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Open thread.
56 Comments
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v14gra
Pitchers and catchers reporting! YAY!!!!!!!!!!
Smitty, you’re so late dude. I was all over it at like 12:30 this morning.
Sorry Big d, I got a cold
2 Points:
1 – I feel the need to respond to Stu’s lonliness in Vandyland. I’ve lived in Nashville basically my whole life and went to school with Mario Moore and Julian Terrell, so I’m a fan of the Black and Gold. Though I am a UK fan in basketball (I have family up there), VU is #1 in everything else (1A in bball). I was at the game last night; they started out slow but got it together and Byars really had himself a night. Not a pretty win, but a win. They’ll need to play much better on Sat. against Florida. Also looking forward to some baseball games (home games in Feb. only $1, if it ever warms up). Go ‘Dores!
2 – I would also just like to remind everyone that today is International “That’s What She Said” Day. So let everyone you know that that’s what she said. See my post in the McBride thread for a funny example (at least I think it’s funny). OK, I’m done.
Rafael Soriano won’t report till next week.
http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070215&content_id=1802722&vkey=news_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl
What the Braves really need is a longer, more satisfying erect-ion and the kind of low-interest debt consolidation that is the stuff of all champion baseball teams.
Are an intricate web of sites devoted to playful co-eds necessary? I wouldn’t want to go to spring training without them.
Oh, to the folks at Liberty, I have this interesting business opportunity in Nigeria…
Not reporting til next week? That’s what she said!
OK, that one didn’t make sense. But I’ve been celebrating “That’s What She Said” Day, and that was one of the few that didn’t fit.
that was one of the few that didn’t fit
That’s what she said!
Hey-o! Didn’t even see that coming!
Big D! Congrats!
Happy “That’s What She Said Day”
My Lame Advertisement: Join My Facebook Group:
http://auburn.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2237976710
“Joe Simpson Is My Hero”
@10
that’s what she said!
Is Soriano’s Visa is over the limit?
Oh yeah, I joined that group. Wryn, you got a friend request. I had no idea that was your real name. That’s awesome!
That’s awesome
That’s what she said! Oh! Got myself! Double-wammy!
Vandy folks – how is derrick byars doing with yall? I always liked him and was sad when he left uva. We sure could use a player like him these days…
Getting stoked for baseball season. Do any other folks in the atlanta area plan on going to jc’s book signing at the buckhead barnes and noble? It would be cool to meet other braves journal readers (besides myself of course)
Also, someone set up a braves jrnl facebook group and I’ll join it. I have a few of yall added but farm from everyone.
I’m in the group now too, and I sent both you guys (Rob and Wryn) friend requests.
(You knew this was coming)–Wryn, only 5 members in your group? Man, your membership is small. [That’s what she said!]
Alright, there’s now a Braves Journal Facebook group. I sent an invite to AAR, Stu, Big D, and Smitty. Those are the only ones I know off-hand that have Facebook. Everybody else with Facebook, go for it:
http://clearwater.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2243140083
Oh, and the group picture is the “Satan in Suspenders” JS picture in a Royals shirt at the bottom part of the left pane of the Braves Journal site.
Derrick Byars is the man. Best player on the team (Foster is close, but Byars has been playing better lately); poured in a career-high 32 last night to go with 7 boards. Too bad this is his last year. Gonna miss him.
7 people so far. Nice.
Byars is in the running for Conference POY this year. He’s the real deal. I wouldn’t be surprised if he snuck into the first round of the draft. He’s one of those guys that doesn’t do anything great, but he does everything well. I love him.
My favorite Vandy players (current roster only), in order:
1. Derrick Byars
2. George Drake
3. Dan Cage
4. Ross Neltner
5. Jermaine “Dolla” Beal
You’re right Stu; I sold him short. Hey, where’s Skuchas on your list? LOL, just kidding. [They’re not saying ‘Sku’, they’re saying ‘Boo’]
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=2766652&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab4pos2
Eh, just thought I’d post this. Some article about a tax lawyer/Braves fan who misses Ted Turner and says that the Braves were cheapskates in letting Marcus Giles walk.
#24
Written by John Helyar, who also wrote “Lords of the Realm”. Merely the greatest book ever written about the business of baseball, and one of the ten best books I’ve ever read on any topic.
Helyar also co-wrote “Barbarians at the Gate,” the story of the RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout. It was an outstanding book. sansho, I’ll definitely have to pick up ‘LOTR’ now.
Kyle, you’ll love it. I won’t spoil anything, but let’s just say that the negotiating tricks some of the owners used to pull have to be read to be believed.
I’ve always meant to read “Barbarians” — maybe I’ll pick it up this weekend.
@ 24 – That tax lawyer is a partner at my firm. Always good to know who the season ticket holders are.
That article is incredibly depressing.
I agree with Stu. I don’t think it’s really that bad, though. As long as our payroll doesn’t go down anymore, and we can keep our GM and manager while Liberty is here (I dunno if that will happen), I think we’ll continue to be very competitive. Just in the past year, I see JS making some good deals financially.
With that said, this stretch of 2 or 3 seasons since our payroll was seriously decreased is I think the worst it’ll ever be. A smart GM doesn’t sign players to $15 million per year deals when your payroll is $80M, but when it’s $100M, it’s encouraged so that you can get the best players. Once this transition period is over with and we get these huge contracts off the books (see Hudson, Hampton, Chipper), we’ll start seeing more proportional contracts being given, and a lot more younger players being given opportunities instead of signing guys to huge, long deals (like Hampton, Hudson, and to a lesser extent guys like Vinny Castilla, BJ Surhoff, and other guys that make more than they should simply because they were “veterans”).
Rob,
That’s exactly what I was thinking. Once the huge contracts run out, we’ll have some more room.
My biggest concern is the Braves scouting for the future. It seems like we lost some really good people in the scouting area and I’m not sure about the guys who have replaced them. I also know we’ve used some good prospects as trade bait. However, it seems like we should have a few more great starting pitching prospects (a big reason for our success). I guess the well isn’t dry, but with Matt Harrison and JoJo Reyes as our best SP prospects and still not ready for a while, we could be in trouble. With Jonathan Johnson on the 40 man roster, it looks like we are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
A few questions; why isn’t Will Startup on the 40 man? How far is he from being ready?
Wow, I spend two paragraphs putting it how Sam puts it perfectly in two lines.
That article paints such a bleak picture, so it could be depressing, but that’s not what I see. The author acts like it’s the end of the world or something, but I don’t see how anything is any worse than it was under TW. We still have a good team that can take back the division crown (assuming a few things don’t go terribly wrong), and if Liberty really only wants the team for a few years, hopefully this is the first step in getting the Braves some local ownership in the form of an actual real-life human being.
I love the Facebook group. Do all of those members post on here?
Rob Cope,
I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. lol
However, it is true, we can’t deny it. 🙂
Rissa, not sure. I thought about asking what everyone’s name is on Braves Journal, but I wasn’t sure if everyone was a poster or not.
@32, About Startup, he should get his shot by the start of next season, maybe during this season, assuming he pitches well in Richmond. He stopped dominating once he hit AAA, which is not completely unexpected after his fast rise, and was awful in the AFL (albeit in only 9 IP), so they probably want to see more success from him at that level. The only problem I see is that he would give us 3 lefties in the pen, 2 of which would need to prove they can be trusted pitching to righties.
It was a compliment. I tend to take too long to articulate a point. It’s kind of like in Ocean’s Eleven, “Don’t use 7 words when 4 will do.”
I dunno if all those post here. I know when there were 7, 5 did.
I joined the facebook thing as well, but since I go there about once every three months I doubt I’ll be very active. Cool idea, though.
@ 30
Rob,
Your initial reaction is the exact reaction Liberty Media wants from a braves fan. LM wants fans to continue to believe in the good and forget the bad. Corporate leadership is terrible. It is much more fun to have an owner that cares, as much as the diehards. When one person can be held accountable it makes cheering for a team that much better. Especially when they can approve the trade deadline deal that makes every fan believe the braves can do it again.
You think all Redskins fans love Dan Snyder? Think again. Corporate ownership is predominantly terrible, but you can have one-man owners really mess things up too. Look how close Steinbrenner’s gotten to ruining things. Without Cashman, they would be up crap creek.
But yeah, I would agree a little bit. But I could care less what Liberty wants me to think. The Braves aren’t THAT bad off, it’s like they’re in Oakland, Minnesota, Kansas City territory. They’ve got a TON of talent, with some established players who are very consistent, and we’re not far off (if we are at all) from taking the division again. I’m sorry, but I’m more optimistic about this season and less pessimistic about the ownership than you.
It’s not like they’re in Oakland, Minnesota, Kansas City territory. MAN I need to start reviewing my posts…
Although my instincts don’t offer the best vibes, I’m not going to be so quick to judge the sale. Each case is different. As the story mentions, one one hand you have Steinbrenner, on the other you have Angelos; you have News Corp & you have the Budweiser people.
Rob,
King George is one of my least favorite people in sports, but let’s not forget that, as crazy and stupid as he’s been, his teams won 3 titles (’77, ’78, ’96) before Cashman ever showed up. Money can correct mistakes sometimes.
That’s a good point. But if you were to have a ratio of championships to years leading the league in payroll, then George’s 3 championships don’t look as good as, say, Anheuser-Busch? They’re pretty new aren’t they?
Ya know, it’s late, and I betcha the comparison or Big Stein to A-B isn’t valid. In the past 10 years, it has been Cashman who has built the Yankees to where they are, though Steinbrenner’s blank checks have helped tremendously.
In the past 10 years, it has been Cashman who has built the Yankees to where they are…
Where exactly is that? Tremendous underachievement? The early championships were not Cashman’s doing — those pieces were in place before he got there. All his moves have just been about buying really expensive 40-year olds and 1-year wonders, and that hasn’t worked out so well for them. At least if you’re judging by championships, which is what I assume we’re judging by.
You can have bad individual ownership and good corporate ownership and some mix in between. The Red Sox were owned by the Yawkeys and the Cubs by the Wrigleys for years and largely sucked. I think a lot depends on the ego of the owner. In Dan Snyder’s case in Washington, he is a young (well, young to me) hotshot that made his money quickly in the internet boom and thinks he knows it all. He knows nothing about putting together an organization; by contrast, teh previous owner, Jack Kent Cooke, was a pretty nasty guy, but knew enough to hire people and stay out oftheir way. And then there is Angelos, who I think now is probably the worst owner in sports. He made his money off asbestos litigation and apparently ingested too much asbestos as he thinks he knows something about baseball. As long as Liberty leaves the team alone for a few years and then gets rid of them, Iwill be satisfied. But I am concerned that the future of the team isn’t that bright because o fthe lack of investment. The state of the pitching in the minors is a matter of concern. They really need to clear some of the big contracts off the books which is why I am not opposed to letting Andruw walk–it will be painful, but probably necessary.
All I want in an owner is someone who puts the team before anything else, not as a money making enterprise, example: Donald Sterling, Angelos, even the Minnesota owner is cheap, it’s not the Minneapolis market that hurts the twins and their fans.
However, the owner should try to keep out of the running of the team as much as possible. Jerry Jones runs the Cowboys draft room, and I don’t think this is a good idea for a baseball owner, much less any owner. The responsibility should be placed in the teams’ leadership i.e. GM, manager, scouting department.
With an owner that is emotionally involved it grants the teams leadership a little room to make some things happen that Liberty may not agree with.
The Falcons have Arthur Blank. He cares, and they haven’t done jack sqaut lately. Just saying. 🙂
It’s not for lack of effort. It’s not his fault his quarterback decides to flip the bird to his fans. That single act sealed his fate forever. Quarterbacks that flick off their fans at home do not win super bowls. Quarterbacks that are suspected of carrying drugs onto planes do not win super bowls. Ron Mexico will never win a super bowl. I am very happy not to be a Falcons fan. You don’t see Peyton Manning or Tom Brady in these situations and it is for a reason, they are winners, not just amazing athletes.
Blank’s lack of success does not come from his lack of effort, but rather from some bad decisions, which at the time seemed logical but hindsight is always 20 20. Blank has afforded his team every opportunity to produce a winner, it just hasn’t worked out. Now, does the presence of unlimited resources hurt a team? Probably, since teams can throw money onto their problems, but it would be nice to have an owner that practices fiscal responsibility but every once in a while ponies up and spends a little extra cash to win. That is all I am asking for, but Liberty will never provide it.
Black did exactly what I would have done if I were the owner and had more money than God — he went out and hired the best GM available. It hasn’t worked out, but sometimes the smart moves don’t.
well it took a lot of time for Ted to get the hang of things, but it worked out. some how i don’t see Blank making the same kind of mistakes.
If Patrino can’t figure out how to use Vick…it ain’t gonna happen.
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