In1978, I would turn seven years old in September, but that is not why the year was significant.  It was the year of three Popes, the shooting of Larry Flynt.  Pfffft, ho hum.  The Jonestown massacre, The Bee Gees taking over radio and record players via "Saturday Night Fever"; big whoop.  1978 was truly meaningful for one reason: cable TV finally made its way to my home in tiny Trenton, Georgia.  Arriving via cable was a multitude of goodies designed just for me; cartoons from decades prior with loads of goofy violence, Three Stooges shorts with loads of goofy violence, Georgia Championship Wrestling with, well, you know.  Most importantly, it was the first time I witnessed with a clear picture, free of UHF antenna snow, my Atlanta Braves, and my first clear memory of a Braves game just happened to involve a rare blowout win, a jerk who happened to be a great ballplayer, and one of the funkiest pitchers of the last four decades.

Though I am unsure, my guess is that I had seen the Braves before while attempting to manipulate the UHF contraption (I could waste a lot of time explaining UHF to the younger generation, but that would just make me feel 40).  I think we got a better picture using an ordinary wire clothes hanger on the back of the TV, which means Joan Crawford must have beaten the living daylights out of some TVs back in her day.  Then, one day, the Trenton Cable Company was founded bringing clarity to the vacuum tubes and some of the most fond moments of childhood.

It was, at best, primitive cable TV for a somewhat primitive part of the country - one time just after service was restored, the explanation for an outage appeared on the public access channel, a piece of poster board held in front of a black-and-white camera that read "We apologize for the interruption in service.  Someone shot the cable last night."  Like most everything else in Dade County, the cable company was probably owned by our version of Boss Hogg, the "elected" Commissioner of Roads and Revenue who, as they say, must have owned a Vaseline factory because his palms were so greased.  But little boys didn't care about stuff like that back then.  All that mattered was I got to see Gordon Solie call wrestling matches on Saturdays and the Braves just about every single day during the Summer.  It was heaven, though the Braves were utter hell.

Since the year of my birth, the Braves had been winners only once, 1974 - the last hurrah for Hank Aaron, traded to the Milwaukee Brewers less than seven months after breaking Babe Ruth's career home run record that season.  Atlanta was 88-74, good enough to tie for the lead in the National League East.  The only problem was that the league had presaged this generation's lack of geographical sense and had placed the Braves in the West Division when the league was divided in two in 1969.  That meant the Braves finished well behind the Big Red Machine from Cincinnati and the Dodgers, who would go to the World Series that year.

The Braves began 1978 from what had since become their natural habitat, 6th place in a six-team division - they had finished the previous two seasons there.  They also began the year with a brand new manager, a guy who at one time was the "third baseman of the future" for the Yankees, and who instead finished his two-year big league career with nine homers and an 87 OPS+ on some forgettable New York teams.  Bobby Cox was 37, two years younger than Knucksie - Braves star pitcher and, at the time, their only truly great player, Phil Niekro.  Cox had a nice record as a minor league manager in the Yankees system plus a World Series ring as first-base coach for the Yankees' '77 team.  Surely he couldn't have been any worse than Atlanta's skipper the year before - the year owner Ted Turner named himself manager for all of one game (a loss, of course) until National League president Chub Feeney banned The Ted from the dugout.  The Braves would indeed win eight more games in '78 than in '77, yet finish last again.  However, there was one glorious night at old Fulton County Stadium that summer.

Slightly more than 31,000 folks were at the ballpark on August 1, quite stunning since the Braves only averaged about 11,000 per game that ugly season.  Usually, it took outstanding promotions such as "Wet T-Shirt Night" and "Headlock and Wedlock Night" (weddings before the game, Mr. Wrestling II and his brethren in the squared circle after the game) to draw more than mosquitos.  The night before, the Braves had drawn an incredible 45,000 folks to watch Pete Rose extend his hitting streak to 44 games, still far away from Joe DiMaggio's 56-game record, but the closest anyone had ever come to Mr. Coffee.  There was no reason to think The Gambler would not extend the streak to what would have been a new National League record.  After all, starting for the Braves that night was a 24-year-old rookie left-hander; Larry McWilliams, making just his fourth start in the majors. 
 
Larry Mac opened the game by walking Rose who, as was customary after drawing a walk with his ligament-straining, super duper batting squat, ran full speed to first.  Rose would later score, and after Johnny Bench hit a two-run homer soon afterward., it looked like another typical night of viewing on WTCG, Channel 17.  That meant Skip Caray, Ernie Johnson, and Pete Van Wieren would spend a good chunk of their call of the game cracking jokes about whatever horrid movie was coming on afterward.  But the Braves' bats, which needed a Terminix treatment for much of the season, actually showed up that evening.  Barry Bonnell, who swung the stick of Mormon conversion better than a baseball bit (among his converts: Dale Murphy), hit his first home run of the year, and the Braves were hanging tough.

Rose was up again in the 2nd inning and lined a shot up the middle.  The hitting streak continued, except that it didn't.  In what was likely the best defensive play of his career, McWilliams leaned as far to his right as a left-handed pitcher following through could, stuck out his glove, and the ball magically went in for the final out of the inning.  Pete led off the 5th with a weak ground-out to short, and somehow, the Braves started to put the game out of reach in the bottom of the inning with a three-run bomb from Atlanta's answer to Gorgeous George in all his blond permed goodness, the man with less than two months in the bigs after refusing to play in the minors, Bob Horner.

Rose would next face the man who saw every part of the ballpark with every pitch, the underhanded Luis Tiant, and someone who had only been with the Braves as long as Bob Horner.  Gene Garber came to Atlanta in a June 15th trade, from a playoff contender in Philadelphia to baseball purgatory.  Gene was Atlanta's closer and came into the game to start the 7th inning.  If you are younger than 30, you read that correctly.  Most closers back then were real pitchers who pitched more than one inning unlike the vast majority of throwers masquerading as pitchers in today's closer world.  Dave Collins led off the inning with a single, and it looked as if Pete had extended his streak with a line shot a few pitches later.  But that line shot went directly into the glove of Horner at third base, who tossed to first a pre-center field Murphy to double off Collins.  Fortunately for the man who would later be choke-slammed by Kane at Wrestlemania, Ken Griffey and Dave Concepcion singled after the double play, meaning Pete would get one more turn at the plate.

The Braves had put the game away with eight runs in the 7th and 8th, leading 16-4, and Rose due up third in the 9th inning.  As any baseball fan knows, the gods (or, nowadays, Rupert Murdoch) always set up dramatic confrontations with an eye to detail, so we knew Mr. Parlay Sheet would potentially be the final out of the game.  In an atmosphere that wouldn't be replicated until the Braves opened the '82 season with 13 straight wins, the future chicken farmer struck out the giant turkey with a series of lollipop change ups. Van Wieren screamed into the mic "the hitting streak is over!", as animated as The Professor would ever be in the broadcast booth.  Rose and Reds manager Sparky Anderson would later complain that Garber didn't normally throw that many change ups, that he pitched Rose as if it were the seventh game of a World Series.  But as Garber accurately pointed out, for the Braves it might as well have been game seven, and, come on, Garber's fastball was slower than his herky-jerky motion, much less his change.

It may have been the highlight of Cox's first and mostly forgettable tenure as manager of the Atlanta Braves.  The memories, the championships, the reason his number 6 was retired and he was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame wouldn't take place until many years later.  This past Friday, the day of Cox's induction, Ernie Johnson passed away.  It also would have been Skip Caray's 72nd birthday had we not lost him three years ago.  Good gracious, it wasn't that long ago, was it?

This is a departure from the norm as it doesn't have anything to do with the Braves, but the Savannah Sand Gnats open their season tomorrow night with a Thirsty Thursday game against the West Virginia Power at Historic Grayson Stadium.  First pitch is at 7:05, and yes, Thirsty Thursday is half-price draft beer (or Coke/soda if you choose not to imbibe).   Also, admission is free tonight at 7:05 as the Gnats will play an abbreviated exhibition game against SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design).

If you are outside of the Savannah area, the Gnats are the South Atlantic League (low A) affiliate of the New York Mets, and before you make any Mets jokes, I should tell you that I am employed by the Gnats as their P.A. announcer.  So if any members of management are reading, those horrible things written about the Metropolitans with my name attached were actually written by someone else.

Being a Braves fan, it is fun to observe the future competition every day.  The Sand Gnats opening day roster includes some of the Mets' top prospects, including shortstop Wilmer Flores, who played in the Futures Game last year, and third baseman Jefry Marte.  Both are only 18, and both played all last season in Savannah.   Flores didn't hit a lot in '09 but showed very good range at shortstop, though some project him to be a second baseman or outfielder by the time he reaches the majors.   Marte struggled mightily on both sides of the ball.  He hit a little better in the second half, but was on pace to set a single season league  record for errors before his year ended early with a hand injury.  Given their ages, the Mets have a lot of time to develop both men.

Also high on the prospect list are outfielder Cesar Puello, who seems to have a lot of talent but not a lot of patience at the plate yet, right-hander Armando Rodriguez, who will be the Gnats' opening night starter, and righty Brandon Moore, who pitched a no-hitter for the short-season Brooklyn Cyclones in 2009.

I will report on America's Team's prospects when the Rome Braves come to Savannah May 12-15, but I will also write occasionally about the Sand Gnats during the season, including all the goofy stuff that makes minor league baseball so wonderful.  If you make a trip to Savannah, come say hello or, if you think I am crazy for believing more in Nate McLouth than Melky Cabrera, how much of a dolt I am.

Also, if you don't know much about SCAD, don't wonder aloud what a bunch of Project Runway wannabes are doing on the baseball field.  SCAD is one of the best schools of the arts - all the arts - in the world.  They also happen to have one of the top sports programs at the NAIA level, and their lacrosse teams could kick all our butts with their shafts tied behind their backs, so I am definitely down with SCAD.

Braves Lifer

After hearing Joe Simpson tell me at the beginning of yesterday's Braves/Cubs telecast that Derek Lowe had a good spring, that his new motion was wondrous, that his late 2009 troubles were behind him, that the sun had risen, and that the liquor was tasty, my first thought was "how long until he blows up?"  The answer was less than an inning as Marlon Byrd blasted a three-run homer after a couple other Cubbies had recorded hard-hit, fly ball outs on our "ground-ball pitcher."

It is true that D Lowe settled down in the second inning before giving up another homer, then mostly settled down for the remainder of his six innings of work.  Granted, Mr. Heyward, Cohiba Escobar, Mac Daddy, et al kept the pressure off Lowe with their bats.  You can't read too much into one start, but D Lowe's line looked a lot like many of his lines near the end of 2009:

6 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 2 HR, 3 BB, 2 K

Sure, there were several ground ball outs, but there were also some hard hit fly balls, plus the "catch" by Natey Mac that was one of the worst calls ever made that didn't involve tequila shots.  The "catch" probably saved Lowe from giving up at least one more run and perhaps two.  

Derek Lowe was still a good pitcher early last season, but he was not the same pitcher he was the previous four years in Los Angeles.    Here was Lowe's line through his first 25 starts of 2009:

150 IP, 162 Hits, 8 HR, 49 BB (2.94 BB/9), 79 K's (4.74 K/9), 4.08 ERA, 1.41 WHIP

Lowe gave up a few more hits and a few more walks as a Brave, as his WHIP for his four seasons in L.A. were 1.25, 1.27, 1.27, and 1.13.  His ERA was up slightly from the Dodger days as well.  However, Lowe was also mostly keeping the ball down, as his home run rate dropped a bit.   He was still an effective pitcher, at least league-average.  Then, beginning with an August 18 start against the Mets, something unraveled.   This is Lowe's line since that start, including yesterday's game:

50.2 IP, 75 Hits, 10 HR, 17 BB (3.02 BB/9), 34 K's (6.04 K/9), 6.75 ERA, 1.82 WHIP

The only good news there is the boost in strikeouts, and that boost was exclusive to last season as Lowe had only two K's in six innings yesterday.  Also, the strikeout increase is dwarfed by the big increase in hits, the small rise in walks, and the huge increase in homers.   I am not an expert, but it sounds as if Lowe's sinker stopped sinking as much, or at least as often, last August 18.  If the much ballyhooed "change in pitching motion" made any difference yesterday, it was only sporadic at best.

We need to see a few more starts from D Lowe before making any definitive call, and I still believe there is a good chance Lowe will be a league-average pitcher this year.  As I have said before, if he and Iron Chef Kenshin Kawakami are league-average and the other pitchers perform as they should, the Braves should win the East.  But Lowe blew his chance to show that his late '09 swoon was behind him, and the pressure to perform will only increase from here on out.  We can click our ruby slippers as much as we want, but the Braves' bats aren't going to give D Lowe double digits every time out.

Braves Lifer

Let’s see, a Heymaker, two for Albert Pujols, two for some cat named Garrett Jones to help the Featherswords beat the L.A. Overrated Prima Donnas, Mark Buehrle makes the best pitcher defensive play ever, Oakland A’s fans, all four of them, rip the team’s owner, and the Yankees lose!  Was this the best Opening Day ever or what?  Would have been better if the Mets and Phils had lost, but Roy Halladay was very good, and the Mets got lucky with that stupid opening day lineup they used.  That won't last long.

By the way, I wish I could say I came up with Heymaker, but I didn’t.  Craig Calcaterra used it on the suggestion of someone from Twitter.  I like it much better than J-Hey, which the Atlanta sports writers are trying to claim they invented.  "Mr. Heyward" is still my preference.

Well, take that back.  For a couple of seconds, I thought about using "JC" in response to a friend who is a Giants fan.  He used to refer to Tim Lincecum as "Jesus' Son", but in one of his Facebook posts yesterday, Lincecum magically became "JC."  I think I will refrain from that one, as I don't want to step on anyone's religion.

More at Braves Lifer.

Opening Day is here!  Now, it is time to answer two vital question;  one, who will be the champeens of the National League East seven months from now and, two, whether to do pork with a bourbon glaze for an early dinner to accompany the Braves and Cubs or go for the more traditional dogs and nachos.  While we salivate over the second question, the first is rather easy to answer, surprisingly easy.  If they stay reasonably healthy, there is no reason the Braves shouldn't win the division over the Phillies, though whoever finishes second seems almost a lock to get into the playoffs as the wild card.

I am, frankly, stunned to make that prediction because, if you don't know by now, I am the Ultimate Pessimist (which would be a fantastic pro wrestling character, don't you think?).  I have had to strain so hard to see the good in having Melky Cabrera on the team that I check for hernias every night.  I keep waiting for Double J, Jair Jurrjens to leave a start in the second inning with "mild discomfort" in his shoulder and be listed day-to-day for three weeks before finally going on the disabled list, even though they can't find any damage.  I expect Chipper Jones to miss four games in a couple weeks with the only injury he has not sustained during his Hall of Fame career, a sprained schwanzstucker.

Yet when I compare the Braves to the Quakers, I see a division title.  How can this be?  The Phillies appear to have more talent, especially in the field.  We know about Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, though there's a chance that Jayson Werth could be better than both this season.  Shane Victorino is pretty good.  Jimmy Rollins is good, though overrated.  Raul Ibanez should regress some as he will turn 38 in June, but he will still hit pretty well and field pretty awful.  In other words, he will probably be your typical National League all-star left fielder.

On the mound, it is hard to argue against a one-two punch of Roy Halladay and Cole Hamels, whom I think will be much better than last year.  So how do the Braves beat the original Jays (historical note: Phillies management tried to re-nickname the team the Blue Jays for a time in the 1940's, their 'lipstick on a pig' attempt to revive the squad, similar to when the Boston Braves became the 'Bees' in 1936)?  It is more simple than you think.

The Braves may not match up to the Phillies everyday lineup in the field, but I think the lineups are closer in strength than you think, IF.   Actually, that should a plural 'ifs'.  Chipper has to keep his body parts mostly healthy and have a decent year; not spectacular, just decent.  Troy Glaus has to have a decent year at first, again, no MVP-type play is needed, just a year about equal to a good Chipper year.  Jason Heyward doesn't have to be Wally Berger, he just has to be good.  The trio of McLouth, Melky, and Matt need to be themselves, nothing more.  If all that takes place, the Braves simply shouldn't lose because, unlike the Philadelphians, Atlanta is more loaded than Otis Campbell on the mound.

Though I do fear that Double J is a tad overrated, who can argue with a rotation of Tommy Hanson, Jurrjens, Tim Hudson, Derek Lowe, and Iron Chef Kawakami?  Sure, it could be better.  Any team's rotation could be better, but I dare you to name a deeper five-man rotation.  Not a rotation of two or three good starters plus a couple of rookies or rag-armed veterans, a rotation with five solid pitchers.  In today's overly expanded MLB, such a rotation is more rare than a Barry Bonds public appearance.

When injury comes, and it always does, Kris Medlen looks as if he is ready to be a big-league starter.  Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito make the back end of the bullpen pretty good at the very least, and excellent if they stay healthy.  Come mid-season, if he has any control at all, Craig Kimbrel could be ready to come up from the minors and make the pen even stronger.  Depending on the health of the older guys, The Kimmer could be the closer by the stretch run.  The Phillies may have Halladay and Hamels in the rotation, but they don't have much else in the way of pitching.  Well, they do, but not much that is proven at the big league level other than Jamie Moyer, who has been pitching since V-J Day and has ERA's around five every year.  Unless the 2008 version of Brad Lidge emerges from the disabled list and J.A. Happ continues to pitch better than he actually is,  the Phils will have to pull off a major deal before the deadline to have enough arms to get them in the playoffs.

But the main reason the Braves will win is history.  Sure, the Phillies are working on a turkey of pennants, but that nickname, the Phillies, is lame.  It is derived from Philadelphians, which apparently shows how much of a creativity drain the city suffered when the Founding Fathers left for greener pastures a couple hundred years ago.   On the other hand, the Braves' team nickname was originally derived from a group of corrupt politicians, and since corrupt politics is in vogue right now, that tells me the stars are aligned for victory.   No, I don't think we should do The Washington and bribe the writers to vote for us.  I want to rub it in as many faces as possible, starting with those know-it-alls at ESPN who are so quick to flash their 'resumes' at us while they are "analyzing."

Mark it down, the Braves will win the division.  Now, if half the lineup is on the DL in two weeks and we're 15 games out by mid-May, this post never happened.  Happy Opening Day, and let's play ball!

Word is that the switch-pitcher with the six-fingered glove, Pat Venditte, will actually get a look, a serious look supposedly, from Yankees manager Joe Girardi during a split-squad game against the Braves later today.  Good Lord, what took the Yankees so long?

Actually, that's one of those questions to which you know the answer before you ask the question.  First, he doesn't have the physical appearance or tools of a super stud like Tommy Hanson, nor does he have a funky appearance with a freaky arm that doesn't match like Tim Lincecum (or as my friend and Altoona Curve play-by-play man Mike Passanisi calls him, 'Jesus's son').  Pat looks ordinary, like you or me unless you don't look ordinary, and his baseball abilities are rather hum drum to the naked eye.  Oh, did I mention he can pitch with both arms?

A fluke, a gimmick you may say.  But it is a gimmick that has struck out 11.7 batters per nine innings and walked fewer than two batters per nine in two minor league seasons.   His career ERA, 1.53.  Career WHIP?  0.950. You won't find too many 45th round draft picks with those numbers.  But Venditte can't be for real, can he?  Evidently, not many people in the Yankees organization believe so.

Having seen Venditte pitch a few times last season, I understand why.  While Venditte was the closer for the Yankees' South Atlantic League team in Charleston (SC), he walked a batter during a ninth-inning appearance against the Mets' farm team, the Savannah Sand Gnats (full disclosure, I am employed by the Sand Gnats). Yes, that was remarkable because it was one of only two batters Venditte walked in 30.2 innings with the Riverdogs before the Yankees promoted him to high-A Tampa.  What was also remarkable was that Venditte got left-handed batters out even though his velocity as a left-handed pitcher was akin to some of those 12-year-olds you see in the Little League World Series every year.

Venditte barely hit the low 70's with his fastball as a lefty.  He basically has two pitches as a southpaw, the slow fastball and an even slower slider.  Yet the Sand Gnats' lefties, or most other lefties in the league for that matter, couldn't touch him.  Perhaps they had trouble adjusting to the drop in speed, but the bottom line is Venditte got lefties out with his batting-practice speed southpaw stuff just as effectively as he did with his mid-to-upper 80's stuff from the right-handed side.  The fact that none of those numbers is located in the 90's is, I think, the main reason so many at the big league level are skeptical of Six-Finger Pat.

Sure, "conventional wisdom" tells us that a pitcher who throws less than 90 won't make it in the show.  If you don't have a fastball in the low 90's, big league hitters will smoke you, the experts say.  Oh, and if you are a normal-sized human being, you better throw in the mid-to-upper 90's, because I suppose you can get away with lobbing softballs if you look like Paul Bunyan or Charlie Kerfeld.  It makes me wish I were a fly on the wall in the Chicago Cubs' organization offices in 1986, as a conversation like this must have taken place at least once:

"He's getting a lot of people out in the minors."

"Yeah, but he doesn't throw that hard."

"So, he was 10-1 at Iowa after we promoted him."

"Yeah, but that's Iowa.  Your grandma could walk out of the corn fields over there and get people out in that league.  Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but his ERA went up from where it was at Double-A."

"Sure.  All the way up to 3.02.  This kid is almost ready.  And he doesn't walk a whole lot of people either"

"He'll never make it in the majors.  Big League batters will see that 88-90 'heater' and kill it, especially at Wrigley.  Besides, he looks like those dweebs whose heads we used to stick down the toilet.  He'll be done in five years."

That conversation, if it took place, would have been about Greg Maddux.   Now, before you think I am comparing Mad Dog to Venditte, the comparison is not even close.  Maddux was drafted in the second round as opposed to the 45th round, so someone must have seen something in the guy who looked like he was the captain of the high school chess club.  Still, both Maddux and Tom Glavine in their minor league days hardly fit the profile of a "can't miss major league prospect (trademark pending)", and all they did was win well over 600 games.  I doubt Venditte would be that successful, but good gracious, shouldn't mowing down everyone in your minor league path at least get you a shot to show what you can do?

As Rob Neyer points out, Venditte is now 25.  Why wait until he is 27 to see if he is ready for the show, or perhaps if the show is ready for him?  At a time when Major League Baseball is desperate for attention-getting stories that don't involve pills, needles, lying players or clueless commissioners, why look at one of those stories straight in the eye and dismiss it as a freak that will never work?

Braves musings at Braves Lifer.

No, I am not worried about prospects for his on-field performance now that he is the opening-day right fielder. I am worried about the Chipper-esqe nagging injuries.

Jason Heyward played in only 99 games last year due to a variety of little ailments...at age 19. One way to tell just how good Heyward appears to be is that he was Minor League Player Of The Year even though he missed about a third of the season. Now, for the second time during Spring Training, Heyward is missing time. This time, it is shin splints, and for whatever reason, I have this fear that, shin splints being what they are, this injury isn't going to magically disappear.

Heyward missed time earlier in the Spring with a sore back after crashing into the outfield wall during a game. Both he and Mr. Cox say he probably could have played through that pain had it been the regular season, and there is no reason to doubt them. Still, given his history and what we have been through with Chipper for several seasons, it gives one pause to see him missing some more time this close to the regular season.

Perhaps I am overreacting. It wouldn't be the first time. It doesn't help my psyche that Yunel is also hurting. Still, it could be worse. It could be a pitcher hurting, which would mean that the thought would cross someone's brain that we might need to keep Manny Acosta on the roster. Oh, the humanity!

More Braves musings at Braves Lifer.

If I caused you pain

I know I’m to blame

I must have been insane

Believe me

From the bottom of my heart, dear

I apologize

From "I Apologize" (1931), written by Al Goodhart, Al Hoffman, and Ed Nelson.  Yes, I don’t get out very much.

Dear Mr. Francoeur,

You have been a favorite whipping boy of a lot of Atlanta Braves’ fans for the last two years, if not more, a bigger whipping boy than George South during his WCW days.  Some of us have even gone so far as to rename the inability to take a pitch outside the strike zone as "Francoeur’s Disease."   The harangue eventually became so loud that your hometown team, the team for which you had dreamed of playing, finally had enough and traded you to the evil New York Mets, which gave us even more reason to rip you to shreds.  Today, at least for this Frenchy-basher, it ends, and not because you touched your old team for a bomb and two walks (two walks in one game!  You!!) in a Spring Training game this week.  This goes much deeper, as some soul searching has led me to believe that we, the Braves’ fans, are at least partly responsible for how your career has played out.  For that, Mr. Francoeur, I apologize.

It all began as so many romances begin, love at first bat.  Well, fourth bat, since that three-run homer in your first game came in your fourth at-bat of the night.  Still, oh what a night it was.  The hometown hero, bow-chicka-bow-bow handsome high school legend, passed up playing college football at Auburn-With-A-Lake so he could sign with the team of his boyhood, all the while still dating your boyhood sweetie pie.   Not a single plate appearance above Double-A, but that didn’t matter.  You were big, strong, strapping, fast, possessed a gun (not the normal kind of Atlanta gun, the other kind), and could hit a ball a mile when you made contact.

When you got off to that ridiculously hot start, well, somewhat hot in hindsight, we couldn’t take our eyes off you.  Didn’t want to.  We didn’t care to look at your minor league numbers, your .322 on-base percentage in 2005 before your Atlanta call-up.  Your .321 OBP the year before, your .325 OBP the year before that, those were the eye chart, and we were the blind people pretending to read it.   When someone would mention the 88 walks in roughly three minor league seasons, we shouldn’t have put our hands over our ears and screamed "la la la laaaaaa!"  But can you blame us?  After all, the Messiah had come to save our season.    The Bible itself, Sports Illustrated and all the other disciples in the media told us so.

Sure, we eventually noticed that you didn’t draw an unintentional walk until your 37th major league game, but we were told "hey, that’s no biggie."  Yes, it might have the job of Braves management to do the right thing and send you back down to help you learn to be more patient, but with the media crowning you the new King of Kings, how could they?  How could they risk the wrath of the horde of media columnists who, as we all know, are more knowledgeable about baseball than Branch Rickey, Bill Veeck, Billy Martin, Billy Beane, and Billy Carter combined.  How could they risk the stink-eye of the fans who have been told repeatedly by the punditry that if you play well for a handful of games, you are ready to be a major leaguer forrrrrrrr-evvvvvv-errrrrrrrrr?  How could management do its job when hitting coach Terry Pendleton had already abrogated his responsibility by publicly endorsing your free-swinging style?  No, sending you down was out of the question.

The next season came, as did reality in the form of a .293 OBP.   But were the Braves about to try a trip to the minors to work out the kinks?  How could they?  We the fans would have had John Schuerholz’s head because you were still driving in lots of runs and, after all, the Lord Pundits say RBI are very very very very very important.  Sure, Tallulah the manta ray at the Georgia Aquarium could have driven in a hundred with Chipper Jones, Marcus Giles, Andruw Jones, and Edgar Renteria hitting in front of  her, but I digress.  You were a big leaguer, and by the time the pundits figured out they had made a mistake….two years later, it was much too late to have the minor leagues fix the kinks.

You, understandably, didn’t think you had any kinks to fix.  That’s what you had been told by the media, most fans, and your own coaching staff virtually from day one.  So, naturally, you should have been offended when anyone, from pundit to fan, would suggest otherwise.  Yet here some of us were, full of ridicule and daily asking the question if there were some sort of medication available to cure premature bat movement (or, perhaps, if you could have just fantasized about Bea Arthur or something).  How dare we, the fans, do this when we, in part, were the reason your bat was out of control.

The polite thing would be for me to wish you the best in the future, but I cannot in good conscience do that.  You play for the Mets.  We are competing against you for a division title, so I frankly hope you have another .290 OBP season.  But the daily mocking, at least on my part, stops right now, especially since the fans are part of the reason you are who you are as a ballplayer.  Jeff, I am sorry, and while I wish you nothing but a cruddy season with the Evil Ones, I will not make fun of you ever again.  At least not until next week…oh, okay, ever.

I sure hope so.  Wrestling II could kick Gagne's butt.

Nice bombs from Mac Daddy off a lefty, too.  Wonder how much Brian is going to eventually want now that Joe Mauer has his one berzerker gazillion dollars?  Does Verne Gagne's AWA pay better than Georgia Championship Wrestling?

If McCann were in old GCW, would he be Mr. Wrestling II?  Don't think he's pretty enough to be "Wildfire" Tommy Rich.

Tim Hudson is ready, which is nice.  And that was a crack off Freddie Freeman's bat late, though I just don't think there's enough room for him on the big boy roster right now.  But it sure looks as if he's close.

He was a lifelong Braves fan, and also known as "The Priest of Polo" for his frequent attendance and blessings of the field and players at polo matches in West Palm Beach, Florida.  Rev. John Mangrum, an Episcopal Priest, died last week at age 87.

Rev. Mangrum became a Braves fan because of his wife, who preceded him in death in 2001.  He also served as the Braves' Spring Training chaplain in the days when the team trained at West Palm Beach.   He was a veteran of World War II and played cello in the symphony orchestras of Tampa and Jacksonville.

I love the AJC writers.  In a strong, masculine way.  But lines like this one from Jeff Schultz puzzle me:

It doesn’t make sense to panic only 31 at-bats into a regular season. So I suppose it doesn’t make sense to panic 31 at-bats into spring training. But is it too early to be concerned about Nate McLouth?

In other words, it doesn’t make sense to panic, but IT’S COMING RIGHT AT US!  Run for your lives!!

Mr. Schultz goes on to say how the Braves were concerned with McLouth batting lead-off last season, citing, yes, the stat that doesn’t matter any more unless it is super low; batting average.  Sorry, but that argument doesn’t wash either because Natey Mac’s on-base-percentage after coming to the Braves was .354.  That just happens to be higher than any OBP posted by Rafael Furcal during his Braves tenure with the exception of Furcal’s rookie season, and Furcal is usually the man promoted as the last "true lead-off man (trademark pending)" the Braves had.

Sorry to sound like a broken record (man, am I getting old!), but the Spring Training zone is for the loading and unloading of opinions grounded in some sort of empirical reality.  There is no panicking in the Spring Training zone.  Also, as much as I have argued that Melky Cabrera doesn’t belong in the starting lineup to begin the season, this is why it is great that we have Melky on the team.  If McLouth’s slump continues when the games count, we have a fairly decent, experienced outfielder who can step in.   Yet another reason we don’t have to whip out the re-inflation tube on the belt of the automatic pilot just yet.

Lots of Braves stuff, podcasts, etc. at Braves Lifer.

How to know when you're a stat geek who needs to get a life.  Every time I hear Mr. Cox, or anyone else, try to tell me how good Melky Cabrera looks defensively, my reflexive first thought is "-19.2."  As a matter of fact, -19.2 is my Rorschach to simply hearing the word "Melky" these days.  Some days it is so bad that if I even think I am about to hear the his name, I instinctively blurt out the negative number.  "Honey, could you get some butter out of the fridge and melt...'NEGATIVE 19.2!!!'"

That number, in case you are wondering, is Mr. Cabrera's UZR/150 (Ultimate Zone Rating per 150 games) as a left fielder for the New York Yankees last season.  If you don't know much about UZR and wonder just how bad -19.2 is, consider that Garrett Anderson, who was mostly a waste of real estate in left field for the Braves last year, had a UZR/150 of -16.5.   Granted, Melky only started 20 games in left for the Yankees last year, as most of his playing time came in center field.  However, since Nate McLouth is ensconced in center for the Braves and Mr. Heyward appears to be locked in as the opening day right fielder, that leaves left as the only outfield hole to fill, and the evidence shows that Matt Diaz deserves to start ahead of Mr. Cabrera.

Before anyone asks, the answer is no, I am not taking any spring training statistics under consideration.  As much of a traditionalist as I am when it comes to some aspects of baseball, one area in which I am decidedly not old school is the idea of "winning a job in the Spring."  Anyone can be a star when the games don't count, so we will only look at games that have counted, regular season games over the past few years, plus some projections for 2010 from a couple of outlets when evaluating the value of UPC codes attached to  Mr. Diaz and Mr. Cabrera.

To be fair, I shouldn't be ready to send Melky to one of those "death panels" that might be part of the soon-to-be new health care law based on his glove, as he hasn't spent a lot of time in left field outside of his first full season.  In fact, the left field sample sizes are relatively small for both Mr. Cabrera and Mr. Diaz.  As I said earlier, Melky only started 20 games in left last year, to go with 97 starts in center field and 13 starts in right.  His best numbers were as a center fielder, with an UZR/150 of 2.3.  Unfortunately, Cabrera's  career UZR/150 as a center fielder is -5.9.   The only hope for Melky fans is that the only season in which Melky showed anything resembling defensive prowess, it was as a left fielder during his first full year in 2006, when he compiled a 6.3 UZR/150 in 112 left field starts.  His defensive numbers have gotten, mostly, progressively worse since then.

Matt Diaz will probably be a member of Congress before he will be a Gold Glove outfielder, but you might be surprised to see how much better Diaz's numbers are in left field compared to right field, where he spent most of his playing time last year.  In fact, other than 2008 when he was hurt for a good portion of the year, Diaz has been a pretty good defensive left fielder since joining the Braves.   Diaz started 62 games in left in 2006, had 77 starts there in '07, and made 30 left field starts last season.  His UZR/150 for those years: 18.0, 19.3, and 2.9.  It is true that Diaz wasn't that great in right field last season, where he made 61 starts with a -10.5 UZR/150.    It is also true that Melky has historically thrown out more base runners than Matt, but Cabrera dropped from a high of 16 outfield assists in 2007 to just three last season.  Diaz had two assists last year, with a career high of five in 2006 (again, in a lot less playing time than Cabrera).  We can safely say the two are, at best, even when it comes to saving the Braves runs with their gloves.

That brings us to the bats, and without a doubt, Matt Diaz has been a better hitter than Melky Cabrera.  Again, let's exclude 2008, when we know Diaz was playing hurt.  Diaz became something of a hit machine after coming to the Braves in 2006, with a line of .327/.364/.475.  In '07, he was even better, .338/.368/.497.   Last season, while making a career-high 425 plate appearances, Diaz became a little more patient at the plate and just happened to have an excellent year, .313/.390/.488, with 13 home runs.  In another of those marvelous statistics that tell you so much about a player with one simple number, Diaz had a wRC+ of 139 in '09, meaning he was 39-percent above league-average in the creation of runs, adjusted for home ballpark.  In other words, Diaz is pretty dang good with the bat.

Melky Cabrera, on the other hand, has been, at best, average with the stick.  his wRC+ last season was a career high......of just 102, which is considerably better than the 91 and 71 he posted in '07 and '08 respectively.  Sure, Cabrera also hit a career-best 13 home runs  in '09, but he did it in 115 more plate appearances than Diaz, and Melky's career OBP and SLG are a meager .331 and .385.

As the old Merrill Lynch commercials would say as that bull's winky waved at you, past performance is not indicative of future results, so how do we know that Melky won't become Mr. Wonderful in 2010?  The truth is we don't.  In fact, the CHONE projections from BaseballProjection.com predict that Mr. Cabrera will hit much better in the weaker National League.  CHONE also predicts Cabrera will hit better than Diaz this season, projecting a wRC+ of 120 to 114 for Matt.  Other than the change in leagues for Cabrera, the only plausible explanation for this has to be age; Diaz just turned 32, Melky turns 26 in August.  Bill James' projections look very different, predicting a slight decline for Diaz to a 118, while expecting Cabrera to hold steady at 101.  While the National League is, without a doubt, the weaker league, is it really weak enough to make Melky Cabrera an above-average hitter?  I just don't believe so.

The Braves could do worse than Melky Cabrera in left field (see Anderson, Garrett, 2009).  Cabrera can and will likely help Atlanta as long as he is mostly coming off the bench.  Given that they are virtually even defensively and that Matt Diaz has, historically, been much better with the bat, the Braves will be giving away runs, and wins, if Diaz doesn't get a majority of the starts ahead of Cabrera in left field.

There are more posts, podcasts, and other junk at http://braveslifer.wordpress.com.

Now that John Smoltz’s pitching career may be over, the hot dog eaters of the punditry world will start debating something that doesn’t have to be debated, whether Shmok’em Shmoltz is a Hall of Famer.  That’s easy; of course he is, because Smoltz was a much, much better pitcher than another Hall of Famer to whom he is too often compared, Dennis Eckersley.

Sure, it’s easy to make the comparison.  Both Smoltz and Eck began their careers as starters and, later, became two of the best closers in the game.  But if you make just a cursory examination of the careers of both men, unlike so many of the "analysts" who get paid to bloviate simply because they have stats listed on Baseball Reference, the differences between Eckersley and Smoltz are obvious.  No, this will not be a lecture involving Bill James’ marvelous tool, the Similarity Score.  I should use Similarity Scores, but many folks would stop reading right there, drop a couple of curse words on me, and tell me to go back to watching the evil Leprechaun movie marathon on the Sy-Fy Channel.  Instead, let’s see how Smoltz and Eck were not similar without the Similarity Score, and let me say up front that I am not arguing that Eckersley wasn’t a good pitcher.

The Cleveland Indians of the mid-70’s were a lot like the Indians of the first half of "Major League" when Dennis Eckersley joined them in 1975.  He was only 20 and almost immediately was a key member of the Indians pitching staff.  As a rookie, Eck made 34 appearances and 24 starts and was very good, going 13-7 with a 2.60 ERA (adjusted ERA+ of 144).  Eckersley was also good the next two years, but not quite as good as his rookie season and was traded to the Red Sox, where he proceeded to have his two best years as a starter.

Eck had the only 20-win season of his career in 1978, going 20-8 with a 2.99 ERA (139 ERA+) and finished fourth in Cy Young voting.  In ‘79, he was even better with a 150 ERA+ (2.99 ERA again), though he finished seventh in Cy Young voting because his record was "only" 17-10 (more on wins versus pitching stats that actually matter later).  1979, however, would be Dennis Eckersley’s high-water mark as a starting pitcher.  He would never again have an ERA lower than 3.73 as an American League starter, and during the 1984 season, Eckersley and Mike Brumley were traded to the Chicago Cubs for (hold your nose, Red Sox fans) Bill Buckner.

That trade, along with another in-season trade that brought Rick Sutcliffe to the Cubbies, would help Chicago capture the nation’s hearts and the National League East.   Eck was an effective starter again after the trade, going 10-8, 3.03 (128 ERA+) in 24 starts with the Cubs.  After a decent ‘85, during which he missed some time with injury, Eckersley fell off the wagon in ‘86, going 6-11, 4.57 and was traded to his hometown Oakland A’s before the ‘87 season.   Cubs fans might want to stop reading right there, as Chicago received the legendary Brian Guinn, Dave Wilder, and Mark Leonette from the A’s, and within two years, Dennis Eckersley would be, arguably, the best closer in baseball.

After spending part of 1987 in the bullpen, Eck became the full-time closer in ‘88, the year the re-Christened Athletics, AKA the Bash Brothers, would win the first of three straight pennants.  Over the next five years, Eckersley was about as dominant as a closer could be.   His save numbers for those seasons: 45, 33, 48, 43, 51.  His ERA’s: 2.35, 1.56, 0.61, 2.96, 1.91.  In 1993, Eck turned 38, and though he continued to rack up saves he was, at best, only an average pitcher, his ERAs well into the fours during his last three years in Oakland.  After two years in St. Louis and one more season with the Red Sox, Eckersley retired with 197 wins, 390 saves, a 3.50 ERA (116 ERA+), and 2,401 career strikeouts.  In his first year of eligibility, Eck was easily elected to the Hall of Fame in 2004, named on 83.2 percent of the ballots.

The year Eckersley became the best closer in the American League, John Smoltz made his major league debut with the Braves, and a hell of a debut it was.  On July 23, 1988, Smoltz went eight innings, giving up only four hits and one run, with one walk and (surprise!) only two strikeouts in a 6-1 win over the New York Mets.   Smoltz, however, wouldn’t even come close to pitching that well the rest of his rookie season, finishing 2-7 in 12 starts with a 5.48 ERA.  He wouldn’t have an ERA remotely close to that level until his (presumably) final season.

Smoltz was good, but not exactly great, for the next six seasons.  His ERA+ from ‘89 to ‘94 were 124, 104, 103, 129, 112, and 102.   That 129 year was 1992, and Smoltz was very good that season, going 15-12, 2.85 with a league-leading 215 strikeouts.  Some folks were worried Smoltz was about to hit the skids after he went 6-10, 4.14 during the work stoppage year of 1994.   But that is exactly when John caught fire, or whatever metaphor you feel like using there.

Smoltz’s ERA+ from ‘95 until ‘99 were 134, 149, 138, 143, and 140.  He won the Cy Young in 1996, going 24-8 (like Eck, Smoltz had  just one 20-win season), 2.94 and he led the league with 276 strikeouts.  By 1998, though, Smoltz began to miss time with a sore pitching elbow.  He made only 26 starts in ‘98, though he did go 17-3, 2.90 and was fourth in Cy Young balloting.  After being limited to 29 starts in ‘99, Smoltz had Tommy John surgery, which cost him all of 2000 and the first month-and-a-half of 2001.

His first five starts of ‘01, for the most part, stunk, and when he was shut down again after a start on June 9, Smoltz was 2-2, 5.76.  After the All-Star break, the Braves decided to experiment with Smoltz as a closer, leaving (horror of horrors!) John Rocker without a job.  Smoltz was, to be sarcastic, pretty good as a fireman, allowing earned runs in only five of his 31 appearances, and saving ten games with a 1.59 ERA during the second half.

The next year, Smoltz would finish third in Cy Young balloting after setting a National League record with 55 saves, but he actually pitched better in 2003 and 2004, especially ‘03 (45 saves and a 1.12 ERA).  After a 44 save, 2.76 year in ‘04, Smoltz wanted out of the bullpen.  The Braves obliged, and Smoltz was a very good starter for the next three years, with ERA+ of 138, 127, and 140.  But in 2008, at age 41, the arm trouble returned.  Smoltz made five starts in April, and even though four of them were excellent, including a pair of ten strikeout games, the pain was too much and he was shut down.  Just over a month later, Smoltz tried to come back as a closer for one game, but after blowing a save against the Florida Marlins on June 2, he decided to shut down for the season and again have surgery.

The Braves decided not to take a chance on Smoltz in 2009.  He subsequently made eight mostly horrific starts for the Red Sox and was decent in seven starts with the Cardinals last year.  If Smoltz is indeed retired, he leaves the game with 213 wins, 154 saves, a 3.33 ERA (125 ERA+) and 3,084 career strikeouts.

So how is Smoltz that much better than Eck, especially when Eck has so many more saves and Smoltz only has a few more wins?  The answer is that numbers, especially career win and save numbers with pitchers, are very deceptive when showing whether or not someone was one of the best players of their era, which unless I am mistaken, are the players the Hall is supposed to be enshrining.  Dennis Eckersley was, probably, the best closer in the American League…for five seasons.  For another six-and-a-half years, Eck was a closer or a reliever, but was nowhere near being the best in his league.  Yet during those six-and-a-half years, Eck racked up 167 of his career saves.   Eckersley was a good or very good starting pitcher for six seasons.  But he was only among the best starters in his league twice, in 1978 and ‘79 when he finished fourth and seventh respectively in Cy Young voting.  In Eck’s five-and-a-half other seasons as a starter, he was average or, more often, below average, which is why he was moved to the bullpen.

You could make the argument that Smoltz was also moved to the pen after he failed as a starter upon returning from injury in 2001.   However, beginning in 1992, with the exception of his poor ‘94, Smoltz was considered to be among the best starters in the National League, notwithstanding that he had to compete with teammates Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine.  In fact, after 1994 and save for those five starts in ‘01, he was not even close to being an average or below average pitcher until last year.  He won the Cy Young in ‘96 and finished in the top ten in voting four other times, three as a starter, the other as a closer.  No, he didn’t have as many wins as Maddux or Glavine, but (a) he would have had more wins had he not spent three-and-a-half years as a closer, and (b) pitchers aren’t always in control of wins, and as we have demonstrated, Smoltz was well above league-average in ERA adjusted for ballpark and era, usually more so than even Glavine.

Smoltz doesn’t have as many saves as Eckersley simply because Eck was a closer for ten-and-a-half seasons compared to only three-and-a-half for Smoltz.  But Smoltz’s time as Atlanta’s fireman was at least as dominant, or close to it, as Eckersley’s marvelous five-year run in Oakland.   Also, I haven’t even mentioned Smoltz’s postseason numbers, which are among the best in baseball history (41 games, 27 starts, 15-4, 2.67, four saves, 199 K’s in 209 innings).  Eck’s postseason numbers are okay, but not that close to Smoltzie's.

Dennis Eckersley was an excellent pitcher, and I have no problem with him being in the Hall of Fame.  But if John Smoltz doesn’t pitch again, come 2015, the baseball writers will have absolutely no excuse to not enshrine number 29 next to him.