At home.
I figure most of the non-DOOOOOOOMED! cross talk will be about the semi-professional football league that exploits 18 year old Americans the way MLB exploits 16 year old Columbians.
Do as you will. Get too over hyped about UGA for the inevitable shattering. Or ride your War Eagle. Or pretend that Bama didn’t play a cupcake schedule on par with a B1G program for 3/4 of the year. Or talk about how the Vols… Actually, you should probably move on to basketball if you Vol. You know. Like Vandy and Kentucky.
He may not have known, but if even the slightest possibility he did, Schiano is completely toxic. No way in hell it should have even gotten this far.
If you look closely at Gus Malzahn holding a clipboard, you’ll see one hand is a lucky rabbit’s foot, while the other is a cursed monkey’s paw.
LSU, the team that lost to Troy, is not a playoff contender.
https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/ronald-acuna-the-braves-last-best-and-only-hope/
No one needs you bringing down the room, “braves14.”
@4
Alex: Boswellian, raw, thank you.
At current life expectancy projections you have fifty more years of this ahead. Assuming senescence can be passed by there will be many more ups and downs to come. You know perfectly well how, for all of us, one sustains the other. So, please, no drifting off into the netherworld.
@4, Thanks, Alex.
My admiration for the organization has run thin since the 2014 off-season. It has more to do with the kinds of decisions team personnel have made at various levels than with the uninspiring baseball. Didn’t support the rebuild, *really* didn’t agree with keeping Fredi around, didn’t like the move to Cobb, *really* disgusted by the back-door public financing of the new stadium, don’t like the big ad campaign for the guy with great hair before we know whether he can play ball well enough to start in the majors–and now the Maitan Mess. Freddie Freeman and Ozzie Albies can only redeem so much. I hope Acuna–or anybody–brings some warmth back to the team next summer.
@4: Well done, sir.
All will be forgiven the next time they’re in a real pennant chase. Fans are fickle.
@7 Co-signed on all of that, Edward. Last year was the first baseball season I’ve lived in Georgia and not gone to a Braves game since the late 1980s.
All that said, I am going to sorely tempted to make a trip to Cobb County once Acuna is called up next season.
Not sure what relevance the possibility of a team losing to Troy State has to do with anything, even if there was truth in it. Pro baseball and football teams can get into the playoffs without a winning record. I still think college football is a great sport. The NCAA is at least backing off control some. There is no worse commissioner in all of sports than Goodell imo.
Obviously major league baseball is at the top of my sports loves, but there’s really nothing like college football. I think their playoff is just fine, and there continues to be progress to make it even better. Take the early signing period. That has absolutely thrown a wrench in the coaching craziness going on. Teams are desperate to get their coach in place quickly that Tennessee even tried to hire Greg Schiano! ::snicker::
@11
Goodell…totally agree, horrible, absurd pay, he went as far and as long as he could to hide the CTE stuff that was beginning to come out from those guys in Boston. And then hired ‘doctors’ who were told to refute it. Shameful.
Not sure if this SI piece on Coppalella-gate has been linked to or not, but it’s pretty solid and down the middle on all aspects of the thing.
RE: the NFL, Will Leitch has a good bit on it at NYMag.
@13
please change ‘told to’ to ‘sure to’. They had track records.
Worst run organization:
1) Atlanta Braves
2) University of Tennessee
3) A third world country lead by corrupt drug dealers
I’m very frustrated the Braves writers have not written anything in terms of a strategic response to the Braves’ punishment yet. Something of a “where do we go from here”. The Braves’ 2018 got much worse last week, and there’s crickets from the Braves’ people.
The new GM is currently taking a detailed look at the what is left of his assets and talent pool, his realistic options for next steps, and making a plan for the short- and long-term. He’s been on the job for less than a month. This shit does not move at the speed of Twitter. Sit down, be patient, and chill. Maybe do some Christmas shopping or something.
@18, Since none of the legacy executives have stepped down, only Coppy and Hart, I doubt you’ll ever get that. Especially after we were promised a full accounting by McGuirk in the weeks preceding the hammer coming down, then a brief press release that ended with “We’re done talking about this.”
Only thing you can do at this point is say “In Thoppy We Trust” and carry on.
You’re telling me DOB can’t do a little journalism and find out where a Braves’ FO official thinks they’ll spend that money? I’m not asking for a state of the union from Thoppy.
@17.
You’re of course right and although I am a jerk, I hate I told you so(s).
Having said that, this post alternatively makes me laugh and mad because any time someone on BJ says that the Braves are horrifically run, a mickey mouse organization, cheap, and corrupt and things like Coppy is (was) a fraud, at the time they’re mocked, ridiculed and generally disregarded.
And there are others that get this same ‘treatment’ other than I so it’s not about me, LOL.
Yes, we’re all fans but some room for nuance and realistic negativity would be appreciated. And no I don’t want a cookie.
It’s not in the Braves’ interests to keep the public informed of their off-season plans. The element of surprise — that AA’s plans are a near-complete mystery to everyone in baseball — is perhaps the team’s biggest advantage at this point.
@22
Was there any tangible evidence to believe such before this all came out? Cite your work.
Meh. Here’s a cookie.
AA is known for not showing cards in advance. It’s a hallmark of his style as GM. Folks probably need to get used to less leaking to DOB and Peanut. That was a total Johns move.
I hear they were probably going to make Chief Time Magazine’s Man (Person) of the Year, him having foreseen everything about the Braves down to the smallest detail, but he really didn’t want to be seen as fishing for praise or attention or anything like that, so he turned it down.
Thanks anyway!
Honestly, I’d give up another year of international free agent pickings long before I’m going to stop mocking Chief, Tad and the like.
I would think that proclamation is rather… suspect.
AA’s lips may be sealed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate ourselves… the Cubs found Arrieta more than a season before they were “ready.” AA should be looking for high-risk, buy-low type additions of that sort, whether in free agency or via trade.
The next time either of those folks makes a useful contribution to discussion will be the first.
At least Tad doesn’t have any pretense of being more than straight-up fan catharsis.
In fact, I would love it if Tad wrote write-ups for games where we’re on a losing streak. That would be great fun #TeamTad
@17
Smitty…
As far as UT is concerned the only disorganization we were told about here over the last couple of years was selecting that QB who was afraid to throw the ball. Things must have gotten worse.
There’s nothing in free agency this year. Hot stove season doesn’t look all that exciting.
@32 Useful as in all of our prospects are going to be great? Useful like concepts such as Mallex Smith being a future HOF? Those are all very useful. Useful like Matt Wisler being a useful ‘piece’? Constant prospect worship.
Concepts such as trading/releasing Sean Rodriguez being a bad idea? I can go on forever.
Stow your sanctimony.
Question for the oldsters:
Retrosheet needs scorecards or scorebooks from Braves games in the ’70s. Can anyone help? If you can, please email me at the address in the top right.
Wait, Mallex as a HoFer?! Who said that?!
No one but the gremlins in your fever addled head actually argued anything like this, you dementia addled coot.
OH NOES BATMAN! WE LOST TWO MONTHS OF SEAN RODRIGUEZ!
Don’t say things like that. You’re scaring the children. They need to see a light at the end of this.
I’ll put it in my boot, and then find a nice safe place to stow that.
@17, not so fast – Iran qualified for the playoffs.
But Italy did not.
New thread.