The independent minor league Shaumberg Flyers are turning all managerial decisions over to fans. That means lineups, pitching changes, the works.Â
Why not the Braves next? Ownership could fire all off-field staff and save a bundle. And heck, we’re all geniuses so we’d be way better anyway. Failing that, the Braves could transfer to the Northern League and hope to actually compete.
We would all argue about who to put in and then when they gave up a run we would send them to AAA and call up someone from A ball to get lit up.
oh god, why are the mets so damn good!
Why is everyone so hard on Francoeur? This is just his second year in the majors. The kid is second on the team with 14 HR and 47 RBIs. Should we really expect much more than this in his second year?
Bruce, I think its his .265 OBP
we’re only 7.5 games out of the wild card spot behind Cincy, Ariz, Hou, SD, SF, Col, Phil, and Mil.
We’re mired in a fierce battle for 9th place in the wild car race, .5 games ahead of Wash, and 2 games up on FLA. (incidentally, that battle is also the battle for last place in the East)
Houston is going to be hard to catch. Look for them to make a serious run again this year. We need a day game again, I hate waiting all day and spending my nights watching us lose. New start tonight boys, we will beat the Red Sox and win this series!
YES CSG! LETS GET ‘EM!!!
If we can beat these guys, we might get on a roll. Our new left fielder to be Dave ROberts will lead us to victory!
Dix, the critical point isn’t so much the 7.5 games, but the fact that there are 7 teams between the Bravos and the wild card. Braves would have to make up not only 7.5 games on the leader, but all of the leads which the other 6 teams have currently. Chances are very likely that at least one of those 7 teams will be able to keep their lead.
I’d predict that if you crunched the numbers, the Braves have a better chance of winning the East than the WC, because there’s only 2 teams to overcome and they have a lot more games against those 2 teams.
I think the teams a head of us in the WC can be caught
Brewers-two words, Dan Kolb
Reds-not enough pitching
Phillies-we can catch them
D-Backs-they are playing about as bad as we are
Padres/Dodgers-Dodgers will pull it out and beat up on the Padres
Rockies-playing over thier head
Astros-scare me, may pass the Cards.
We just need to start winning soon and it will all be ok.
Smit, I think you’re right, each of those teams can be caught, but can they all be caught at the same time? Sure, but it’s very unlikely, even if the Braves play good ball for the rest of the year. Seems to me 1 or 2 of those teams will likely play well enough through the remainder of the season to avoid being overtaken. If the Braves make the post season, I think it will be as NL East champs, not as the WC.
We need to take it one team at a time. So let’s focus on the Brewers. They have to play the Indian and the Tigers. If we can handle the Soxs and Jays, we will pass them.
I went to the Durham/Buffalo doubleheader last night.
Marte hit a bomb.
Of interest Kevin Witt the Bulls 1B is hitting .315 with 17 bombs and .985 OPS. He has to be better than LaRoche.
Of course Thorman has similar numbers, is 6 years younger, and in the organization already. He deserves a chance.
I can’t find any other possible contributors on Richmond’s roster, Jurries is having a rough year.
Oh and Johnny Jr. has an OPS below of .386.
Can we all agree that he ought not to be getting all the starts at 2B in Richmond?
Hmm. It appears as if I need to dip my posts in the sarcasm bucket more than once to get a good coat on them.
To win the WC we’d have to play more than 7.5 games better than all seven of those teams from here on out. Basically we’d have to be the best team in the league, or at least close the rest of the way.
Winning the east doesnt seem any more likely though. We’d have to be 12 games better than the Mets over the course of the rest of the season. The fact that we play them so many times does give us an opportunity, but the flip side of that coin is, they just have to beat us once per series to keep us at bay. If we beat them twice in a three game series we only pick up one game on them. We get the opportunity to make up a lot of ground, but the cost of failure is pretty high.
It will be tough, but it can be done.
I see the Nats fired John Wettland as their bullpen coach. I wonder if he has a few innings left in him…
Is it time for Lemmer to start throwing his knucklers?
Ok- I have an idea to fix everything. My friend has a the new Xbox and the mlb game. I’ll set up a webcam and we’ll stream that game live every night. I promise he’ll put on a better performance than the real thing. After a while you may not notice its a game!
I would like to say I like Remlinger. He looks like Billy Bob Thorton and one day last year I yelled ‘we miss you mike’ over the Cubs bullpen and he looked up, smiled and waved. Maybe you guys missed the boat, but the Braves have always been about cheering for crappy role players. Well guess what ladies.. we have a WHOLE TEAM OF CRAPPY ROLE PLAYERS THIS YEAR! yay! I like Sosa too- he’s nice and sweaty and has ‘electric stuff’ and all sorts of other things the announcers tell me.
I wonder if Giles has been told that he has been traded yet? I wonder if know where he is going? I hope he goes somewhere that he can get on the greenies again
Smitty,
Marcus Giles and Salty
Jered Weaver, Scot Shields, Chone Figgins
csg, I wish!
Ah hell! Noting is happening! Let’s just sell!
We can dump Thomson see if we can get a young reliever. Call up some young guys and give them a chance to learn. Regroup in the winter and make a run next season.
What’s with this whole Marcus Giles trade rumor? Where are people getting this, because all these scenarios look like garbage.
hobken,
The AJC bloggers say Giles is going to be delt by the end of the day. When he wasn’t in the line up last night that added fire to the rumor. So we will see..
I don’t buy these rumors, but I suppose we’ll see. It’s gonna hurt to see Giles return to form while WB turns back into a pumpkin (prompting calls from Alex R to trade him for Preston Wilson and let this kid Jonny S get a shot) – here’s hoping that doesn’t happen 🙂
I think Alex wants to promote about 15 AA and AAA guys
Dix, math is not my forte, but can you please explain to me how being 12 games better than the Mets will give the Braves the NL East title. The Mets are currently 19 games over.500, the Braves 7 games under .500 with only 9 games left to play bewteen the 2. I can’t swear to this, but I thought 1 of the Braves broadcasters last night said that if the Mets went 1 game over .500 for the rest of the year and the braves went 26 over .500 for the rest of the season, they would be tied. I didn’t do the math, but I think that’s what I heard.
All the speculation about the changes we need to make just depresses me. Cox still thinks it’s 2005, so the only way we’ll get rid of Giles, Laroche, Pratt, Jordan or any of the other guys the regulars complain about is if they die in some freak hang gliding accident. Even then, they’ll be in the starting line-up for the first few innings.
Wild Card winners have historically (all 11 years of it) done very well in the postseason. Maybe it’s the Rocky Balboa underdog mentality. I’d love to lose the division, get flack about our streak ending, only to beat the Mets in the playoffs.
He said 16, not 26. And I think banking on the Mets going only 1 game over .500 the rest of the year is stretching the limits of credulity anyway.
Thats what I heard last night Bravenewworld…sounds right
The number must be 26 for the math to work out; if the mets are indeed almost 20 games over (I think they’re 42-23 now), for us to reach 20 games over, we must be 27 games over from now until the end of the season (we’re currently 30-37).
My math says, “Let’s win 2/3 this weekend.”
At this point, I’ll take a very modest gain.
The most frustrating thing to me is Cox’s continued use of Marcus in the leadoff spot.
Renteria is by far the best option in that spot. He has hit leadoff occasionally in his career and done well.
Marcus has never hit well leading off. He seems to thrive in the 2 hole or hitting 7th or 8th.
Probably our best line-up
Renteria
Giles
Chippa
Jones
McCann
Betemit
Diaz
Frenchy
or
Betemit
Giles
Chippa
Jones
Renteria
McCann
Frenchy
Diaz
If the Mets go 1-over .500 the rest of the season, the Braves have to be 16-over .500 to tie. We have to be 15 games better than the Mets the rest of the way to tie, 16 better to lead. We’ve played 67 games (30-37) and the Mets 65 games (42-23) so far, and we’re 13 games back. We can make up 13 games by being 13 games better than the Mets. However, because the Mets play two more games than we do the rest of the way, they have to lose both of those games for us to have the same W-L record at the end of the season. So, 13 better + 2 better = 15 better to tie.
Jeff, what if they split those two extra games. Wouldn’t that keep us even w/ them if over the next 95 games we are 13 better than them? If they lost their two extra games wouldn’t that put us a full game ahead.
No offense but you some of you guys are REALLY bad at math 🙂
Here’s a better way –
Mets go 48-49 over their last 97 games
Braves go 60-35 over our last 95 games
both end up 90-72
Guys, we aren’t catching the Mets. Focus on the Wild Card
Or how about
Renteria
Betemit
Chipper
McCann
Jones
Thorman
Diaz
Francoeur
Jeff K – you are confused. Remember a “game back” in the standing is the equivalent of 2 “games” in basic wins and losses terms. The Braves are 7 games under 500, the mets are 19 games over. The Braves trail by 13 games, but if the mets play .500 ball (+1 win), the Braves would have to play 27 games over 500 in their final 95 games.
In other words, 49-48 for the Mets and 61-34 for the Braves would result in a tie, though the Phillies would also have a good shot at that point.
It doesn’t help when the Mets are playing Balti. either!
We need to recapture success-
what about this all speedster lineup:
Nixon
Sanders
Polonia
Garcia
Orr
Furcal
Grissom
Thomas
OR maybe we should forget speed and go w/ an all catcher lineup. Catchers know the most about pitches and they have bigger gloves.
Pena
Blanco
Perez
Lopez
Estrada
Berryhill
Olson
O’Brien
Thoughts?
Anyway, Perv Rettenmund is back in the majors. Maybe he can get Travis Wilson to return from New Zealand.
I think we need Wade Boggs, at least as a broadcaster. He could drin 64 beers durring a Braves game and maybe even on a cross country flight!
At least we should blame some broadcasters. I’ll go with Rathburth, Chip, and Torborg. If we would just fire them, we could win again!
Smitty, we need Wade Boggs and Rick Sutcliff. At least we would all be entertained!
Well, not confused, Dave, but you’re right that we’re using different metrics to measure the same thing. However, csg is right that I incorrectly treated the Mets’ “extra” games as two games instead of one in the standings. The correct win differential is 12 games (13 – 1 = 12). Dave, you’re also correct, if the Mets go 1-over .500 the rest of the way, that’s a 49-48 record with 97 games remaining. Adding a 49-48 record to their current 42-23 record, produces a 91-71 final (162-game) season record. For the Braves to end with the same 91-71 record (thus to force a tie breaker), we’d have to go 61-34 the rest of the way (i.e., add our current 30-37 record to 61-34 = 91-71). So, 61-34 is a delta of plus 27 games and 49-48 is a delta of plus 1 game, meaning the Braves need a W-L record that is 26 games “better” than the Mets W-L record. At the same time, 61 Braves wins minus 49 Mets wins equals a 12 game win differential. Just two ways of measuring the same thing.
That aside, what’s the likelihood of the Braves winning that many more games than the Mets? Not good in my estimation.
Jeff, what?
That is big boy math
The best way to decribe the Braves last two weeks?
Snakes on a Plane
Real snakes on a plane = http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197976,00.html
Ok, first of all, if I am calling for certain guys to be called up, they are all the same players we have all discussed:
Salty or Thorman, Kevin Barry, Chuck James, the Pena boys…why I am suddenly the face of Richmond?
Second, our current 24 man roster has lost 14 of 17 and is about probably lose about 9 of the next 12. It’s fair to say we need to make some signifigant changes–what we are doing isn’t working.
As for Preston Wilson, my God you people don’t let things go.
A) His numbers used to be all star calibre–I realize not anymore–not my fault
B) the funny part with how many strikeouts and double plays he gets, he’d fit right in with this group
Anyway, I “snarl” back Smitty and Kyle with completely no offense intended…At leats you guys aren’t a certain “Stepford” Braves fan with the initials R.D. that wants to Jihad every Braves fan that isn’t grinning from ear to ear about how bad our team is and why Bobby Cox is the greatest Manager of all time and how dare any of us say any different.
Yes…that’s STEPFORD JIHAD.
Anyway, in the last 48 hours, besides Jenny’s hi-freaking-larious “Craptastic” comment (best. word. ever.), the post that made me think the most was Mac’s post yesterday about comparing last year’s team and how this year’s team is essentially the same one only a lot of lucky things happened to slip us in at 90 wins.
I agree…Jorge Sosa is the same pitcher only with far less luck and a far worse defense behind him.
We got Farnsworth who saved our hides but Kolbb and Judy Reitsma arethe same bad closers.
The Mets were far, far worse last year.
Andruw hit a ton of timely home runs that saved our asses like 50 times. He’s not getting those home runs the same way this year but he is hitting essentially the same.
The point being, is that theoretically, last year’s team should have won 65 games, and we got lucky and pulled out 90.
Barring some major cosmetic changes, the division and the WC hunt are very out of reach. But Cox and JS have to make changes now or forget it.
Maybe we should make Remlinger a starter and have Giles move to cleanup?
This is geeky and desperate but whatever. Have you guys heard of the Diamond Mind Baseball game? If you have then you know it’s pretty good. I simulated a season after trading Thorman, Thomson and B. Pena to Pittsburgh for Craig Wilson, M. Gonzalez and Torres. The results, Braves win East by 14 games. Here was the lineup,
vs. Lefty:
Betemit (1b with a .981 fp)
Renty
Chipper
Andruw
Diaz
Giles
Frenchy
BMAC
Righty:
Betemit (2b)
Renty
Chipper
Andruw
BMAC
Roach
Frenchy
C. Wilson
I can sim some more “Trades” if you like.
I think somebody needs to lose their cool in the dugout. Just like Maddux did a few weeks ago. Or maybe Hudson hits Manny and the benches clear. Remember the Astros turned things around after a brawl last year. Nothing brings a team together like a good bench-clearer.
I’m kidding…sorta.
This team needs a jumpstart.
I say Reitsma may not work out as a closer after all so we can move him to starter as well. Lets put smoltz at third- he has a fast arm.
New Rob Neyer “Bash the Braves” column on ESPn. All this cocky S.O.B. has done for 10 years is bash us and he’s another person who gets OFF seeing the braves finally suffering.
http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/columns/story?columnist=neyer_rob&id=2486956
Oh, and if you have any question or comments for the guy who has deliberately been pissing hard all over the Braves for a while on ESPN, and has glee in seeing us lose:
rob.neyer@dig.com
That’s his email address. ENJOY.
alex, i’m just joking.
for a laugh, check out deadspin today. there’s a hilarious video of some guy in an office imitating batting stances (his julio franco is very good) and quite a story about mickey mantle.
Maybe we should try and get Bagwell, take most of his salary on and offer some prospects. He could shore up our infield. Then I say we get the Big Hurt and put him behind homeplate. Tell Erstad to run over that!
I wish we still had Johnny Estrada. He could steal some bags.
But, Alex, last year’s Pythagorean winning percentage results in a W-L record of 91-71, a game better than the team’s actual record. I know, Pythagorean just measures winning percentage as a function of runs scored and runs allowed, but it suggests that our W-L record last year was spot on, not that we were really lucky about when we scored or were scored against. Using an exponent of 2, our Pythagorean winning percentage is 0.4736 so far this year, which results in a 32-35 record so far, compared to an actual of 30-37, and a 76-86 full season record. Yikes.
Kyle,
I know…totally cool.
The only person in here anymore incapable of joking is the leader of the “Stepford Jihad” where we have to be perpetually in bliss over losing and playing bad lineups all the time and in a magical candy world made of puppies and unicorns where Bobby Cox only makes the correct decision, all the time.
We all know who that is.
By the way…back to Jenny’s creation of the word “Craptastic”. I have decided that after this seaosn is over, I would like for Mac and I to write our own Braves book (or JS could write a 2nd) and the title should be:
“Craptastic! How the 2006 Braves Reitsma’d their way to the bottom of the NL East.”
Foreward by Bob Horner.
jenny is a wonderful, valued member of this blog community (despite her sox fandom ;). however, i don’t think she can claim to have created the word “craptastic” – a quick google search picks up 411,000 results, including craptastic.com (which i presume she does not own).
nevertheless, “craptastic” is an accurate description of the braves’ play (and especially their bullpen) thus far this year.
Oh, one thing to hopefully look forward to:
Mac and I will be in the prelim. stages this week of putting together (hopefully)….
“The Road from Bristol II: Electric Boogaloo”
Once we know more on the who, what, where, how, we will let everyone know.
Considering how long the Summer maybe thanks to the Braves, it will be nice to have something fun to look forward to.
Kyle,
Wonderfully crafted Google research on Craptastic. I was too lazy.
Still, Jenny, who regularly cracks me up (kind of like Kevin in Accounting on “The Office”), killed me with the “Craptastic” comment yesterday. Fran-freaking-tastic!
For those who watch “The Office” (and all of you should..it’s hysterical, tell me if you are Kevin in Accounting fans…I seriously think the guy needs his own fan club…why not Braves fans? Hell, we don’t have much else to root for right now)
Does anyone have a Nintendo DS? I was thinking of getting the new one now that I have 3 more hours of free time a day. thoughts?
I watched the British one and loved it- haven’t seen the american more than once or twice. My favorite British episode is the one where David Brent brings in his guitar and sings. I like the show ‘Extras’ even more. Its also british and played on HBO after Curb last fall.
Obviously I am goofing off heavily at work today. I’m West Coast so I have a few more hours to kill.
XBOX 360 is pretty awesome
too $$$
East Coast and leaving the office here shortly.
I am actually a fan of both the American and British version…Ricky Gervais and Steve Carrell are both so different but both are great in their own ways. Same with the supporting cast.
The British version allowed the actors and writers to be far more raw in terms of language, sex, etc.
The American version (being an NBC show) can’t do that per say, but it’s wonderfully done, and Mac and I agree…easily one of the 2 or 3 best sitcoms on the air. I would probably put it into a tie with “Scrubs” as the best comedy. (close behind for me would be “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Entourage”).
Apparently, Gervais is so pleased with how the Carrell/US version has turned out, he is planning to direct an episode or two this Fall. Even better idea (from my brother…though he is a Mets fan) is to have Gervais guest star on the show anbd have him and Carrell play off one another.
Anyway, sorry for getting sidetracked but I do love “The Office”–both versions.
Charles-
The DS kicks ass. Buy it, then get the New Super Mario Brothers. I can recommend other games if you want.
If you’re an old school Nintendo guy, the DS won’t let you down.
I am an old school NES guy. The New Super Mario Brothers is definitely what got me excited about buying it. If they had released MLB for it we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Can you hook it up to a TV if you want?
A lot of my friends also like both the British & American versions and share your opinion that they each bring their own thing to the table. I saw the one where Dwight got a concussion that was funny. I need to get into a new show. The only thing I watch w/ regularity is ‘RW/RR Fresh Meat’ and ‘Miami Inked’. I end up flipping and just wasting time.
Sorry if this stuff is too off topic but the Braves pushed us to this.