Boxscore: Atlanta vs. Houston – March 10, 2009 | MLB.com: News
Derek Lowe threw four perfect innings, striking out six! Francoeur walked and scored! KJ had two hits! Infante tripled in two runs! Stephen Marek gave up three runs on a hit and two walks, but they were scored as “unearned” so his ERA sits at zero! Reid Gorecki is hitting .571, yet has no chance to make the team! Chad Paronto pitched for the Astros! There is no law against ending every sentence with an exclamation point!
!or starting them with one
I’m pretty sure Brett Butler would disapprove, though.
I see we released Lerew, not a big surprise, but he seems to be getting healthy and has more to offer than Ridgeway
The only thing Ridgway has going for him is WHIL — Well, He Is a Lefty.
Keep at it until it catches on, AAR.
but AAR we could’ve had WHIL Ohman! wait… that doesn’t work exactly does it?
I know Utley may not be 100% for awhile, but are we preparing to get slaughtered again by Philadelphia?
The idea of calling Boone Logan in big spots vs Utley, Howard & Ibanez does not inspire confidence.
I can feel my WHIL meme slowly crawling toward critical mass on the internet, Stu. By 2050, it’ll be viral.
Wow .571!
Reid Gorecki is better than Frenchy
Nobody inspires confidence against Utley, and IIRC, Royce Ring dominated Howard last year. Standing pat doesn’t seem like a terrible idea as far as those two are concerned.
That said, Will Ohman was very good for us and is going to sign cheaply…
I love exclamations points! I use 12 of them when I’m REALLY trying to prove a point!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hate to keep harping on it, but that 5.8 million used to sign Francoeur and Garret Anderson really could have done a lot more good going towards Bobby Abreu and Will Ohman.
Biff Pocoroba and Brad Komminsk are better than Francouer. And I mean now as 55 year olds.
damn……………i’d hate to read the recaps if they were getting their asses handed to them every day…………………chief, are you off your medication?
#13 – That would make our lineup even more left-handed, but I kind of agree.
Actually, I truly believe in a semi-bounceback year for Frenchy, mainly because last year was so horrible.
Also, I like the adaption to WHIL Ohman.
Lerew really must have pissed Cox off that time he didn’t want to pitch because his elbow was hurt.
There was basically no reason to release him, he cleared waivers when he was sent down to AAA. Why else would they just cut ties with him ? What harm would he be doing taking up a spot in AAA?
I’m not going to lose any sleep over it mind you, it just strikes me as odd.
The excuse was they didn’t have a spot for him at Gwinnett, either.
#15 – yeah, they’d be worse if they were losing, but its Spring Training and I hate it. Lets get the season started already
Netherlands knocks the DR out of the Classic. How about that.
Lerew hid the injury, didn’t he? I thought that was what got him in the doghouse.
Holy cow, the DR just lost to the Netherlands. How that lineup got shut down by the likes of Sidney Ponson and…and…uh, some other guys…
I almost wish we let JJ pitch for them. He probably could have learned something from Blyleven.
Josh Anderson in spring training:
.273/.273/.500
Looking at the stats; Kotchman, Johnson and Escobar are having the best springs.
Prado (.190/.227/.238) and Francoeur (.150/.280/.150) are having the worst.
http://tinyurl.com/ctxzvo
I had an idea today, and it might have been said before/be stupid, but I wanted to throw it out there…
There are always issues with accounting for steals with regard to stats. Obviously there is some value, but as people have pointed out, the escalated steal totals of Bourn, Tavares, Pierre, etc. don’t cover the other gaping holes in their games; usually meager OBP/SLG%.
The way I thought that one could account for them would be to simply count it for a base in slugging percentage. For every base stolen, it would increase the SLG%. It would still show the the inadequacies of OBP, but would reflect the impact on scoring runs.
However, to account for the SB effect completely, one would have to subtract a base for every CS.
For example, Willy Tavares led the majors in steals with 68. He was caught 7 times. He had 142 total bases. Take 7 from that is 135. Add the 68 and you get 203 TB’s. His SLG% would therefore be adjusted from .296 to .424 and his OPS from .604 to .732. Still not great but better.
Again, this seemed pretty obvious to me when I thought of it today, so I’d surprised if it hadn’t been thought of before. But, can anyone think of issues that might arise from accounting for steals this way?
Just thought I’d throw it out there. Most of my baseball buddies are just guys I played with and aren’t into this stuff. This board is really the only place I can bring it up to people who might have an opinion.
I thought about that before too Ethan but the problem with that method is that the value of a successful stolen base is less positive than an unsuccessful stolen base is negative.
@24
Why is that? Isn’t it just the value of a base? Or does the fact that by being unsuccessful in stealing a base = creating an out play into it?
Nice thinking, Ethan, but a hit plus a stolen base isn’t worth quite as much as a straight double. With a double, the next hitter has the opportunity to get him in from the first pitch. A stolen base eats up the count.
Yes. Getting caught stealing makes it three times more likely that a team will NOT score in that inning than a successful stolen base increases the chance of scoring.
Caught stealings are killers. Getting base-runners is hard enough without throwing them away.
@21: That’s Sir Sidney Ponson, to you…
@13: We couldn’t have gotten Abreu for $5.8 million anyways, and cutting Francoeur now would be idiotic.
We couldn’t have gotten Abreu for $5.8 million anyways
Didn’t he sign for one year and an even five million with the Angels?
The Braves have wasted money on replacement level (or worse) veteran flotsam for years, e.g. Keith Lockhart, Shane Reynolds, Ozzie Guillen, and Chris Woodward when they had rookies that could do at least as well or better for the minimum.
The Glavine/Ross thing is nothing new.
Well said braves14, this year you can most likely also add Ganderson to the above list, starring the guys you mentioned, Mondesi, Jordan Pt II, Albie Lopez, really too many to mention. Is it wrong that I kind of hope maybe Ganderson is hurt for a while so BJones at least gets to play a little bit in the bigs to at least increase his trade value down the line ?
I don’t see the big deal on Ross. We sorely needed a backup catcher, or McCann would have likely caught 150 games this year (a slight exageration, but not much). And it wasn’t THAT much salary to get him. Glavine is another story entirely, but by the time we had figured to sign him, we didn’t have the money to get anyone else anyways. But I still dont’ think the Ross signing was a bad deal – we had more than one hole to fill and it’s about time people start to realize that.
@ 24
Ask Marcus Giles what a guy that can steal a base in front of you in the order can get you.
A: a ton of fastballs to hit.
Well put, Smitty.
I wish the Braves could have kept Lerew and cut say Ridgway…but I am not surprised that they let him go either.
That said, Lerew is just another reminder that the mere fact that a pitcher has success in the minors does not usually presage a good major league career.
Lerew was the last hope from the 2001 draft (which was the same splendid event tht produced Joshua Burris {who I once thought would make it}, McCay McWalk, Kyle Davies, Adam Stern and a couple of other busts) and sailed through the lower-mid parts of the Braves’ system. In fact, he could have been held up as an example to show the world that the Braves were a ‘smart organization’ as he was an 11th round pick. He was never going to be a top of the rotation starter, but mid-rotation did not seem out of the question. Instead, he suffered from arm trouble and then apparently responded very poorly to the situation.
Most young pitchers that don’t make it because their weaknesses are exposed the higher they go in the system–or because they blow out an arm. With respect to Lerew, it probably took an injury to expose attitudinal problem. In short, Lerew’s career with the Braves serves as yet another hint of just how many obstacles separate a young pitcher from success.
I have never been a Lerew fan, but its a damn shame….Sorry for the long post….
Gorecki huh? He can always fall back on his music career if the baseball thing doesn’t pan out.
Ethan, in your example it seems like you also should subtract the 7 CS from (H+BB) in the on-base percentage.
James – That sounds like it solves the obvious problem for an adjusted OPS. It counts the out created against the player, making a CS more negative than a SB is positive.
Unless I am missing something.
Doug Drinen looked at this about a decade ago in the now-defunct Big Bad Baseball Annual. It turns out that the runner is actually a distraction to the hitter.
@22, because somebody has to point it out, at this point (and it is just spring training) Jeff Francouearer leads the team in walks… WALKS!!!!! (couldn’t let everybody else have all the exclamation point fun)
Francoeur has been reading this blog and it has hurt his feelings and he has decided to do better. He will win the MVP this year and credit it to Braves Journal! 🙂 And thanks to Francouer’s breakout year, Delta stock will go up and it will get out of bankruptcy as travelers flock to “Frenchy’s Airline.”
(I had this dream while under sedation for a minor medical procedure; it was after the hallucination about dating the supermodel!)
Well, Mac pointed it out about 20 hours before you did (on the previous thread), Charles.
Jeffrey also hasnt struck out in ST, thats something to take note of also
@42 D’OH! I missed it. Sorry.
Marc, can I have some of your drugs?
AAR, I think, based on that post, the answer to the question “Marc, how many of these did you take?” would obviously be “All of them”. So I don’t think he has any left to share.
Just from watching, I have seen a fast runner on first change the way a pitcher pitches. I could see where it might be a distraction, but I think it helps more than it hurts, plus it is exciting. I mean, it is a game isn’t it?
Is it just me or has B. Jones been quietly looking pretty good this spring?
New post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!