We still need to solidify daily recappers for the season, and we’ll hopefully have new and/or old faces doing those, but this has been a long offseason, and while I’ve done my best to be your ship boat captain, I could use some people who have a passion for Braves baseball and a knack for writing to get us through the remainder of the offseason. We would like to keep our posts specific to Braves baseball, so perhaps these topics can provide some inspiration:
- Past Braves player write-ups (quality or not)
- Your personal, memorable Braves experiences
- Positional previews (I plan to do a series on this, but would appreciate some help)
- Fantasy baseball recommendations
- Your favorite baseball blog recommendations
- Almost any other Atlanta Braves topic you can think of
Please e-mail me at bravesjournalrob@gmail.com if you’re interested in writing. Otherwise, consider this an open thread, and thanks for stopping by. Melky is fat.
I will volunteer to summarize and recap SUNDAY games.
SATURDAY SATURDAY…that’s all right
Well, that’s the weekend done.
More generally-
We have an excellent hard core base of analytical contributors here. What we need is more of the lighter, more personal stuff to balance it. Whimsy dare I say for one. Narrative rather than numbers. Achieve this in part and all posts will benefit, the contrast adding spice. As of now we remain a bit out of whack.
empirical data
we will all come to this sooner or later
those of us who have had to go back to school
await the resurgence of the wandering, writing fool.
I guess I’m the only one who can follow directions!
Just emailed you, Rob, with a crazy idea. You want fanciful, blazon, you just may get it.
Those already in situ assumed tenure and wished to get the ball rolling. Rob of course may have other ideas.
Fanciful is an interesting choice of word in this context, yours not mine. I look forward to your version of it.
I would be interested in writing about some fantasy baseball recommendations/online baseball/OOTP stuff…
Braves Journal was never meant to be and probably won’t ever be a site that provides breaking news content or hyper-urgent stuff. With Twitter and other sites, that need has been met well. And people for the most part do an excellent job with posting in the comments the interesting things that happen with Braves baseball as they happen.
By next offseason, I hope to have something on the site that’s interesting, thought-provoking, and fun every day. You can pretty much set your watch to having something new every day. I’ll make a call for daily recappers within the next couple weeks, so hopefully we’ll have those filled (Sunday would be great, Sam), and I hopefully we’ll have something for every off-day during the season. So it’s really in the meantime between now and when the season starts that we need content. Ryan C has put on a call to his Twitter following as well, which I really appreciate, and I’ve gotten e-mails from some of you guys, which I also really appreciate. Hopefully we can fill this temporary space with good stuff.
Also, sometime between now and the beginning of the season, I’m going to present to the faithful a few different designs for a new site theme. Hopefully that will bring us into this decade a little bit.
Thanks everyone.
Our favorite hangout…
I have always imagined this site to be a virtual sports bar, where people who could never get together daily (if ever)could pause and talk about things that bring us joy. Mostly the Braves.
Off days brought spirited discussions on music and modern culture. And the Braves. A troll-free zone, for the most part. And at least one post from here in in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Change is good. We can now get game updates instantly for a ridiculously low price. But concepts like The Furcal Rule, Buster Was Out, and Mets delenda est have become part of baseball culture. Braves Journal Rocks!
I think I counted 5 people who waited to play on the Braves Journal league. Did I miss anyone? Second call. I’m not going to play, but I’ll get it organized.
Once it’s organized, we will need a commissioner. Who wants to be the virtual Rob Manfred?
Chief, you said you didn’t like ESPN. That is noted.
Speaking of Rob Manfred, it seems like he’s taking a lot of heat for essentially telling the players that he will implement the pace of play initiates if they don’t respond with a) an alternative proposal or b) approval. It seems like he’s saying, “We’re going to improve the pace of play whether you like it or not. But if you don’t, you need to propose something that will improve pace of play with other rule changes.” I couldn’t agree with this more. The commissioner needs to be backboned enough to see what’s going on trend-wise with the down-the-road vision that players will never have. These guys will be out of baseball, on average, in less than 5 years. They all individually don’t care about what the game looks like 10 years from now. I do. You do. And so does he, and he’s doing what he needs to do. Thumbs up.
Five. Subs.
I would be happy to handle the Friday Game recaps, Rob. blazon, you want whimsy, I’LL give you whimsy….
From the last thread. No one has signed Logan Morrison and his 38 HRs. He made 2.5M last year. If you’re the Braves and you could sign him for say 2/10 why WOULDN’T you do that? He couldn’t be any worse in LF as Kemp was. Plus its LF, who cares…
@8 I’ll be glad to commissioner a Braves Journal Yahoo League. But the ESPN UI is just awful and I hate it.
What the players want for themselves matters too. Eduardo Nunez probably isn’t ready to admit he’s not going to sign somewhere for three years. LoMo probably doesn’t want to go to LF under any conditions.
Yeah, I can’t see Logan Morrison willing to sign just yet to play LF. With that said, 1Bs are probably in a tough spot. Lucas Duda, Hosmer, LoMo, and Mark Reynolds are all still available and were productive last year. You might also consider Chris Carter, Mike Napoli, and Pedro Alvarez as really cheap bounceback options. But Alonso signed for 2YR/$16M, Matt Adams inked for 1YR/$4M, and Mitch Moreland at 2YR/$13M, so it’s going to be a race to the bottom for the non-Hosmer 1Bs. And if you’re flexible, you can also get power at 3B from Frazier and Moustakas. Morrison probably wishes he got off the board early like Santana, Adams, and Alonso. LoMo, though, has to be questioning whether chicks actually do dig the longball because he felt slighted by not being an All-Star and probably feels slighted again.
With that said, at any point, the levy could burst, and all the money out there for FAs will get filled in a hurry. And if Lorenzo Cain’s contract is an indication, these players might be happy they held out. But who the heck knows at this point? I would think the longer this drags on, the more it hurts the players, but what do I know…
I hear Freddie can play 3B.
LoMo pretty much doubled his career HR/FB rate last year en route to his basically only good season in the majors. (It’s literally the first time he’s ever been worth more than 1.1 WAR.) I’m more or less expecting him to go back to the guy he was before — low batting average, bad defense, and about 20 homers a year. Maybe he’s a little better than that and he’s now a 25-homer guy. But I basically can’t fathom him hitting 30 again. So, all that said, I’d probably sign him for 2 years, $18 million — if I’m wrong, then we get tremendous surplus, but in the extremely likely case that I’m right, we’re not out a whole lot in the grand scheme of things.
I’d take a chance on Lane Adams before signing Logan Morrison.
Just because he’s a clubhouse cancer who has sucked in all but one of his major league seasons? Where’s your sense of adventure?
Why on Earth would we commit 2019 dollars to Logan Morrison when we could actually have significant resources to put into an open OF spot then? And if we’re going to spend more money in 2018, I think the marginal improvements are probably greater in the pen.
Because we’re almost universally bereft of power especially considering I predict the catchers will hit half the HRs they did last year. 2/10 is nothing. I doubt he’d take it, but if he would I’d be all over that. Isn’t Tampa Bay a pitcher’s park?
One does not lock into mediocrity just because Chief digs the long ball.
In league news, it looks like the MLBPA may be gearing up to party like it’s 1994 if ownership doesn’t start spending some of that sweet, sweet television cash on the talent.
LoMo did tweet from the Varsity once….
Pass.
@11
‘if whimsy be the mood above
play on
give me excess of it.’
There was too much talk about a strike today for my comfort.
https://www.mlb.com/news/12-prospects-who-will-make-an-impact-in-18/c-265582148?tid=151437456
We have 3 of the 6 from the NL.
My current plan to make the Braves a contender:
Trade: Teheran for Domingo Santana
Trade Markakis for salary dump, eat 6MM
Sign Neil Walker: 2/18MM
Sign Alex Cobb: 3/36MM
@28 I’d be on board for that.
Do it, ryan c.
(Although I love Julio. Would they take Folty instead?)