You know, I thought that getting to watch the team play would kind of soften things a bit - getting to root for the players and experience the highs and lows rather than the sole reaction of scorn prompted by the losing boxscores. Nope.
DK, I tried to watch the Braves tonight and they said the game was blacked out in my area... 175 miles away from Atlanta. Interesting.
Could be because Houston didn't sell all of their tickets. Guess you should have hopped a plane. Actually, I think that's more of an NFL thing, but you never know.
I don't know if Gonzalez is a top flight manager or not, but this team does not have the players to be top flight. They overachieved last season before falling flat in the last two weeks. The greatest problem is with the Indians, not the Chief.
This team just doesn't have enough good hitting. This makes Fredi's mismanagement shine brightly. The infield defense was also shitty last night.
The decision to leave Heyward out of the lineup to see if Francisco could hit left handed pitching cost the Braves the game last night.
The Braves have a team, manager, GM, owner, and fans problem. But getting rid of Fredi would be a start. He's not a good manager. And Wren is a poor GM for a team with budget constraints. The ownership isn't great, and neither are the fans from a numbers/market perspective. The Braves can still be successful though. Plenty of team with a average budget have, and a good place to start would be a manager.
I think they should do no worse than last year. Good players everywhere but shortstop. The outfield's production was abysmal last year and should be better with Bourn for the full year and a (hopefully) healthier Prado. The starting rotation should be one of the best in the league again. The bullpen has the same pieces to be great again (actually should be deeper this year), although at some point last year's workload is probably going to catch up. Infield defense is shaky, and Heyward and Chipper are unknowns to varying degrees. No reason they shouldn't compete strongly for a WC spot. Fredi seems to be neither inspiring nor strategically adept. Eminently replaceable. Can't do a lot about the roster with the budget constraints, either.
The Braves currently have the 16th highest payroll in the league, placing them in about a 10-team pack of clubs that aren't really serious about trying to win but don't want to completely suck. Want to know why the Cardinals won the WC last year and the Braves didn't? Because StL had enough good players to weather star-pitcher injuries, slumping hitters, bad luck, and everything else that happens in a long season while the Braves tried to get by with Brooks Conrad.
I can't disagree with this. It says a lot about an organization when they do not make any changes after undergoing one of the worst September collapses in Major League Baseball history. Fredi's not a good manager, but the Braves would win with some better players in the lineup. They still won 89 games last year, despite the collapse.
Sad day in the Braves online community today as Mac Thomason, founder of the Braves Journal blog, passed away after a long battle with cancer. He started in 1998, before anyone knew what a blog was, and I've been reading regularly for much of that time. Makes the Chipper walk-off 3 run jack that much more special.
Agreed. Mac was definitely a pioneer. His blog was one of my first stops to read about the Braves. It was a special moment tonight. The radio call tonight by Powell and Sutton was fantastic.
Switch! He's a good player, no doubt. I think Heyward is good enough defensively to edge him out. Plus Ethier will be 31 a week after opening day, has missed significant time the last three seasons, and, holy wow, is going to get paid 17 million a year for the next 5 years. Guess it doesn't matter when you have no apparent financial constraints like the Dodgers, but still.
Liberty Global to Acquire Virgin Media for $23 Billion Liberty buys Virgin and it's the Braves that get screwed, SMH.