deal with Japanese all-star pitcher Kenshin Kawakami.

Just like that, the Braves' rotation — once the most dominant in baseball — suddenly looks a whole lot stronger with spring training just a month away.

"You've got to have pitching," manager Bobby Cox said. "You could have the best hitting team in the history of baseball and you still may not get it done. We will feel confident now that whoever toes the mound on any particular night, we've got a good chance of winning."

Lowe, 35, becomes the new ace of the staff.

Drafted by the Mariners in 1991, Lowe pitched for Seattle in 1997 but was traded with catcher Jason Varitek to the Boston Red Sox for pitcher Heathcliff Slocumb.

Lowe spent the last four seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He went 54-48, never had an ERA higher than 3.88 and averaged more than 200 innings a season.

Kawakami, a 33-year-old right-hander, becomes the first Japanese-born player in the franchise's history. He held up a picture he drew with the symbol for "soul" in his native language.

"My pitching style is all about putting my soul into my pitches," Kawakami said through a translator.

Pitcher Smoltz: "Age is just a number"

After playing all 20 of his major-league seasons with the Braves, the only pitcher in baseball history with 200 wins and 150 saves is starting over at age 41 with the Red Sox.

"I'm as determined and I'm as focused as I've ever been," Smoltz said Tuesday. "The uniform has changed. The desire won't change."

The right-hander, who says he's "doing great" after major shoulder surgery, finalized his $5.5 million, one-year agreement, confident he can still contribute and eager to pitch beyond 2009. "Age," he said, "is just a number."

Notes

• Career saves leader Trevor Hoffman (554 saves) and the Brewers announced their $6 million, one-year deal Tuesday after the reliever passed a physical.

• Free-agent reliever Guillermo Mota is returning to the Dodgers.

• Right-hander Koji Uehara finalized a $10 million, two-year contract with the Orioles. Uehara won Japan's equivalent of the Cy Young Award in 1999 and 2002.

• The first manager in San Diego Padres' history has died. Preston Gomez was 85. He died Tuesday in Fullerton, Calif. Gomez took over the expansion Padres in 1969 and later managed the Astros and Cubs. Gomez was hit by a pickup truck last March and never fully recovered from head injuries.