After re-signing Tim Hudson, the Atlanta Braves have a surplus of starting pitchers. Currently, Atlanta boasts six legitimate major league starters in its rotation: Derek Lowe, Jair Jurrjens, Javier Vasquez, Kenshi Kawakami and Hudson.

The old adage is that teams can never have enough quality starting pitching, and, though the staff appears set on paper, injuries happen and an area of strength can turn into a concern in a hurry; look at the 2009 Rays for a recent example. That said, the Braves do have other areas on the roster to address and could use one of those arms to bring back a position player in a trade. If the team does not make a deal this offseason, though, there will be an odd man out, leaving the Atlanta front office with a nice problem to have.

Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist Mark Bradley offered one solution in a piece this morning. Bradley thinks that the Braves should move Hanson, one of the most promising young starters in baseball, to the bullpen, making him the Atlanta closer. He writes: “The obvious solution would be to make Kenshin Kawakami a reliever, except for a couple of things: He makes too much money (around $8 million) to slot into middle relief and he generates too many baserunners to close. So …. what about this? Tommy Hanson as closer.”

Bradley continues by comparing the situation to what the Boston Red Sox did with Jonathan Papelbon.

The organization: The Boston Red Sox. The starter-turned-closer: Jonathan Papelbon. Papelbon worked in 58 minor-league games, starting 48 of them. But then the Red Sox needed a closer to replace Keith Foulke and he got reassigned. And he has been, in the main, great — 151 saves over four seasons.

Clearly, the thought processes behind the article were pretty weak. Starting pitchers have considerably more valuable than relievers given the sheer number of innings thrown. Relievers are the most fungible role on a roster, with performances fluctuating from year to year due to small sample sizes. In addition to being easy to replace on the open market, it is fairly obvious that, all else equal, a pitcher who throws twice as many innings will be more valuable to his team. Indeed, even a league average starter is worth more in terms of value, based on WAR, than even an elite relief ace.

Relievers become relievers for a reason: they cannot hack it as starters. Hanson is still way too young and has far too high of an upside as a starter to limit his value by making him a reliever now. Even under these circumstances. And, as the Joba Chamberlain situation has shown, sending him back and forth between roles would also be a poor strategy. He is a starter, has been all his life, and should remain in that role until there is a significant sample size to determine that he does not have what it takes to succeed taking the ball every fifth day.

The Braves could have a gem on their hands in Hanson, who dominated the Arizona Fall League this time last year. As a rookie, the 23-year-old hurler put up an 11-4 record, 2.89 ERA and 3.50 FIP, with rates of 8.18 K/9, 3.24 BB/9 and 0.70 HR/9 in 127.2 innings pitched over 21 starts. Even in just half a season, he produced 2.6 WAR/$11.7-M.

For comparison’s sake, Papelbon, who has been an elite closer, has produced a WAR total higher than that in only two of his big league seasons. And he has had some good ones. That just shows how much valuable a good starter is, given how much more difficult it is to find them.

Sure, Hanson’s stuff would play up in short bursts. Indeed, I have no doubt that he could emerge as a dominant relief ace. Taking away the opportunity to let him become more than that, though, would be a major mistake. Also, Papelbon did not have the same chance of being a plus front-of-the-rotation starter as Hanson does, given the lack of diversity in his repertoire. Papelbon put up excellent numbers as a starter in the minors, primarily overpowering hitters with his plus-plus fastball. He essentially is a one-pitch hurler, though, which is becoming an issue for him now in a relief role and would have really hurt him in a rotation role. Hanson, on the other hand, has a four-pitch arsenal that includes a low-90s fastball, low-80s slider, curve ball and change-up.

Thus, the comparison between the two hurlers is misguided, given how different each situation was. Hanson belongs in the rotation, now and in the future. The Braves will have to make a decision at some point, but moving the prized youngster into the pen will do more harm than good.