You think I/we should do something like this? I don’t know if I’d have the time right now and it would seem dumb during the season.
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You think I/we should do something like this? I don’t know if I’d have the time right now and it would seem dumb during the season.
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Could be fun, but would it involve just Atlanta Braves players or the entire Braves franchise?
Yeah, right, like you got something better to do…
I think it’d be fun. Didn’t you do something like this a year ago, best at each position?
I’d say that paragraphs like this should give one pause:
“The Twins have had more than their share of great players since 1961, but you’d be surprised by how steep the dropoff is once you get past about 50 names. Consider that Luis Rivas safely made the cut for the 150 players I looked at closely, as did immortals like Frankie Rodriguez, Scott Leius, Rich Becker, Danny Thompson, Tim Laudner, and Pat Meares.”
He goes on to say that “The resumes get thoroughly unimpressive once you get past around 30 or so.” Which seems to indicate that doing a top 40 isn’t a great idea. While I admit that the Atlanta Braves may be a more interesting franchise than the Minnesota Twins, who just scream yawning boredom, I’m still pretty sure that once you got to player #38 you’d be deep in Lockhart territory.
If it was the entire Braves franchise, going back to Boston, it might be worth doing.
Maybe Lockhart has pictures of Mac too, gaining him residence in the top 10?
I grew up in ATL and loved Hank Aaron as only a 6 yr. old boy can, but after he left, the team became kind of faceless for me as a casual young fan and I drifted away from them until (like so many people) I returned in a dedicated way with the excitement of 1991. The Period between ’72 and ’91 is blurry for me beyond Dale Murphy , Phil Neikro and Bob Horner.
I would love to see you all offer some faces or moments that characterized that late 70-mid 80’s (and perhaps other) Braves’ eras.
Maybe something that casual ( outstanding faces and moments of each decade) would be something that wouldn’t be too much of a project…especially with people chiming in on an open thread?
Just my 2? worth.
I would probably do it from the beginning, though that would mean more research. I just did a printout for the top 50 in wins and the top 50 in runs created, something to start with.
38 would be Klesko.
Klesko is actually 40th on the runs created list. He’d be borderline.
Don’t worry everyone, Travis Smith was brought in to throw BP. Now this BP could be for the Braves or it could be for the other Nationl League teams in the 6th inning after HoRam is finished tossing BP.
If we are looking for a community-wide way to vote on this, I suggest a series of polls using one of the free web polling services. We start at #1 (best brave all-time, aka hank aaron [braves franchise history] or dale murphy [atlanta braves franchise history]) and choose from 5 or 6 options. After each poll, replace the winner with one more person and vote again.
If we did it right (i.e. no one won their first time on the poll), it would aggregate the community’s judgment as well as possible, other than having everyone send a list and calculating averages based on that.
I think 40 players is too many, myself. Top 25, maybe?
The first batch of players, IMHO, should be Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn, Phil Niekro, and Dale Murphy.
Kyle, do you think Dale Murphy belongs ahead of Greg Maddux?
Yeah, probably not. I knew I was forgetting someone 🙁
Well if Smith is throwing BP for other NL teams then I will be worried. But I’m not worried because that is not going to happen. And my two cents worth on Ramirez is that he is a lot better than you give him credit for.
Any list that doesn’t include Joe Boever is incomplete.
Speaking of polls, my Vols are #20 in the latest BBall poll!
I am bitter that nobody ever gave me a TV show based on either of my blogs.
Even the list of Things That Aren’t Joe Boever?
I am bitter that nobody ever gave me a TV show based on either of my blogs.
Sorry, John Stamos is busy right now.
What would the playing time limit be? I mean, you’ve got guys like Babe Ruth and Rogers Hornsby who spent a little bit of time as Braves, but who don’t really count.
Off the top of my head…Aaron, Mathews, Spahn, Maddux, Glavine, Chipper, Andruw, Murph, Niekro, Smoltz. Kid Nichols, probably the most underrated Brave, although he’s a 19th century player. Billy Hamilton. Javy’s pretty underrated because he’s a contemporary of Piazza and Pudge Rodriguez.
I think the fun of this is the debate, not the final list. Maybe it could be a community-type thing.
Le Retard actually wrote a good article about Cuba in the WBC. I disagree with it, but it reads well.
If you have the time and inclination, something like that would be very interesting to me, either through a poll of the readers/posters, or as your own list.
Okay, here’s what I think I’m going to do. I’m going to put together a list of the serious candidates for a Top 50, maybe 70-80 total players. Then we’ll thrash it out.
I think we’ll limit it to total value for a player, say value above replacement with the Braves only. That will keep out the guys who played only one or two years with the team and the guys who played a long time without adding anything special.
How about worst Braves who had any regular playing time durring the title run.
Keith Suckhard
Ozzie Guillen
Quilvio Veres
Reggie Sanders
Michael Tucker
Dan Kolb
Andy Ashby
Jeff Reardon
Who else?
Again (for the hundredth time!) Veras was actually very good in his one full year with the team, putting up an OBP over .400 and the most power of his career. For that matter, Reardon played well in the regular season.
There were lots of old Braves who had pretty good careers: Del Crandell, Billy Burton (Bruton ?),Johnny Logan, Joe Torre,Wes Covington,Rico Carty, Joe Adcock, Lew Burdette, Johnny Sain, Felix Milan, Ralph Garr, Glen Hubbard, Mark Lemke, Gene Conley, and number one all-time, the old right-hander Ernie Johnson. Then there were Rick Camp, Tony Cloninger, the Mahlers, Gary Matthews (Jr. and Sr.), Ken Griffey, Ted Simmons, Steve Avery, Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz and short-time wonders like Orlando Cepeda, Gary Sheffield, J.D. Drew, Hoyt Wilhelm, Bruce Sutter, Chis Chambliss, Andres Galaraga, Fred McGriff.
You might need to tighten the parameters, Mac.
Smitty- Add Kenny Lofton to the list. A guy that didn’t want to play here. Rico Brogna was another bad Brave.
Whatever you do make sure that Kolb doesn’t make it?
What about worst 50? Number 1 …. Kolb??
Rico did have a disease or something, I think.
Smitty put Fick on that list and I would put Vinny on it but his stats the second year were not too atrocious. Also, Kenny Lofton hit freakin .333 for Atlanta. He didn’t steal many bases but he had nagging injuries and Cox as his coach.
One of my favorite Braves is Marquis Grissom. He hit great for us at leadoff and had a great postseason in, of course, 1995.
I forgot about Fick, cheap shot on Karros ended his Braves tenure. Anyone else hear about Remlinger signing a minor league with the Braves?
Yes, Mike signed a free agent deal with the team. He appears done but you never know.
Remlinger, by the way, is by far the most valuable reliever (not counting Smoltz) the Braves have had in the run.
Okay, the way I see it there are ten guys who are in the Top 50 for sure:
Players
Hank Aaron
Andruw Jones
Chipper Jones
Eddie Mathews
Starting Pitchers
Tom Glavine
Greg Maddux
Kid Nichols
Phil Niekro
John Smoltz
Warren Spahn
Actually, there are 20-30 more I’m pretty sure of, but those are the totally obvious guys.
Unbelievably, all things considered, I left out Murphy. So, eleven.
With all of the work you’ve been doing recently pushing Murph for the HOF (which I support), it was rather incredible you left him off your initial list.
Though I’m pretty sure that Andruw will wind up ahead of Murph in the final accounting, we aren’t there yet. I don’t know why I did that, to be honest. Just a screwup.
Not that anyone here probably cares, but the Reds just axed Dan O’Brien.
Another random piece of MLB information:
The Cubs signed Wade Miller to a one year deal. I didn’t even know he was a FA. So now the Cubs have yet another pitcher with good “stuff” to go with persistent are troubles.
I’m working on my Remlinger writeup, and his numbers with the Cubs last year weren’t really that bad. They weren’t good, but it’s not like he was hurting the team that much and it’s surprising that they dumped him. He was awful in Boston.
i nominate Biff Pocoroba for #99. I think the name alone should put him in the top #100…. or at least put him ahead of Gerald Perry.
I would like to see a best 40 after WWII. This would include the 48 Braves, Sain, Tommy Holmes etc. The franchise goes back too far and Hugh Duffy would be number 2.
I can see where you might not have enough time now to do a project like this, and you’re right, it doesn’t seem like an in season project either. Perhaps you could put it on the back burner until after the season when things are slow.
That being said, I’m curious to see where some of the players from older Braves teams, particularly the strong teams from the 50’s, whill shake out. Players like Burdette, Crandall, Adcock and Logan.
Hugh Duffy was a fine player, but I don’t know if he’d even be in the top ten. Kid Nichols might be #2. Offhand, not studying the issue in depth…
1. Aaron
2. Spahn
3. Mathews
4. Maddux
5. Nichols
6. Niekro
7. Glavine
8. Chipper
9. Smoltz
10. Murph
11. Andruw, maybe, or Herman Long or Lew Burdette or Fred Tenney or Wally Berger
I can’t find fault with your top ten, although I’m not familiar enough with Kid Nichols to place him within the group.
Hugh Duffy, Billy Hamilton, Vic Willis, Jimmy Collins, all played with Kid Nichols and all are in the Hall of Fame
But isn’t a lot of the value of those players from their time with other teams? While much of their peak value was with the Braves, they also played a significant amount with other teams.
Nichols, in fact, rates second all-time on the club in Win Shares, ahead of Mathews and Spahn (though it’s tight between all three, all well behind Aaron). I am reluctant to rate him that high, though he was certainly a great pitcher, because the pre-1920 game is so different for a pitcher. What he did really isn’t the same job as Spahn or Maddux, and he wasn’t quite the dominant figure in his game as the latter two. I would put him in the Glavine class, one of the best pitchers in baseball for many years but not an all-time great. Quite.
Quite — I mean, the guy is seventh all-time in wins, led the league three times and in saves four times (though that’s only three or four saves a year). Never won an ERA title but would have won a couple if all parks were neutral. Nine of his top ten comps are in the Hall and Tony Mullane should be.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/ATL/bat.shtml
scroll down and it lists the career totals as Braves for 130 years of the franchise
The Remlinger signing is solid. However, it seems to me that the Braves are trying to hold back the rookie pitchers to give them more time to develop. Without another trade, Richmond will have a rotation of Davies, Lerew, James, and McBride with Devine being the closer.
Speaking of Remlinger… he’s back, the Braves signed him to a minor league contract with an invite
YES!
I don’t think there’s any chance of McBride going back into the rotation, and he should be on the major league staff as top lefty (since Remlinger historically has a reverse platoon split).
I may skip ahead and post a Remlinger Player Analysis tomorrow.
Did anyone see this Schuerholz quote in the Chicago Sun-Times?
“”There was an assumption we made going into the offseason that he would choose to stay here,” Braves general manager John Schuerholz told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. ”We didn’t have a Plan B, C or D. We went into scramble mode.””
Yikes. We were banking on Farnsworth? That’s why we have a closer dilemma? Wow.
And I meant to point out that he was talking about Farnsworth at the beginning of the post. Sorry.
Yes, I understand Mac, but we have to convince Bobby to use McBride ahead of Foster first.
Well, Jenny, I believe Farnsworth doesn’t want to be a closer, and this shows by his preference of setting up for Rivera.
Bobby used them pretty much an equal amount down the stretch last year. In the really important sequence, Sept 12-22 against the Phillies and Mets, McBride pitched almost every day while Foster did not — he didn’t pitch at all from the 14th to the 20th. I haven’t thrashed out the bullpen in detail yet but right now I’d have all three lefties make it.
Mac, I believe Sept 12-22 was the period when Foster actually had some issue with his elbow. In the playoff time, it was obvious Bobby was using Foster ahead of McBride. However, I agree with your conclusion, I think it’s the best to keep all three of them.