Category Archives: Braves

Braves at the Break

Figure I’d drop in a quick baseball post. The Braves are off again today and will resume action Friday night against the seafaring marauders of Pittsburgh.

  • Los Bravos are currently 2 back of the Metropolitans (something about writing at 1:16 AM makes one not want to use actual names, I guess). As a fun exercise I decided to see how far back they were at this point in every season after the strike. The results, frankly, aren’t terribly interesting. From 1995 through 2000, not only were they in first at the All-Star Break, in many cases they were already running away with the division. In 1998, they were 12.5 up at the break an the lead never went below 11 games. They steamrolled through the Cubs in the NLDS only to run into the Kevin Brown, Ken Caminiti, Jim “F@#%^&@#%@#” Leyritz and the rest of the Padres in the NLCS.
    Back to my original point, outside of this year the Braves have found themselves out of first 4 times since 1994: 2001 (1 back), 2004 (1 back), 2005 (2.5 back), and 2006 (13(!) back). So there’s not really a lot to go on there.
  • Unsurprisingly, Chipper Jones has been having the best year at the plate for the Braves when he’s in. He’s sport a healthy 1.011 OPS and .329 batting averages. Among year-to-date qualifiers, this puts him at 4th best in baseball:
    Top 10 Hitters by OPS
    1. Barry Bonds (1.101, SF)
    2. Alex Rodriguez (1.078, NYY)
    3. Magglio Ordonez (1.050, DET)
    4. Chipper Jones (1.011, ATL)
    5. Carols Pena (1.004, TAM)
    6. Prince Fielder (.996, MIL)
    7. David Ortiz (.990, BOS)
    8. Chase Utley (.972, PHI)
    9. Gary Sheffield (.970, DET)
    10. Miguel Cabrera (.969, FLA)
  • As most of you know, Andruw Jones is not having a good year in any sense of the word. At the break, he’s hitting .211 with a .720 OPS, and that’s with the help of a good 3-3 game against San Diego Sunday night. That said, since June 26 he’s hit 4 homers and gone 14-48 at the plate (.292 average) with a .968 OPS. Hopefully this is a good sign he’ll get out of his funk and not a temporary burst of confidence. True to his style, he’s appeared in every game this year and I would guess the 4 days off will help him rest up.
  • Speaking of things that needed 4 days of rest, let’s talk about the bullpen. 6 relievers already have more than 30 appearances, with Tyler Yates leading the pack at 42, including 5 straight games before taking the day off Sunday. In terms of effectives, Peter Moylan probably leads the pack with Rafeal Soriano close behind. (Mike Gonzalez was having a great year before he got hurt, though.)
    However, Bob Wickman scares me. I read an article at the beginning of the year calling him one of the most overrated closers in baseball. Now I’m starting to believe it. Submitted for your approval, here’s some stats from this year and last:
    With Cleveland: 15 saves, 28 IP, 13 ER, 17 K, 11 BB (1.54 K/BB, 1.429 WHIP)
    With Atlanta: 18 saves, 26 IP, 7 ER, 25 K, 2 BB (12.5 K/BB, 1 WHIP)
    2007: 16 saves, 30 IP, 16 ER, 25 K, 13 BB (1.92 K/BB, 1.633 WHIP)
    So in these 3 half seasons, his walk totals are particularly alarming for someone who should not be allowing a lot of baserunners. A low WHIP ((walks+hits)/innings pitched) is also really important for a closer, and 1.633 is not low. His strikeout totals are also alarmingly low for a closer. In fact, of the the Braves relievers with 30 or more appearances, only Chad Paronto has less strikeouts. All this only appears good in relation to our situation before we traded for Wickman last year.
    All in all, if he stops allowing baserunners and gets back to the form he had in the second half last year we should be fine. Otherwise, count me on the Rafael Soriano bandwagon.
  • So far, in 2 innings pitched, Joey Divine has allowed exactly zero grand slams! Let’s hope he keeps it up.
  • Hudson and Smoltz have pitched pretty well this year. Smoltz’s shoulder, therefore, is a huge cause for concern. If he has to sit a month to heal the damn thing that’s fine by me. We’ll need it more in August and September. We desperately need a 3rd/4th reliable starter, but the market for them is bone dry.
  • We seem to have solved our productivity issues at first base and left field. Willie Harris leads the team in on-base percentage (.419) and Saltalamacchia is light years ahead of Scott Thorman. Salty’s still learning the ropes defensively (2 errors in 10 games) but he’s just so much better offensively that I don’t really care.
  • Someday, I might understand why Chris Woodward has a job. Maybe.

Anyway, I’m tired. As for my overall thoughts, I rate our chances as decent. I think a good goal is to be within 2 games come August 7, when we go to New York for a 3-game series with the Mets, one of 3 remaining series with them for the rest of the year.

College football note: The excellent Sunday Morning Quarterback has an well-reasoned preview of Georgia Tech. You really should check it out – I’m a GT fan and I doubt I could write that in-depth of a preview on Tech.

“Sports That Could Possibly be Abbreviated ‘Bball’ for $500, Alex.”

Immediately after getting home from work, some friends and I took in the 2007 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship Game.

It wasn’t exactly a clinic. Ohio State looked lost most of the night and had trouble getting any sort of outside game that was desperately needed against Florida’s zone defense. Unlike the game in January, the favorites came out on top this time around.

After the end of the night (and hence the lateness of these posts), I poetically segued from the end of one season to the beginning of another. I recorded the Braves’ opener (10:00 am PDT) to view tonight and kept myself willful ignorant of the results.

What a thrill to be back into baseball. I never got into the groove last season – I left for Europe when the season was still young and came back to a team that was realistically out of the playoff hunt. I watched the remaining games, but without my usual zeal. As I watched yesterday’s game, I found my baseball senses were still in great shape – twitching as though I were behind the plate calling the balls and strikes, cringing at the bad swings at fastballs best described as “on the same plane as the batter’s eyeballs”.

Some of the Braves looked a lot more ready for opening day than others. Particular examples that stand out are Edgar Renteria, Chipper Jones, and of course, Brian McCann. Chipper got on base 3 times, McCann was completely himself (i.e., the best young catcher in the National League), and Edgar hit the tying and go ahead home runs. Andruw looked like he was trying to hit the ball to Pittsburgh most of the time, and the bottom of the order after McCann looked completely out of sorts. (I still prefer Chipper batting 4th and Andruw batting 3rd, honestly.)

John Smoltz pitched well, but he was on the hook for the loss after the 6th. Getting him off the hook was Edgar, who took an 0-2 fastball from Brett Myers in the 8th and just belted out beyond the center field fence to tie the game.

The so-called “Big Three” relievers had an interesting debut today. Mike Gonzalez came on in the 7th and proceeded to watch Brett Myers on four straight and give up a double. He then found the strike zone again and struck out the next two Phillies (including Ryan Howard) and retired the side.

Wickman pitched the tied ninth and got two quick out before allowing a double. They opted to walk Howard this time (one of the cases where I agree with that call) and got Utley to hit pop-up into foul territory that was corralled by Chipper.

Kelly Johnson coaxed a lead-off walk in the 10th, and after failing to get a bunt down, Edgar decided to take the next pitch into the right-center field bleachers. A perfect bottom of the inning by Chad Paronto later and the Braves secured the 1-0 start to the season.

It was weird watching this – they showed occasional highlights from last season. Normally, I’d remember these, but it was a reminder this year that even though I tried to keep up online I really had no idea what was going on. What I knew even before I left, though, was how terrible the bullpen was. If this website existed back then it would probably have several posts dedicated to the so-called “reliever” by the name of Chris Reitsma, one of the few people I’ve ever truly hated. (He was that bad.) Needless to say, had he been pitching today, the Braves probably would’ve lost 7-2.

The funniest part was listening to the announcers skip around the topic, saying everything they could about the bullpen last year without out-and-out saying, “Boy, those guys really sucked.” Here was the most damning factoid they presented: John Smoltz had a damn fine year last year at 16-9. He had 10 no-decisions, 6 of which were caused by blown saves, a stat the Braves led the league in last year. Yes, that’s right, with competent relief, he could’ve easily had 19 or 20 wins. Considering neither Cy Young award winner last year had 20 wins, that’s saying something. (Though perhaps it says more about the over-importance on a team-based stat for a pitcher’s performance, but that’s a post for another day.)

Anyway, it’s April, so like the fans of every baseball team, I’m feeling optimistic about this season. Well, except for fans of the Nationals. They don’t have much to look forward to.