A Dumb Rule
The All-Time Leader in Lost Wins It’s amazing the number of times I go to the Internet to find the exact phrasing of some quote I want to use, only to discover that I’m completely wrong about who said it. The...
Read MoreCategory: Commentary
Off Day Ruminations: The Albies Extension
As promised last week, I want to put my economist hat on for just a minute to discuss the Albies extension, in which people argue that Albies and his agent are leaving $100 million or more on the table. There is nothing in...
Read MoreA Modest Proposal
I like baseball. But like most baseball fans, I’m selective. I happen to like the game played on the field by two professional teams and managerial game strategy and the performance of humans under stress and the things...
Read MoreUnit Recap – Bench
One thing clearly apparent from the playoff series against the Dodgers is that the Braves bench has a long way to go to be playoff quality. While the Dodgers were at various times bringing the likes of Max Muncy, Joc Pederson,...
Read MoreUnit Recap — The Staff
There is a proverb that goes like this: Rabbi Simcha Bunim taught that every person should carry two pieces of paper, one in each pocket: in one pocket “For me the world was created.” and in the other “I am but...
Read MoreUnit Recaps – Infield
Last year at this time I wrote a series on the position players, “Where Do We Go From Here?” Think of this as “How Did We Come From There?” The Atlanta Braves reversed a 72 – 90 record in 2017 to...
Read MoreUnit Recap – Outfielders
Boy, did we have a weird outfield last year. The right fielder played like an MVP candidate for half the season and then like Nick Markakis in the next half, the centerfielder played like BJ Upton for half the season but would...
Read MoreOffseason Outlook Part 2 – Ottavino, Kimbrel, Greinke, Kershaw, Corbin, and Iglesias
As mentioned in Part 1, there are still plenty of needs on the pitching side. By my count, there are currently 12 starting pitchers in the organization who could factor into the rotation at some point in 2019: Mike Foltynewicz,...
Read MoreBraves Offseason Outlook, Part 1 – Harper, Machado, Pollock, Realmuto, Pollock, and Donaldson
You’ve already heard at length how much the team exceeded expectations this year. They improved their win total by a whopping 18 games to go from 72-90 to 90-72. They needed several rookies and young players to hit all at...
Read More14 days, 372 comments later
Let’s new-thread. Here. I’ll provide a conversation starter via Peanut: “With his first significant move as the Braves GM, Anthopoulos cleaned the lingering mess from the Olivera trade, which was fueled by...
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here? Position Summary
Since the series began, we’ve hired a new GM and lived through the Acoppolypse. For your shopping convenience, here’s an overview of the position players in one shot. First, a brief look at where we (think) we...
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here? Outfield
The Incumbents The incumbents should be familiar; they are the same incumbents as last season - Matt Kemp, Ender Inciarte, and Nick Markakis. In his 3 seasons as the Braves right fielder Nick Markakis has hit 24 home runs in...
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here? Shortstop
The Incumbent Dansby Swanson played 142 games at shortstop for the Braves in 2017, interrupted by a July demotion to AAA Gwinnett, at which point he was hitting .213. Swanson only got 11 games at AAA (batting .237) before a...
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here? Third Base
It’s complicated. It gets that way when you don’t have a General Manager in place, or really even know what your front office is going to look like, or how many of your prospects are going to be cast into free agency. One...
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here? — In Summary (by Rusty S.)
As an overview of the position players, here’s a brief summary of my findings and opinions from the “Where Do We Go From Here†series. The hard truth is that the Braves had only 2 position players (Freddie Freeman and...
Read MoreThe Best Players in Baseball, 2016 (by Edward)
Here we are at the beginning of the year arguing about Mark Kotsay, as usual. But did you know that according to my rankings method—see last year’s inaugural post—Mark Kotsay isn’t actually one of the best players in...
Read MoreA Better Way To Do World Series Home Field Advantage (by JonathanF)
The change in the CBA which now will end the experiment to make the outcome of the All Star Game determine home field advantage in the World Series has met with general acclaim; this is mostly because people didn’t like the...
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here? — Outfield (by Rusty S.)
Ed. note: Every year we publish a series of articles entitled “Where Do We Go From Here?” in which we analyze what the Braves need to do in order to get better the following year. Here’s the intro to the...
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here? — Catcher (by Rusty S.)
Ed. note: Every year we publish a series of articles entitled “Where Do We Go From Here?” in which we analyze what the Braves need to do in order to get better the following year. Here’s the intro to the...
Read MoreWhere Do We Go From Here? — Second Base (by Rusty S.)
Ed. note: Every year we publish a series of articles entitled “Where Do We Go From Here?” in which we analyze what the Braves need to do in order to get better the following year. Here’s the intro to the...
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