It was the summer of 1974. I had just graduated from high school and was bumming around Europe with my best friend, who in the spirit of anonymity I use here on Braves Journal, I will call DennisZ. We were riding on the Paris Metro one morning, looking at the International Herald Tribune to try and figure out how the Braves had done two days ago when we came across the news that Eddie Mathews had been fired as Braves manager. I said to Dennis: Sacre bleu! They fired Eddie Mathews! A guy sitting across from us in the train drawled in perfect Southern: they fired Eddie Mathews? But of course Eddie had been fired days earlier. Just as it took a while for the Treaty of Ghent to reach Andrew Jackson in New Orleans, news traveled pretty slowly to the Parisian Underground.
It is now 50 years later. I am typing these words at 10 AM in Broome, Western Australia, at 15,000 residents the largest city in the Kimberley, an area the size of California with only 40,000 total residents. And I watched the Braves game live. The AI robot overlords may take over any day now, but for my money it’s been worth it.
Back in The Bronx, the Braves were partying like it was the old Yankee Stadium in the first game of the 1996 World Series. Andruw Jones hit two homers in that game and the Bombers were bombed 12-1. We didn’t quite reach that this morning, but homers from Matt Olson, Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley made light work of the formidable Carlos Rodon, and yet another brilliant outing from Chris Sale, with supplemental efforts from Daysbel Hernandez, the ageless Jesse Chavez, the occasionally good Dylan Lee and the Eastbound and Down new folk hero Grant Holmes combined to hold the Yankees to a run.
I mention 1996 only to point out that a great start in The Bronx doth not a season make. But while I think it is too soon to say the Braves are now fully back offensively, they are certainly not in a situation where they have all forgotten how to hit. It’s way too soon to bring out the brooms, even here in Broome. And a regular season win cannot exorcise the demons of John Wetteland and Jim friggin’ Leyritz. BUt as far as I’m concerned, the Braves have never lost a game in Australia, and maybe never will.
Broome! I’d say your in my part of the world, but being in Brisbane that’s not really the case. Enjoy the Kimberly region, I hope you made it to the Bungle Bungle’s. I’ve travelled the Old Gibb River Road once, it was worth it.
The Braves winning start to your Australia trip is better than my early ones to Atlanta. In ’06 and ’07 I think I only saw them win one game out of 8 or so. They got better after that at least.
I was going to joke that only Southern California games are blacked out in Broome, then I read that Giants and A’s games are literally blacked out in Guam, and I was reminded not to underestimate the magnitude of the clown show that is running MLB.
The Braves have already sliced 4 games off that Phillies lead.
Paul DeJong of the White Sox has a .752 OPS, is a competent defensive shortstop, and is on a cheap 1 year deal. Seems like an obvious trade candidate for the Braves.
Arcia’s OPS has sunk to .592, which no amount of defense can make up for.
It really wouldn’t matter if we didn’t have 2-3 other black holes in the offense. Whether your 9th hitter has a .600 or .700 OPS isn’t too important. He is playing defense well enough to be a positive, and we’d do better to get a competent outfield bat if we have to choose where to upgrade
“Hes playing defense well enough to be a positive”
He’s actually not. He’s been well below replacement level since the end of April.
I’ll predict that Arcia will get his OPS up close to .700. Certainly, that is still less than .752.
Yeah, but there’s an even better chance that DeJong posts a sub-.700 OPS the rest of the way, given that he hasn’t posted a .700+ since he was an All Star in 2019.
Trading for DeJong is the sort of move you hope a sucker GM makes when you’re losing–giving you prospects for a guy who had a fluky 2 months like he’s actually that good.
Look, I don’t think DeJong is anything special. But he’s the type of guy that AA could have for a song since he’s on a cheap 1 year deal and he’s a clear upgrade from Arcia.
Arcia has been worth about -0.5 fWAR since the end of April. His career OPS is .671, so he’s not likely to get much better if at all.
Look, I’m not really an Arcia fan. I think it was Rob Copenhaver who said his OPS would be .750 at minimum before the season, and I pointed out he’d never posted a .750 OPS in his career, and I thought he was much closer to declining to replacement level. If DeJong is basically free, then fine, but if we have to choose, I would go with an outfielder. I like Arcia to be about as good as DeJong in the 2nd half.