I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. We know the offense is unfit to start and our bench is unfit to pinch hit, and we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had no hits and five walks, as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be. We know things are bad — worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my DVR and my TV and my iPad and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!
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By the way, David Schoenfield of ESPN thinks that Jason Heyward should be considered a dark horse MVP candidate.
@1
He’s 4th in the league in WAR according to Fangraphs. If the baseball world is moving toward advanced metrics weighing heavily in an MVP race, then yes, he should be. However, baseball isn’t ready for a defensive gem, offensive mediocrity being an MVP.
Agreed. Baseball also isn’t ready for MVP’s that aren’t playing in October.
How’s this for depressing, I turn my Braves calendar to September and who greets me? BJ Upton, this after having Uggla in August, McCann and July and Hudson in June. I flipped ahead to see if it gets any better in October, but it’s Medlen, ugh.
@1
I prompted that! I tweeted him genteelly Sunday so that he wouldn’t dismiss me out of hand. He twittered me back and said he’d write something.
@2
Suggested edit: “good-not-great” instead of “mediocrity”–too tired to figure out the part of speech change
@42, previous thread
We’re 72-66 in our last 138. I think you can find a reason to be happy or sad about that record, but ignoring the parts of the season we played well is as silly as ignoring the parts of the season we’ve played poorly.
Out of the 22 qualified right fielders, Heyward is ranked 9th in overall offensive value. Sounds like an offensive mediocrity to me. Or are you suggesting the grammar is incorrect? I do jump in and out of tense as that is my biggest weakness in writing, but I think the choice of words are grammatically sound.
Edward, true. I was simply basing my argument after our 17-7 start. I wouldn’t say we played well during that stretch either. We just had ridiculous pitching.
Heyward’s OPS+ is 109. In this lineup, especially when Laird’s playing, that borders Ruthian.
Can someone explain to me how OPS+ park factors are calculated? I’m specifically wondering if it’s possible that all the Braves hitters get a bit of an extra boost because of “suppressed” offense in our home park, where the suppression might be mostly caused by the true talents of the home team rather than the field itself.
How do park factors distinguish between true talent and stuff that’s attributable to the field/dimensions/elevation/etc? The home team is involved in every game, and our home team can’t hit but can definitely pitch…shouldn’t that skew things some?
Chip and Joe are still talking about winning the division.
The most basic way to calculate park factors is this:
((homeRS + homeRA)/(homeG)) / ((roadRS + roadRA)/(roadG))
Or, you could simplify that to:
(roadG / homeG) * (homeRS + homeRA) / (roadRS + roadRA)
In other words: it’s the total number of runs given up at your park in all the games you played there, divided by the total runs given up in the away games you played in. At the end of the year, road games will equal home games and that factor will cancel out. If there were more runs scored in your park than in the away parks on a per-game basis, then your park was relatively hitter-friendly over that time period.
Hey, a hit!
@12, do they add in a bunch of extra calculations to account for unbalanced schedules?
And now the pre-no-hitter Braves return to drop yet another crooked-number opportunity dished up on a platter.
Pathetic.
Consider me in the camp that’s ok with pedaling Gattis to move BJ. He is having some really bad at bats with runners on base lately
@14, ESPN doesn’t; I’m not sure whether other sites use more complex algorithms. The basic idea is, if you hit better at home than on the road, plus everyone else hits better at your park than they do at other parks, then your park is hitter-friendly. And vice versa.
Alex, Great clip! I love Network, the movie turned out to be quite prophetic. Also, William Holden got shafted, he not Finch deserved the Best Actor Oscar. Finch shouldn’t even have been up for Best Actor, as his role was really supporting, but he died (literally promoting the movie—I believe he had just been on Good Morning America) during the pivotal voting period.
Saved a run there, Freddie. Nice scoop on a bad CJ toss.
IMO, the best scene in “Network” (and there are many good ones) is when Ned Beatty sits down Peter Finch & gives him the “You have meddled with the primal forces of nature!” speech. Pretty much every performance is amazing. It won 3 of the 4 acting categories at the Oscars that year.
@20 Agree with you Bubba about the Beatty scene. Outstanding. The scene with Holden and Beatrice Straight (as he’s explaining to her why he’s leaving her for Dunaway) is also amazing.
Runs, please.
#21
Oh, that’s a killer. And, you know, she’s only in a couple scenes in the entire movie. IIRC, her performance is the shortest of any Oscar winner.
Robert Duvall, as the soul-less, corporate hatchet man, has some great moments, as well.
That year’s Oscars had some seriously great flicks & performances to consider: Network, All the President’s Men, Taxi Driver (my all-time fave), Rocky, Seven Beauties… even Carrie (for what it was) remains a classic in its genre.
Ballgame. Watching “Network” seems like a great way to spend the next two hours instead of seeing five more innings of hacking.
One run in our last 32 innings. They should pay us to watch this shit.
I might be going out on a limb here, but I’m willing to bet that the Braves will, in fact, score a run at some point in September.
Oh, no, why is Justin out?
Justin Verlander gotta bigger butt than Kate Upton.
25 — Got hit in the biceps with a pitch.
Doumit sucks.
I don’t even want to watch this team in the playoffs.
I think that Smitty or any other random Braves Journal commenter could get the Braves out.
Has anyone actually seen Doumit do anything? His batting average isn’t .000, but I swear he’s made outs 100% of the time I’ve seen him bat.
Omg 88 mph fastball. Omg so unfair.
If Kyle Kendrick could’ve pitched his entire career against the braves he’d be a first ballot hall of Famer.
How in the world do the hitting coaches for the Braves still have jobs ????
I have given up. I have completely given up.
Playoff team? Ha
I wish I could be the hitting coach. I’d tell these barves to be AGGRESSIEVE! And to GOLF that baseball.
Shut out on Saturday
1 run on Gattis solo hr on Sunday
No hit on Monday
No runs on Tuesday
I know some of the blame has to be placed on all parties, but we are paying hitting coaches as well. Is fire someone just to see if it wakes up a few folks. Fair or not, this is unacceptable.
There’s basically nothing left at this point but to thank the Lord he didn’t make me a Mets fan.
Or we can say the Ted is cursed from the start. When are we moving to that new stadium again? I am so looking forward to that.
@mlbbowman: Let’s not go that far @andrewbaioni i’d rather see tom hart out there hitting than doumit
This team wouldnt make it past the wildcard game .. too inconsistent a team .. too many free swingers .. we got rid on one ( Uggla ) need rid of a few more …
I was rooting for a lead in the 9th for no other reason than to see Kimbrel pitch with gold spikes. I feel like this is what my fandom has been reduced to, and I am denied even that simple wish.
Getting like 2 baserunners a game is really hurting Chris Johnson’s bid to break the franchise record for most GIDP in a season. We still have time, but we’re gonna need to turn things around a bit.
Can we fire someone? Anyone?
@41,
I’m with u! C’mon Chris! U can top a few more fat pitches trying to golf. I know u can! History on the line baby!
I have an idea. Lets sign 3 of the worst players in mlb to fat long-term deals. Foolproof
Cosart, Eovaldi, Hamels, Kendrick
37IP 23H 1R (solo hr) 10BB 40K
No runs in the last 25 innings.
Roll over. Play dead.
Edit: Except the Braves aren’t playing. They are dead and playing meaningless baseball for the rest of the season. How soon can we fire up the hot stove?
@mlbbowman: The #Braves have now been shutout in three of their past four games. They’ve scored one run over their past 99 outs.
I may have to retract my statement in post 25 above. If any team can go an entire month without scoring, it would be the 2014 Atlanta Braves. I actually feel really sorry for Braves pitchers, and the pressure the absence of an offense puts on each start.
I do my best to remain optimistic, or at least find something to enjoy about watching baseball regardless of result, but it’s growing harder and harder this season. They’re still in a position to get on a 7-week hot streak, in which they play completely out of their minds, and win the World Series during the centennial of the Miracle Braves, but it’s actually getting tough to root for a Hollywood ending for this group of guys…
Everyone that needs to lose is losing tonight. Maybe we can lose out and still get in? Wait. May have to think that one through a little more.
I hate it when Chip and Joe start talking about the wild card spot being a playoff game. You aren’t part of the post season unless you get to the play-in game and win it. This bunch doesn’t seem to care about even trying to get that far.
Learned today that if you consider Lowe,the Japanese pitcher, Uggla, and BJ Upton Frank Wren has cost the Braves over 200 million dollars. Fire Frank. Freddy Gonzalez is, by far, the worst manager I have ever seen.On a team that desperately needs offense he continues to play BJ Upton.Fire Freddy. Trade for players who make contact and swing at strikes and work the count.
Thing is, I love Andrelton; but he can’t hit. There is no one other than Teheran and Wood I wouldn’t trade at this moment of my Braves fanhood.
Go Braves (damn it).
@51 You are talking about two TJ timebombs here. I would say Freeman and Justin to be untradeable in my opinion. Can’t trade away our two best bats when our offense is bad enough.
3 hits in the last 18 innings.
@53,
Justin is uber traceable. He is one and done at this point. Would gladly trade him for prospects. Even better would trade bj and Justin for prospects. Cunningham and lastella in the outfield with peraza at 2nd can’t be that bad
Not sure why Justin would be off limits either. We are willing to trade cost controlled Gattis (our 3rd best hitter. Isn’t justin a FA after 2015? We can’t afford him after that season or at least we will have to pay market value. No one is coming or staying for less to play for Fredi like they did Bobby.
@7
I definitely wasn’t criticizing your writing. Sorry if it came across that way–I was giving myself an out for making a grammatically improper correction.
I was criticizing what I thought was your judgment in calling Heyward a mediocre hitter. I find different senses of the word–“barely adequate” and “second-rate, shoddy” on the one hand (that was the sense I thought you were using) and “ordinary…of medium quality” on the other. The latter set must have been what you were driving at. Ambiguity abounds in this language of ours.
Anyway, I still think it’s a mistake to call Heyward an offensive mediocrity and leave it at that–his case is very easy to break down.
1. He has hardly hit for any power this season (bad).
2. His on-base percentage before tonight’s game was .354, tied for 35th best of 152 qualified players, and bound to go up after tonight’s 2 doubles (good!).
3. He has stolen 17 bases in 21 tries (real good!) and has grounded into 2 double plays all season, trailing only Curtis Granderson (?), Billy Hamilton, and Coco Crisp (excellent!).
4. He has been terrible, just terrible this season against left handed pitching, which accounts for about 25% of his plate appearances (just terrible).
The bottom line is that he does the most important thing, not making outs, quite well. Even with the baggage, I call that a good offensive player. It’s not going to happen, but if he flips the power switch on this month and keeps doing everything else the way he has been, he’s the best (healthy–sorry Tulowitzki and Goldschmidt) position player in the NL.
The Braves have scored one run in their last four games, and they’ve only lost 1/2 game in the Wild Card race over that span. The National League is so weak this year. Nobody is playing like they want to spend October on the field.
@1
Kershaw is the MVP of the NL.
@30
Well, they would struggle to hit my 58mph fast curve.
Mike Minor, PhD, Doctor of BS
I was at the game last night and after we came up empty with the bases loaded you could see every bit of hope drain out of the team. From that moment forward they were just going through the motions. It was pathetic. This team is not having fun and appear to just want the season to end and because of this they are not fun to watch. That was probably the worst experience I have had at a game ever.
Still just a game and a half out of a playoff spot, somehow. It’s certainly not a bad sign that we’re playing so crappily and haven’t lost any ground at all. At least it bodes well if we ever start playing better.
Bright side? We managed to win 1 of those 4 games, and I doubt it can get any worse.
Let’s take one this afternoon, get to South Beach & try to “wash these sins off our hands.”
Recapped.