Trivia Question

By the end of the week, what pitcher will have passed Hoyt Wilhelm and Dennis Eckersley for third on the all-time list of games pitched? You'll never guess....






never...




nope, wrong again....









It's....Mike Stanton, who will soon pitch in his 1,072nd game to trail only Jesse Orosco (1252) and John Franco (1119). Ah, to be old and left-handed.

Midseason Grades (Part 1)

With the day off today, it's time to begin taking stock of the Braves situation with the hoary old standby Midseason Grades column(s). It's not going to be pretty, but on with the show. Let's start with the infield:

Adam LaRoche

Roachy is into his third year as starting 1B/designated fan whipping boy, and he hasn't changed a bit. When the Braves were going well, they could carry a mediocre 1B -- now that they're struggling, LaRoche becomes more of a problem. He's at or near the bottom in most NL 1B stats, but nothing is more glaring than a .324 OBP in a league where almost half the starting 1Bs are getting on base at least 40 percent of the time. His lackadaisical style in the field doesn't bother me, but draws the focus of fans' ire even more than his unacceptable results wielding the bat. On a winning team, he could be granted a Gentleman's C, but on this team:

Grade: D


Marcus Giles

Thrust into the leadoff role with the departure of Furcal, Marcus began the year embracing the role -- he walked 11 times in the first seven games, and sported a gaudy .515 OBP. Never had my estimation of him as a ballplayer been higher -- he looked determined to make it work whether he liked it or not. Since then? A .301 OBP and declining power numbers have rendered this his worst full season yet. I expect a better second half, unless he's just going through the motions, which it appears at times. In that case, it's time for him to move on, and I'll remember 2003 fondly.

Grade: D


Edgar Renteria

Renteria arrived with the baggage of a poor year in Boston, where (it's said) he was too sensitive to criticism to thrive, what with the Red Sox famously surly fan base and bitchy sportswriters. If you buy that explanation, then Edgar's performance this year might not be a surprise. In any case, he's been our most consistent everyday performer, with a line of .300/.380/.439 that you'll take from your SS all day long. That's a better line than Furcal ever posted as a Brave, but when you factor in speed and defense it's still fairly clear that Furcal is the better player. Renteria's lack of range, combined with Chipper's perenially poor defense, has mitigated his offensive success somewhat. Still, where would we be without him?

Grade: B+


Chipper Jones

Chipper is having a flashback to 2004 -- moderately healthy, mediocre (for him) results. He's still getting on base, but isn't hitting the ball with much authority. His defense is the same as ever -- he has a strong, accurate arm, and comes in well on bunts, but has no lateral movement and an iron glove. You knew that already. The signing of Hampton and the positional logjam resulting from Chipper's incumbency are the two biggest events of the last few years that led us to this place. If it were Betemit putting up these numbers, admittedly we'd be happy. And we can't forget Chipper's willingness (twice) to restructure his contract for the good of the team. He's the best position player we've ever had and one hell of a teammate, which makes his decline more painful to watch.

Grade: C

A Rare Dominant Performance

After many weeks of watching our starting pitchers nibble (even Smoltz is a nibbler now) and flail, it was with great joy that we witnessed the rotation debut of Chuck James yesterday. Not only were the results grand (8 IP, 1 run, 3 hits, 8 Ks), but the style was refreshing. No hesitation, no signs of inner turmoil. Get the ball, throw the ball. The kid looks good, and with the travails of our rotation this year, he'll now be given every chance to succeed. He appears to be stubborn enough to make something of the opportunity.

Last Couple of Weeks In A Nutshell

Posting here has been rather sporadic of late. Turns out there's a great big world out there beyond Braves-land, with some interesting people and pretty cool stuff. Who knew?

Anyway, please don't fret, dear reader -- Brave-O-Matic has not forsaken you. Here's what's up:

There remains some offensive talent on this team, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts. The guys who are supposed to get on base don't, and those who do get on base either can't run, can't field, or both. The home run hitters hit only home runs, and the second best hitter can't get into the lineup. The shortstop has trouble bending at the waist, and the third baseman's range is defined by how far he can fall to either side.

The rotation is brittle and has been populated by pitchers with no upside, and though they hang in there as often as not, they're forced to stay in the game too long because of the bullpen, which cannot hold a lead of any size.

It's fire sale time. Here's the list of players presently on the active ML roster who should not be either released or considered trade bait:

McCann
Francoeur
Andruw
Ray (only because he's cheap)
James

Honestly, that's it. That's the list.

Dispatch From San Fran

Fully two thirds of the workforce here at Brave-O-Matic spent last week in San Francisco, attending a wedding, seeing the sights (not a bit of fog, by the way), and managed to get to a Giants game on Monday night, against the (presumably) hated Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (Orange County) California. Our contingent sat in the center field bleachers, which is the only way to see a game, unless you have better seats. A few impressions on the AT&T Park experience:

The Ballpark

According to ballparks.com, AT&T Park is the first ballpark since Chavez Ravine in 1962 to have been built exclusively with private funds. Good for them -- I have no idea whether the team attempted to obtain public funds at some point in the process, but few things irk me more than corporate ownership leveraging civic pride and sports fandom to extort tax money to build a ballpark, which is then turned over to said owner.

(Speaking of corporate ownership, the Giants, ever the trend-setters, are the first team to realize the First Law of Corporate Nomenclature -- that being, one day all ballparks shall be known as AT&T Park, and any other name is merely a weigh station in pursuit of this goal)

Parking was a little rough, and I'd be lying if I said there weren't some bruised feelings along the way. On the Annoyance Scale of 1 to 10, I'll give it an 8 -- very little helpful signage, but the lot was fairly close to the stadium, although it cost an absurd $25. Turner Field is a 17, in case you were wondering. On the way out our designated driver, weaned on Southern college football parking lots, simply went around the politely assembled single-file line of cars to save us a good 10-15 minutes. Bravo, Betsy!

The Fans

Maybe it was the interleague opponent or the day of the week, but the fans seemed sedate even by our laid-back standards. Matt Cain came within four outs of a no-hitter, but it seemed most in the crowd didn't notice a thing until he broke out a hammer curveball to strike out one Kendry Morales in the seventh.

Not that I'm complaining -- I've grown too old and grouchy to endure a bunch of drunks, anyway. There was one entertaining, leather-lunged fellow who spent an entire half-inning shouting "What's wrong with Figgins?", as Chone Figgins was playing CF for the Angels. The correct answer, eventually picked up by our entire section after about 40 repetitions, was "He's a bum!" There were several "Beat LA" chants that had to be augmented with "Orange County sucks!" just for the sake of clarity. Good, clean fun at the old ballpark.

The Game

As mentioned, Cain was marvelous. It's probably a good thing he gave up a hit to Figgins in the eighth, because Felipe Alou probably would have let him throw 160 pitches otherwise. Figgins also walked twice, and scored in the first inning without benefit of a hit. He walked to open the game, then stole second. The catcher's throw hit him in the back and careened into left field, and it took Bonds so long to retrieve it that Figgins ended up coming all the way around to score.

Bonds got the run back in the bottom of the first with a cue-shot double down the left field line to score Winn. Steve Finley followed with an RBI groundout to make it 2-1, then 15 straight zeroes closed out the game in a tidy 2:16.

The fans still cheer Barry, but it sounds half-hearted. Being a Bonds fan has surely become a joyless pursuit -- the steroid stuff, his legendary surliness, and an endless string of talking heads excoriating him alone for doing something that probably 200+ other ballplayers are doing, too. I'm sure they're ready to clean house of all their desiccating veterans and move on (sounds familiar).

All in all, it was a fine time, and the garlic fries were, in the local parlance, FAB-U-LOOOUUUSSSS!

Desperation, or Signs of Life?

Two new items of note:

1) Reitsma still has not been released, but the Braves did the next best thing, putting him on the DL for "numbness" in his fingers and calling up Phil Stockman, who's been mowing down AAA batters with alacrity. His combined stats for Mississippi and Richmond read: 37 IP, 10(!) hits, 12 BB, 51 K(!!), 0.73 ERA. It's high time we did something about the pen, and I wouldn't be surprised if it soon looked something like this:

Ken Ray
Phil Stockman
Will Startup
Jorge Sosa (having been replaced in the rotation by Chuck James)
Oscar Vulturreal
Macay McBride

and....

Scot Shields

Shields' acquisition being a possible outcome of Item 2.

Brave-O-Matic hasn't addressed the possibility of trading Giles, and though I like him a lot despite his struggles, it makes sense. Betemit looks ready for a shot at a full-time job, and of the positions he can play, 2B seems the most likely to open up. The Angels have Adam Kennedy to play 2B, but maybe a three-way trade involving the Cardinals could open up.

Thoughts?

Off Day -- Reitsma Not Released

That's the big news coming out of a travel day, the continued presence of Chris Reitsma on the roster. I'm not rooting against the guy -- he somehow doesn't come across as negatively as Kolb did last year -- but he's completely fallen apart now. His appearance in Houston on Sunday was one of those hopeless moments, the like of which we haven't seen since Wohlers went Steve Blass on us.

It was pathetic to see him looking into the dugout as he was getting hammered, looking like he was begging to be taken out. But the absolute low point of the Braves' season occurred after Mike Lamb singled (the seventh Astro to reach base in the inning). Standing at first base, he could clearly be seen saying "poor guy" in referring to the train wreck on the mound.

Of course, Cox and Schuerholz are nothing if not patient with veterans, so it's really not a surprise that Reitsma is still around. And he has exceeded Kolb in one respect -- after beginning 2005 as our closer, Kolb was relegated to mopup duty for the first time on June 8. Reitsma made it all the way to June 11.

In better news, the Georgia Bulldogs spotted their last two opponents (Florida State and South Carolina) a one-game lead before coming back to take the series and advance to the College World Series. Dawg-O-Matic, anyone?

HGH Woes

Wow, you'd have to look around for a while to find a worse player to have cooperated with the feds, from baseball's perspective, than Jason Grimsley. Grimsley has pitched for seven different teams in a big league career that began in 1989, and spans what we usually consider to be the "steroid era".

A quick scan of his Baseball Reference page shows he's had probably 400+ big league teammates in his career. Additionally, he's pitched for 13 different minor league teams since 1985. All told, his total number of teammates is surely over a thousand. While a smoking gun implicating Bonds or Clemens or the like would garner more headlines, getting someone like Grimsley to name names could end up being far more damaging.

I'm halfway through Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and there's a scary lesson therein with regards to Grimsley. Gladwell refers to Connectors, who are people who can exercise an outsized influence on their surroundings by virtue of having an especially large circle of acquaintences. As I understand it, epidemics are facilitated, in Gladwell's thesis, when a Connector shares information gathered by virtue of his extraordinary number of connections.

Jason Grimsley is a Connector. Searching for something good to say about the Braves, at least Grimsley never played for them, and no current Brave player has been a big league teammate of his (though Roger McDowell once was). But how many former Braves do you think have been a teammate of his? I'll give you a moment to think about it.










The answer is 35. Here is an exhaustive list of former Braves who have shared a locker room with the Grims Reaper:

Javy Lopez
BJ Surhoff
Eli Marrero
Bruce Chen
Tony Graffanino
Rudy Seanez
Michael Tucker
Albie Lopez
Paul Byrd
Darrell May
Roberto Hernandez
Jermaine Dye
Trenidad Hubbard
David Justice
Luis Polonia
Roberto Kelly
Mike Stanton
Denny Neagle
Kenny Lofton
Paul Assenmacher
Gregg Olson
Derek Lilliquist
Jeff Treadway
Mike Bielecki
Dale Murphy
Terry Mulholland
Joe Boever
Tommy Greene
Andy Ashby
Jim Vatcher
Jeff Parrett
Marvin Freeman
Randy O'Neal
Larry McWilliams
Steve Bedrosian

Murph, you're officially off the hook. Several of the others were no more than ships passing in the night. But if you don't think there are a few folks in the above list who are a little nervous today, you're kidding yourself.

Am I A Believer?

A couple of years ago Horacio Ramirez drew comparisons to Tom Glavine -- lefty, good-but-not-great stuff, needs to keep the ball down and control walks to be effective. And while there's certainly a chance his latest results are a fluke, he's starting to justify the comparison. None too soon, both for the Braves season and his career.

Just wondering -- McCann is beginning his rehab assignment, and should be back soon to reclaim his starting job. Meanwhile, Brayan Pena's performance has been head-and-shoulders above last year's. I mean, truly, he's been great -- he's got this cool low line drive swing that's built to hit for average, he plays hard and with enthusiasm, and he's fast. I thought Pratt was an ideal offseason pickup, but Pena is really starting to look right at home. So it's question time: What are the chances that Pena gets kept over Pratt? And would that be a good move?