The Good
–Freddie Freeman hit a home run, snapping a seemingly endless drought of home runs by the Braves.
–John Gant ate some innings, and kept the game from getting embarrassing.
–AJ Pierzynski got his 2,000th hit.
–Hunter Cervenka pitched a scoreless inning.
-We may have seen the last of Bud Norris.
That’s about it.
The Bad
-The Braves accomplished only six hits.
–John Gant may have good enough stuff to eat innings, but not good enough to be effective out of relief or be in the rotation.
–Jason Grilli gave up another run, and sits with a 6.75 ERA.
The Ugly
–Bud Norris is absolutely awful. He got hit all over the field, giving up 7 hits and 6 runs in 1 1/3 innings. He’s only 31, and he was a good pitcher in the AL East as recently as two years ago, but he just doesn’t have it. I’€™m not sure if the Braves will release him or merely demote him to the bullpen, but a 8.74 ERA this far into the season is just not going cut it.
-We’€™re 4-17.
Not sure where this fits, but the Braves, with a loss, will have strung together two nine-game losing streaks in only a 22-game period. Most teams don’t have one nine-game losing streaks in a season! That’s an accomplishment.
PS: If Fredi hits the field today wearing an apron and a hair net, all will be forgiven.
Speaks truth, does Rob Cope. Oh, woe.
2016 scenarios
1. We stand pat with what we’ve got. Enciarte will make the lineup better when he gets back…like from disgusting to just terrible. Freeman will eventually round into form. Maybe Jenkins gets a showcase start or two, but all the other guys stay on the farm until September call-ups.
This scenario has us challenging the 2003 Tigers.
2. Sometime in mid-June we call up Albies, Swanson, Ruiz, and maybe a couple of pitchers. We fire Fredi. There’s zero pressure on anyone – we’re already 20 games out. Lumps are taken, and things are up and down. But there’s glimpses. We might just win a few in the second half. Braves tracking stock ticks up a few pips and the real-estate spreadsheets look better than ever.
This scenario is what the fans want. Therefore it will not happen.
Slathers mayo on TP. Slaps a price label on guys heading out to bat. Squirts sandwich dressing in Frenchy’s hair. Any one of those things and he should keep his job.
Only if the salad dressing is Bleu Cheese.
Fredi’s Publix – Where Shopping is Not a Pleasure.
Regardless of what you think about the deli analogy, I think we can all agree that we’re getting Publix brand meat this year.
The Boarshead years are well into the future.
Also, who still waits in line at the Publix deli? It’s 2016, take the SABR approach and order that shit ahead of time online or on their app.
Big news: the Braves are on pace to be the worst team in modern baseball history!*
1962 Mets: 40 – 120 – 1 / 617 runs scored / 948 runs allowed (-331 run differential)
2003 Tigers: 43 – 119 / 591 runs scored / 928 runs allowed (-337 run differential)
2016 Braves (projected): 31 – 131 / 532 runs scored / 872 runs allowed (-340 run differential)
*going back to 1900, the worst win % was the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics at 36 – 117, which is equivalent to 38 – 124 over a 162 game schedule.
I truly believe that there is nothing this Braves team can’t do.
The only caveat here guys–I don’t want you to get your hopes up–the only thing keeping us from setting a record is that we play the Phillies and Marlins 38 times, and we’ve already shown we can lay a sweep on the Fish. We play 1/4 of our games against two of the worst 5 teams in baseball.
LucasSims, today: 7 ip 5 h 1 r 2bb 11 k. And, he picked off a fella for good measure.
Don’t fret, John. The 2016 Phillies are 11-10. They could whip our hides from here to Sunday.
The media has finally started paying attention and the heat on Fredi is blistering.
When do they make him the scapegoat? Put me down for May 5th.
The Phillies have done fairly well against the Mets, but they’ve also played the Reds, Brewers, and Padres and are above .500 against them. If they had the Braves’ schedule, I’d bet we’d have identical records.
Sims got moved up to AAA. I had missed that. With Folty and Jenkins struggling to throw strikes, does Folty get a short leash in the bigs and Sims gets the call?
I just wish Banuelos could be… something. Really need a lefty.
I might get a sandwich for lunch today.
From a friend of mine: “Dammit Fredi, why use the Publix meats here when you have Boar’s Head ready in the pen and it’s the playoffs?!?”
The Boar’s Head in 2013 was really good….
As I said before, I think the plan was to keep Fredi on board the rest of this year. And when they said they built the team to be better, I believe them, if by believe them you mean that they’d win at least one more game than they did in 2015.
And everyone who says that we’re facing an epically tough schedule in the earlygoing is absolutely right. But nobody cares about that when they’re looking at the standings and the Braves record says 4-17. A marginal improvement on that winning percentage won’t really change much. That’s a dog of a record. I wonder if the Braves had a contingency plan in place for firing Fredi only a month into the season.
From DOB’s tone lately with all his twitter haters, I’m gonna guess that Fredi is gone within a few weeks.
If that’s your yardstick, the Braves would be firing a new manager every day.
Firing Fredi is all well and good, but if only for the sake of accountability, I’d like to see more conversation about firing Hart and Coppolella.
You can say it won’t happen, at least not yet, and you’d be right. But they deserve that kind of discussion about them right now.
Coppolella and A.J. Preller sure ain’t lookin’ too bright right now….
I mean, if you field the worst baseball team in history, you should be fired. Right?
But if you’re doing it on purpose…
You can say that it’s all part of the master plan, and be untouchable for about 5 years.
And we’re not just a baseball team…always remember that.
Can you? The worst team *ever*? You expect your fans sit through that and not call for your head?
It depends on how the first wave of prospects do. If we’re not any better next year, and the call ups are unimpressive, and we still look like we need 4 brand new starting pitchers, Coppy is not safe.
They need Ozzie, Dansby, and at least one pitcher (Jenkins, Sims, Folty) to be impressive and give reason for optimism.
If we fire Hart and Coppy we have to admit that our overall long term direction is wrong. No one had illusions that 2015 or 2016 would be good years. The level of badness for 2016 may require a short term solution (fire Fredi), but we are not in a position to give up on the rebuild with a very impressive farm system at this point.
@26, If Fredi submitted a lineup card comprised solely of real estate investors in protest, I’d vote for him for president.
lol @30.
There was a tweet today about the team OPS being lower than that of the Cubs pitching staff.
More like the LoseDixie deli, amiright?
I’m sorry. I’ll show myself out.
Our farm system is not impressive enough to offset a season of record futility. Kevin Maitan doesn’t change that.
I dropped in to Subway for lunch today. Gerald Laird working there. Craziest thing!
@31, The Cubs, your putative best team in the NL, fielded three former Braves in their starting lineup today: Heyward, LaStella and Ross. Don’t know what to make of that.
Bonifacio is hitting .333 with 10 SB at AAA. Not that he’s good, but this is for those of us who think our current MLB roster wouldn’t be .500 in the minors (me included). AAA is a different world.
#25
Untouchable & possibly unwatchable.
If we vote with our money, I’ve cast my ballot because this is the very first year I didn’t pay for the MLB.tv package. It’s not the money itself, because I love watching baseball. It’s just the insulting notion of having to watch a team full of retreads (Frenchy, I’m looking at you), knowing that your club is already in full surrender.
Maybe it’ll bring some extra Parkview grads out to The Ted this year, but the Frenchy signing just reeked of equal parts cynicism & desperation. It was a little like the Brooklyn Dodgers hiring Babe Ruth to be their 1st base coach. He’s a mascot.
I do like the idea of having a Cervenka on the club, though. He’ll be my Gerald Perry this year.
@32, that pun is still better than our offense.
Actually did have a Publix sub for lunch after reading about them all morning. Guy behind the counter knew how to do a double switch (provolone for swiss, sandwich dressing for oil/vinegar) which is more than we can say for Fredi. Maybe the deli guy should start to feel a little more like the manager of an alleged major league baseball team? I bet even LibMed could afford him.
The set of things that Liberty Media “could afford” is yawningly larger than the set of things that they choose to afford.
@39 LOL! Braves Journal currently is in top form – something like 17-4. This might be the best 8 game run here on the blog. I start to find a linking to the Braves sucking. Go Braves Journal.
Oh and did Arrieta’s streak of 28 quality starts in a row really come to an end tonight?
Heyward is in April Form
.235/.340/.284
I have a cat who has mastered the litter box “neighborhood play”, so I’m thinking she could play short….
A honey baked ham could play third. Less throwing errors.
Bravo, everyone. Bravo.
A honey baked ham would also have a much smaller strike zone, and be physically incapable of swinging at pitches out of the zone. It would also hit at least as many homers as the rest of the team.
I thought you couldn’t improve upon Pub Subs, but then the Publix next to my work installed a toaster oven, which….humina humina humina.
More on topic, with regard to the Braves: they suck.
The Publix deli softball team is 6-1. They had to tip their hats to the Kroger Three Baggers.
AJP may not have control of his limbs back there.
Markakis is a stud.
LOL AJP.
forgetting the opprobrium for a moment…
how is it physically possible to drop such a simple pop up immediately after smashing two perfectly struck ropes to the outfield?
..as age descends your eyes weaken, yes, your coordination not what it was…he is so bad at one thing, still so good at the other.
Ken Rosenthal on the Braves’ future:
http://tinyurl.com/zejzc57
The Mallex Smith Tim Miller commercial is great
@JeffPassan
Sources: Braves are desperately trying to “buy” tradable draft picks by offering to take on bad contracts if teams include picks as well.
@JeffPassan
No takers for Braves draft-pick offers yet. Atlanta, now 4-17, is going full tank and trying to get as much draft money as possible.
The Mallex Smith Tim Miller commercial is great .
@53
I am gald someone is putting some heat on the front office. There is a chance Coppy doomed us for a decade.
Mallex is looking good tonight.
Why even let Chacin start this inning if the leash is that short? He threw 1 pitch this inning in a 5-2 game. He’s only at 91 pitches
@55
Ah, so we’re switching to a Bi-Lo strategy now.
Two threads ago Freddie was broken and we were amazed that Heyward was off to an unusually hot start. After todays games, Freddie’s having the better April.
They just recycled the Paul LoDuca character when they made this Christian Vazquez guy.
Is Mallex figuring things out?
Did he run on his own there? Kind of an odd time to run.
He probably did. I don’t mind it. Three run lead, get greedy.
I really don’t have a problem with the Braves trading cash for picks, essentially. I am interested to see how “bad” the contracts are. Are these players like Bourn and Swisher who are completely done, or are we talking taking on a $15M a year player on the last year of his deal who can provide 1 WAR at 3B or LF? There may be players that have no business on a contender who have a place on The Worst Team in Baseball History. If we can hide a pick in a deal, then I’m all for it.
I should have looked at the thread where this was discussed in more detail, but do we have payroll numbers for the “real” players and the “dead weight” players? IIRC, DOB had said we had a payroll in the $60-70M range of players who are actually playing for us, and I think his number was $88M for the whole thing. Stu, I think, mentioned that number was higher. Was a conclusion reached on what the numbers were?
At any rate, if we don’t spend money, we won’t get any better, so I don’t think Coppy bears responsibility in most of the roster construction. He made the trades, yes, but he’s not wanting to put Swisher and Bourn on his tenure and then sign Maitain for the next GM. That would be asinine. If his butt was on the line, wouldn’t he have signed Cespedes last offseason and stuck Olivera on the bench? I can’t imagine he would choose this roster construction if he had a deadline or window.
Braves win!
Hey, if we can lose every series without getting swept, maybe we can chalk 2016 up as a win.
Are these Pablo Sandoval type contracts?
Jace had 2 BBs in 41 PAs coming into this game and then had 3 BBs tonight. Weird.
By tomorrow night, we should have 11 pitchers on the roster with ERAs less than 4.50, and 5 relievers with ERAs below 3.50. And in blind faith, I’m going to choose to below that Jason Grilli isn’t completely done. With a couple more moves, it’s possible that we might have an entire roster of major league pitchers. No Jose Ramirez’s, no Bud Norris’, no Matt Markberry’s.
I thought about Pablo Sandoval last week, but he’s signed for a long time.
Touki Toussaint had his first decent start tonight for Rome, at least according to the box score:
5 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 ER.
Lowered his ERA to 9.19.
We outrighted Danny Burawa, who was actually one of the few pitchers from last year’s squad with an ERA less than 9 million. We now have two spots open on the 40-man. Something’s going to go down.
Chacin has been pretty good, maybe our best starter so far.
Teheran has pitched well in 3 of his 5 starts. In his last two starts, he’s pitched 12 1/3 innings with 3 ER.
We are truly awful and the worst team in baseball, but we are only 2 games behind 3 teams, one of which would say they’re not rebuilding. We also may very well have 4 half-way decent starting pitchers (Teheran, Wisler, Chacin, and Blair). The goal now would be to see if they can consistently pitch 6 innings so that 5th spot (Norris, Jenkins, Folty) can have the long reliever ready to take over for them and not destroy the rest of the bullpen.
Hey, Atlanta won in Boston twice tonight.
And this is the first time the Atlanta Hawks have ever defeated the Celtics in the playoffs.
Not that these teams are anything special, but we saw way too many post-seasons end in the old Boston Garden, so… another nice, historical milestone in the Coach Bud Era.
Recapped.