Section 435 An Atlanta Braves blog. From the upper deck at Turner Field.

Grasping at Straws

There’s a scene at the end of the movie Miracle, about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, when the upstart Americans are leading the Soviets with less than two minutes to go in the semifinals. The Americans start wondering when the Soviets are going to pull their goalie to get an extra skater in the game. As the clock ticks down the final seconds towards an American upset, the American coach realizes that the Soviet coach doesn’t know what to do at the end of the game when you’re trailing because the Soviets had never trailed at the end of a game.

That’s exactly where the Braves have been at the All-Star break the last couple of years. After so many years of winning, they don’t know what to do when they’re not.

Well, here’s my free (and worth every penny) advice to the Braves’ front office for the 2008 season: hang it up. Your goose is cooked.

You can say throwing in the towel makes me a bad fan, but my fan credentials are there. I was at the Ted for every inning of every game both times the Bravos got swept by the Phillies. I stayed for 17 innings last weekend. My girlfriend dreads each loss knowing the funk it puts me in. I want to see this team win. But let’s face it; it’s not in the cards for 2008. Rather than selling the future for the next Tex that will push this .500ish team towards a .505ish team, let’s start sorting out the lessons to learn from this year and start putting together the pieces for next year and beyond.

Sure, we’re only 6.5 back in an underachieving division. The Mets really aren’t as good as we should be. The Marlins and Phillies are playing way better than their pitching staffs should allow. And we’ve overcome bigger deficits than this in our long run.

But I was sucked in by that siren song last year and ra-ra’ed when we added an impact player whose huge impact didn’t impact our record much. The fact of the matter is adding a couple of pieces to fill in our holes - a big outfield bat and maybe another solid reliever - just isn’t going to cut it. There is something more fundamental that is flawed with the 2008 Atlanta Braves. This team is less than the sum of its parts. They don’t know how to win. What’s missing is more than any sabremetric is going to figure out. It’s confidence. It’s leadership. It’s all those intangibles that the numbers guys hate.

Of course, the folks in the front office won’t wave the white flag. They just don’t know how. Buckle yourself in for another second half in which we hang on until mid-September with the playoffs just tantalizingly outside of our grasps. We’ll pick up the Cubs’ fans’ old mantra of “wait ’til next year,” but next year and the next years to come won’t be quite as sweet as they could be had we decided to be sellers this year.

I cringed at our big win in San Diego tonight for just that reason. Maybe two straight series losses going into the break would tip the honchos to our fate. But just like that 5 game streak of huge wins after the break in 2006, just like Tex’s big entrance in 2007, we go into the week off with one tiny little straw to grasp at.

I’m right there with you. My hopefulness has waned and I keep it mostly to maintain optimism and enjoy wins as they come. But until this team gets some real mojo working, it doesn’t really matter who we bring on at the deadline.

I agree with your statements about the white flag too. I don’t think the towel will be tossed in by Wren and with Hampton (oh geez), Glavine, and Diaz returning I think the upper office would say we’ve still got a shot. Slim as it may be.

We’re at that point where the seesaw is teetering just between falling to one side or the other. We’re not 15 games out where it’s clearly time to rebuild, but we’re not exactly in the thick of it. It’s a tough call but until I see some real “magic” (for lack of a better term) it’s gonna look like a long drawn out goodbye to October.

And I’m not a pessimist either!

Excellent post and very well said.

JB@TheLaunchingPad

Seriously. Mark Bradley (who is normally a bit daft) was writing about that today, about how all those pitchers coming back off the DL aren’t going to do us much good when the bats are the problem.

Very good post. I don’t agree with the premise of throwing up the white flag when you’re just 6 1/2 games back, but you make a good point: This very well may be a team that’s just going to float around the six or seven games back mark all season long.

However, if the Braves can do something productive in their first nine games after the break (and six of those are ultra-critical: three at Florida, three at Philly), then I expect Atlanta will go out and try to get a power-hitting outfielder to bolster the lineup. If the Braves go, say, 6-3 in these first nine and find themselves four or five games out of first, then there is no way they are going to give up on the rest of the season, not in a division where 86 wins might get it done.

Good post, though. Well written, and I agree the offense has to get going. In my view, there are four things that have to happen for the Braves to have a shot:

Tex and Frenchy have to start producing like we all thought they would this season.

The young starters have to avoid “hitting the wall” innings-wise, as Jurrjens, Reyes, Morton and Campillo are going to hit their career highs in innings pitched.

The Braves have to win when they play the teams ahead of them (27 of the final 67 are against the Phils, Marlins and Mets).

The Braves have to play to win, and not play “not to lose,” which I saw far, far too many times in the first half.

Good blog … will have to start checking this one out.

Bud.
http://braves.today.com

Bud, thanks for the comments. I don’t disagree that we’re still temptingly close. And you’re right about what needs to happen to get there.

On the other hand, we’re not even a .500 team right now. As I’ve read several places, the Phils are on pace to win 88, which means we’d have to win nearly 2/3 of our remaining games to top them. That’s a hard task for a team that hasn’t won half of it’s first 95.

I’m pretty sure the front office will see it your way, though. And I will be pleased as punch if I have to eat my words at the end of the season.

[...] into the All-Star break, I suggested it’s time for the Braves to wave the big white flag on 2008. I think I’m in the minority on that opinion. It’s hard to argue that 6.5 games [...]

“My girlfriend dreads each loss knowing the funk it puts me in.”

Yeah, my girlfriend has that going on too. This year she’s doing ok with the Cubs winning though. I wonder what she’ll be like when the Cubs have a bad year.