Wanted to play this, this week, for a couple of obvious topical reasons. And it’s my favorite Jimmy Webb /Campbell song. Peace to him and succor to all those damaged.
A good game of baseball tonight. Up and down, good and bad, tight all the way through until that last double play. I discovered, watching it, I don’t mind losing so much if i get to see Ossie in full flow, he was magical again tonight. Right at this moment he is our star, outperforming Freddie et al, he’s the at bat that we all stop talking for to watch. It will not last forever of course, by its nature it’s ephemeral, but we are indulged while it does. Mr Acuna will not have it all his own way for our attention when, finally, he does show up…what fun that is going to be. I resent we have been kept waiting this long.
Newk was Newk until the 5th when he got tired, presumably, and got bombed for 4 runs. So why is he tired, so young and strong. 94 pitches , 5k, only 2 walks which is by far his lowest total. But. He had thrown 63 of them after only 3 innings versus Freeland’s 41. And when you watch and try to analyze what’s going on it’s clear he is throwing far too many ‘pointless’ pitches where the batter can see in good time the ball will not threaten the strike zone and is enough away from him to leave it alone. By my unofficial count 20 % of his pitches were in that category. It is a literal complete waste of effort, he does it significantly more often to RHBatters than lefties. Long counts and the usual 0 and 2 problems. He gets tired. But very well done about the 2 walks.
Wisler was fine , Winkler managed but Viz had nothing tonight and lost us the game in the 9th. Back to back bombs. Where on earth was Minter when the Pen began to creak? Is he still up? His appearance would hafe killed two birds with one stone – better pitches and an excitement factor for all of us. Where was he?
Our own hitters had a good night and nearly pulled it out in the bottom of the 9th when Big City reminded us all why he should be kept around and smacked a twofer with Ozzie on but we fell one short.
Ozzie ended up with 3 hits including a triple and a double. Swanson, Inciarte, Phillips had two singles each, Flowers and Freddie went hitless.
There’s not much wrong with the sum total of all this if we place it in the context of where we are and why. Good and bad. We are the Atlanta Braves. And he is Ozzie Albies. And he is ours. I am starstruck.
https://www.mlb.com/gameday/rockies-vs-braves/2017/08/26/492025#game_state=final,game_tab=box,game=492025
Bravo.
Great recap, thank you, blazon. You’re spot on with Ozzie… Even in the stands people tend to look up from their nachos, hot dogs etc to watch and cheer Ozzie. Then you have Dansby, who had another great game. I have to say, this is a fun team to watch. Brandon really has a lot of fun on the field, dancing smiling between innings. He is enjoying himself.
Nice choice Blazon, an underappreciated song in my opinion.
You’re right, Newcomb misses a lot on the arm side, and if he missed as often to lefties as he does to righties, he’d hit every last one of them. So, he must have some faculty to avoid it.
His body must be getting ahead of his arm, but I can’t put my finger on why and when. Fortunately the Braves have got more expert people than myself trying to figure it out.
Ozzie 11.41 seconds from home to third on that triple. Wow
Braves Journal’s Chief-Nocahoma-vs-Ozzie-Albies subplot has a certain feel to it: the insufferable know-it-all professional wrestling heel vs the baby-est of babyfaces, currently the youngest player in all of MLB.
Let’s make it a ‘loser leaves town’ match. If Ozzie stays above replacement level all the way to this time next season, then Chief has to hang ’em up and stop posting. If Ozzie ends up on the 60-day DL during this timeframe, then it’s treated as a disqualification, no winner or loser.
Ozzie already has 0.7 WAR to his name. So, what do you say, Chief?
I vote no on the loser leave town match. If Chief loses, we win. Besides, I like someone else being the curmudgeon occasionally; and it appears I may lose my Dansby sucks campaign. He sucks no more, at least not now.
I look forward to the Johan-Dansby-Ozzie-Freddie infield. If only Ronald plays as well as I think he will and we can find a suitable leftfielder, our lineup for 2018 doesn’t look bad at all.
Come on, kid pitchers. 2018 looks promising.
I look forward to what the Chief has to say .
I’m sure he’s cutting a promo right now.
If Acuna is as good as it seems, we can possibly upgrade our offense in a major way without making any trades for position players. If we make one move for a top tier starter and revamp our bullpen, I think we’re strong wildcard contenders. Throw in a 3rd baseman and another starter that is an upgrade over Dickey or Teheran and I think we can contend for the division
I prefer positive but not if it is stretching reality too far.
If Acuna is in RF next year, it is possible that scouting and Major League arms find some problems like with Dansby. So, to me, 275 / 325 / 450 could be his line. I think in Right he is plus 1 WAR as a fielder. So, that makes him about a 2.5 to 3 WAR player year 1. He could avoid a slump or adjust as adjustments come and a 300 / 350 / 500 campaign doesn’t look like a stupid projection.
3B is solvable for next year with a Johan / Rio platoon. I see no reason that couldn’t be above 750 OPS for the season. And Johan is probably at least plus and Rio probably above average on the fielding side.
But TD leaves one situation unaddressed. That is, who is in left. If you keep Kemp and Markakis, then you could platoon them. But that makes you carry a 5th outfielder. To move them, you have to give up a lot of money or a lot of prospects or both. And if you move both, the team still needs a left fielder.
RE: Rebuild Talk
The reality is that the rebuild is in progress, and I think you can point to reasons for why it’s going well or not. This is what I see to determine success or failure:
Reasons Against:
-We’re on pace to win 72 games 3 years into the rebuild
-Prospects haven’t developed: no player acquired as a prospect (so excluding Inciarte) will produce more than 2 fWAR this year.
-We’ve lost some trades pretty badly (Andrelton and Olivera, so far)
-Some prospects have not panned out as planned (Wisler, Blair, etc.)
-Weigel’s injury
-Dansby’s struggles
-Still a lot of useless veterans on the roster
-We could have traded Teheran, but instead have watched him struggle quite a bit. He was supposed to be a staple at this juncture.
Reasons For:
-Majority of our top prospects are in AA or higher and could see Atlanta as early as OD ’18.
-While still lots of useless veterans, 11th youngest team in baseball
-Dansby/Ozzie have played well together at the major league level
-Ronald Acuna
-At any time, the Braves can trade even 4-5 prospects and instantly improve the ML roster
-9 of 13 pitchers on ML roster are 27 or younger. Vast majority of pitching staff is very young.
Have I missed anything?
I think we need to trade Markakis but I would rather keep him for some depth than trade him away for a little bit of nothing while keeping a lot of his salary. Look at the Dodgers this year, depth is a big part of their success. A bench of Suzuki, Matt Adams, Markakis and Camargo looks pretty good to me.
A mid-market team can’t keep Markakis as a 4th OF at $10.5M. It just can’t happen. I think you can carry someone who hits similarly like Ben Zobrist at his $10M but has a lot of versatility, but you just can’t keep a corner OF at that number. I continue to be optimistic that we could include an insignificant prospect in a deal to send back some value, and a team will essentially value him as a $8M OF, and maybe we even eat a little bit of his salary. There’s got to be someone who will take him at his salary or something we can do to shed the vast majority (if not all) of his salary without taking a hit.
Honestly, I think what we do with Markakis will make a big impact towards whether or not we compete next year.
Better than what I expected, not enough to transform a franchise, or really even to build around etc.
Still think the same things. Still think that Jeff Blauser will be much much better than Swanson and still think that out of 15 pitching prospects 2 maybe will contribute to the next Braves playoff team.
Nothing has changed. I don’t change my opinions based on a game or two.
Still think that money and free agents are what is needed as well as power bats and FA SPs. Nothing has changed.
Still think the FO is cosmically overrated and talk much better than they perform. Still think the park has occluded baseball decisionmaking to the franchise’s development.
@4 I don’t know everything. But I’m very confident in my opinions.
I also don’t whine and cry whenever someone posts a differing viewpoint than mine. The location of this board’s fans mimics America 2017 IMO.
@12, the best move for us re: Markakis is to pay him not to play. He and Kemp can platoon in LF. There’s no use crying about the money, it’s gone. It was gone the moment they signed those dumb contracts.
@13/14
Chief…
‘cosmically overrated’ as opposed to Albies who is ‘comedically’ overrated? The adverbs are working hard these days.
And…Please explain what you mean by ‘the locations of the board’s fans’ in the second post – is there now some geographical slight we must learn to become aware of?
Plus ca change, plus la meme chose. Cheers.
All the best wrestling heels are full of hubris, know how to insult the audience, and are ultimately cowards at heart.
So, what do we have here, Chief? I see you:
– ignoring the ‘loser leaves town’ bet like a total chicken
– baiting the audience by insinuating that they’re just a bunch of snowflakes
– then there’s your “I write the best recaps” comment, subtly cutting down all the Braves Journal recappers, the other day.
I think I see who you’re imitating, and I have to say, Chief, I think it’s a very workable persona. However…
The location of this board’s fans mimics America 2017 IMO.
Location? Chief, if you’re gonna deliver on your heel shtick, you gotta work on your microphone ability.
Danville
0.2 IP, 3 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, 5.83 ERA
Huascar Ynoa
our early plaudits lie on stony ground, furshura
youaskare we mad?
Not really, we just didn’t know you were this bad.
I am certainly happy that we no longer resolve affairs of honor with pistols at twenty paces. Nasty words are so much more effective.
Recapped.