A few games out...a familiar story

The Braves are *only* 4 games out of the wild card trailing only the San Francisco pitching staff and the Colorado Luckies. The question is: can the Braves overtake both teams? and if so, how?

As to the first, the answer is most certainly yes.
As for the second, there lies our discussion.

A few things have to go right for the Braves to surge into the wild card. Namely:
The Rockies and Giants have to split their remaining 6 games. With only 38 games remaining, the best chance the Braves have is to have the Rockies and Giants effectively ensure that neither team surges ahead allowing the Braves to make a come back. Either team winning a majority of those games would mean a tougher climb for the Braves.

Relatedly, the Braves have to keep doing what was successful in the 90's: Winning Series. While an 8 game winning streak would certainly be great; a much more reasonable approach is to just keep winning 2 out of 3 and hope to sweep a series or two along the way. If the Rockies and Giants continue at their current winning % (average of 55.2%), they can be expected to win 21 more games this season. That means to tie them, the Braves would need to win 25 more games (or 66%, which is 2/3 of their games). Looking at the schedule, all three teams have similar schedules remaining with their opponents all having a winning % around 50%.

In order to win each series the Braves need a few things to happen:
(1) Lowe needs to start earning his money. He has been arguably the weakest starting pitcher for the Braves over the past month. If he can pitch reasonably well the Braves have a chance.
Do I think will happen? Actually, yes I do. Lowe has shown signs of fatigue since mid-season due to pitching in Atlanta heat. With cooler weather coming up in September along with the possibility of extra rest due to Tim Hudson's return (see item 2), Lowe could be in good shape for the stretch run.

(2) The Braves need to find a way to use Tim Hudson. Most pundits are mentioning the possibility of a 6 man rotation when Hudson returns and the rosters expand. This seems, to me, like the best way to utilize him. It would allow all our starters to pitch on extra rest including:
Kawakami: who is used to a 6 man rotation from his time in Japan.
Lowe: who, as mentioned above, looks fatigued and could use extra rest.
Hanson: who is surpassing his workload from previous years
Jurjjens: who is still young and whose arm we don't want to wear out.
The only person this might affect negatively is Vazquez who has been a stud all year. But he is a veteran and I think a little breather could help him as well.

(3) The Braves need to get healthy.
We need McClouth's bat and legs.
We need Chipper's timely hitting.
We need Prado's grit.
(I never thought I'd say this) We need Garrett's clutch hitting.

(4) Bobby needs to trust his pen. Relately, some key guys should be coming back.
Moylan, Soriano, and Gonzalez can't keep the bullpen together by themselves. Bobby is going to have to put Acosta and Medlen (who has looked dynamite lately) in more situations. Along with that Jojo, Buddy, and Parr (and perhaps even Hudson) could come back and help stimulate the bullpen.

(5) The rest of the hitters need to keep on chugging. McCann, LaRoche, Infante, Diaz have all been swinging hot sticks lately. They need to keep the team afloat til the re-inforcements arrive.


I know this seems like a big list, but my homerdom thinks it's achieveable. Go Braves!

Upcoming Braves Schedule

I've always looked ahead at the upcoming pitching match-ups for the Braves. Sometimes if fills me with joy... sometimes with dread. This year has mostly been depression because I would love the pitching match-up for the Braves, but it would always come with the caveat that was the Braves' offense.

Now I look at the upcoming match-ups and smile. I feel like we have close to automatic wins against any pitcher that isn't an ace. Jurrjens vs. Ricky Nolasco? Feels like an off day. Vazquez vs. VandenHurk? Not a problem. Even when it's a tough match-up, I feel as though we have a chance. I mean if we can get runs off of Lincecum, why should I be worried about Kawakami vs. Josh Johnson or Jurrjens vs. Chad Billingsley?

Sure, the offense is not going to keep this many hot hitters at the same time, but at least I now have hope. Besides, Rob Neyer believes in the Braves' hitters. Of course he is a Royals fan... so one has to question his judgment somewhat...

Organizational Development?

Namely, what is going on with the Braves' development of position players. In recent history it appears that our minor league system prepares hitters to appear good right out of the bat and then fade off.
Jeff Francoeur
Kelly Johnson
Marcus Giles
Adam LaRoche
and many more to a lesser extent (Brandon Jones, Brayan Pena, Scott Thorman)
even prospects we've traded away:
Andy Marte
Jarrod Saltalamacchia

The only hitting prospects that have 'panned out' to be conistently good players recently are McCann and Escobar. You could argue that Escobar developed more in the professional leagues in Cuba (and I would tend to believe that, as it appears in his attitude that he doesn't necessarily listen well to coaching here). So really, we're left with only McCann being a hitter that realized his potential.

With uber-prospects Jason Heyward and Freddie Freeman tearing it up at AA, the time is approaching when they will be called up. It seems that the Braves have a trend of bringing up people before they are truly seasoned, at the moment they either look ready or look like they have nothing "left to prove" in the minors. My wonder is if we'd be better off allowing them a full season of AAA in order to develop not just physically but mentally. Knowing they had a full season to work on various aspects of their game might prepare them more for the rigors of the MLB and help them understand the necessity of making adjustments.

All too often the Braves use success in the minors, however brief, as a crutch to determine a players' readiness. Perhaps more prudence should be involved in helping the players mature and understand that the big leagues take constant tinkering and openness to change. Maybe forcing them to be patient and work on learning the game will lead us to more McCanns and less Francoeurs. And that is certainly a good thing!

Too Many Starters?

As everyone knows, starting pitching has been the Braves biggest (and arguably only) strength this year. And if Hudson's rehab goes well, that strength could get even better. The problem is that the Braves will have 6 good starters for a 5-man rotation. So the question for this post is, how do the Braves deal with this wonderful problem?

The first option that has been bantered around is to trade one of the starters. With Lowe and Kawakami's longer contracts and the youth of Jurrjens and Hanson, the only trade option is Vazquez. Vazquez, however, has been pitching lights out for Atlanta and apparently loves Bobby and the Braves. Additionally he would have to be moved before the trade deadline, and Hudson won't be available until mid to late August. So that would mean the Braves would have to insert a questionable fifth starter for about 4 starts. Plus I don't think we could get equal value for him. I'm not too thrilled about this option.

The second option is to move someone to the bullpen. Lowe has the worst ERA of the bunch, but I think everyone would agree it would be silly to move him to the pen. Jurrjens and Vazquez have been too good. So it comes down to either Kawakami, Hanson, or Hudson. I think if Hudson is ready to go the Braves will stick him in the rotation and not the bullpen. I would have agreed with Kawakami a month ago, but he seems to be gettting a feel for pitching in the majors and I wouldn't want to mess that up by shifting him to a new role. Hanson seems like the best prospect because he can come in and throw hard out of the pen, it will limit his innings this year, and he will still get some more major league seasoning. The only worry is that moving him back and forth from the pen will mess up his head. But come playoff time we're not going to have a 5-man rotation and Hanson would probably go to the pen then anyway, so why not give him some time to adjust before any possible playoff exposure. He could be our David Price. That is assuming that we make the playoffs though...

The third option, which I like the most, is to simply go to a 6-man rotation. It would save some innings from Hanson's and Jurrjen's arms, help ease Hudson into starting, and probably help Kawakami who is used to a 6-man rotation from Japan. It would only really affect Lowe and Vazquez, who are used to the 5-man rotation. I worried about this option further taxing the bullpen, since it would give them one less arm. But by the time Hudson comes back it will be time to extend the roster to 40 players, which would give Bobby several more arms in the pen so he doesn't abuse the few we would have left.

I'm in favor of the 6-man rotation. What do you think?

Braves Infield Utility Players and Why the Hell is Norton Hitting?!

What is up with our utility players? They have been tearing it up... more so than anyone else in the lineup.

If you take a look at the Braves batting statistics, the top three hitters in terms of average are Infante (get well soon!), Brooks Conrad, and Prado. Granted Conrad and Infante have done it in very limited stints and Prado is now our starting second baseman, but still! Combine them all and you have a very good starter.

And then you factor in David Ross who has 11 xbh in only 104 plate appearances and you start to wonder: WHY THE HELL IS BOBBY STILL TROTTING OUT GREG NORTON TO PINCH-HIT?! I can't say anymore or I'll break my rule about only talking about hitters with an OBP higher than .350, but I'll just link to his playercard. It's scary...

On that note, I should mention that I'll probably be posting more about the Braves since we have more members of the .350 club. Since my last post Ryan Church, Martin Prado, Brooks Conrad, Yunel Escobar, and Casey Kotchman have joined Brandon Jones, Brian McCann, Chipper Jones, David Ross, Omar Infante, and Matt Diaz. If you put Church in center (where he was last night) and Brandon Jones in left (where he was earlier this year) that's an entire starting lineup.

I think my blog is inspiring the Braves, so I will continue to post.