On former Brave, Mark Teixeira:

Mark Teixeira, who won the AL award in 2005 and 2006 before splitting each of the last two seasons between the leagues, was the best defensive first baseman in the majors last year.

Not that I have anything bad to say about Casey Kotchman’s defense (dude brings the leather), but after watching Tex for a year, I laughed a little on the inside when anybody said that he would be as good or better than Tex with the glove.

On Chipper Jones:

Chipper Jones, , who was once moved to left field because of his miserable defense at the hot corner, was one of the NL’s best fielding third basemen last year at age 37, though he’s back near the bottom of the list this year.

Well, no, Chipper’s defense had nothing to do with why he moved to left (unless “Chipper’s Defense” is a nickname for Vinny Castilla that I haven’t heard before), but this is one spot where the fielding percentage and UZR will correlate nicely this year.

On tiny center fielder, Nate McClouth:

[2008 Gold Glove winner Nate] McLouth was actually the worst defensive center fielder in baseball in 2008.

Yikes! It’s clear that he doesn’t have fantastic range, but I wouldn’t have figured him for worst. He’s made some spectacular catches. To paraphrase some dumb-assed TV commentator on Pat Burrell, “He doesn’t get to a lot of balls, but the one’s he gets to, he catches.” I guess that applies to our tiny center fielder. Expect McClouth to take over one of the corner spots for the Braves whenever Jordan Schafer is ready to return to the bigs.

On Brian McCann:

…it’s worth noting that perennial All-Star Brian McCann has shown considerable improvement behind the plate.

Though, this is largely because the stats for catcher have apparently been tweaked in the last year to give credit for the ability to eat Twinkies and throw balls all the way into center field when trying to throw out base stealers.

If a pitcher needs to work on his mechanics, for example, a general manager could say that he is injured and put him on the disabled list, allowing the team to replace the pitcher while he works out his problems.

“Making good use of the D.L. allows you to expand your 25-man roster,” [agent Barry] Axelrod said.

I’m pretty sure KJ and GNort were both DLed for acute can’thittheballitis.

If you want to know why Bobby Cox has a job for as long as he wants one, it’s not just because of 14 consecutive division titles, it’s also because players aren’t bullshitting when they say they’re excited to come to Atlanta to play for Bobby Cox. Even with the team languishing for the last couple of years. That’s especially a big deal for signing free agents.

So with that in mind, here’s a round-up of what we need to do to win:

• Braves.Today.Com » Blog Archive » Braves at the Break: It’s now or never for this team
• Braves need these 5 things to get back in race | ajc.com
• For the Braves to Make the Playoffs… – Talking Chop
• Braves Need Magic (Not a Trade) To Make a Push « The Launching Pad-An Atlanta Braves Blog

Baseball starts again tonight as the hapless (against all teams that aren’t the Braves) Nationals come to town. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be ecstatic if, come September, the Bravos make me eat my words.

The juicy bits:

When asked about Fultz’s situation, Braves general manager Frank Wren could only reveal that Fultz had resigned… Fultz’s midseason departure has drawn a number of questions. But a club official said this wasn’t a product of the number of injuries the Braves have endured this year.

Draw your own conclusions, but this doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, the thought crossed the back of my mind a few weeks ago that Fultz may not be entirely secure in his position.

Since it was such an ugly series, let’s talk about more positive things.

Will Chipper Hit .400?

Chipper went 4 for 8 on the doubleheader to end the day at .406. People are starting to ask: will Chipper hit .400 this year?

• Some say yes.
• Some say no.

The case against Chipper is reality. The case for Chipper is basically, “Dude, that would be awesome.” Then again…

His April gave him a huge head start and he’s coming off of a season in which he hit .337 and was one hit away from the batting title. Additionally, as he has Teixeira hitting behind him all season, he’s going to see better pitches to hit all year long. Even with Tex starting a little slow, no one wants to be the guy he breaks out against.

Among the last players to seriously flirt with .400 is George Brett who hit .390 in 1980. Brett was a career .305 hitter (compare to Jones’ .309) whose next highest average season was .333 in 1976. Tony Gwynn also flirted with .400 in 1994, finishing the shortened season at .394. Gwynn was a career .338 hitter and a more likely candidate than Brett. Nonetheless, it was an outlier of a season for both of the players who have come closest in recent history, and it would be an outlier of a season for Chipper. Still, based on these guys’ numbers, it would foolish to say that Chipper can’t do it just because he is a career .309 hitter.

Still, .400 is a monumental stat because it’s an endurance stat. Essentially it means you go 2 for 5 every single game for 162 games. You can’t afford to go 1 for 4 for a week. And you can only imagine the mental burden it would be to carry a .400 average into July, August, and September.

I think we can easily expect a career-best season from Chipper. I don’t see him tanking at any point; that’s not his style. Considering how far ahead he is at this point, the batting title is his to lose. But .400 is a long, long shot. I’ll be rooting for him, but I won’t be putting my money on it.

Here’s what Matt Diaz said about his game winning AB:

He’s good at coming inside and I knew he’d try to get the double play. I was determined to hit the bottom half of the ball.

Notice how it was not:

I was determined to honor Andruw’s memory and take the biggest, wildest cut at the ball that I could and pray that maybe I hit the ball 100 miles.

Our boys are hitting right right now. That’s reason one why I’m feeling good about us keeping the streak going when we hit the road for a change.

Reason two took a knock today when young Jo-Jo Reyes suffered a wittle bwister on his fingew and had to come out of the game so Jeff Porter could kiss-it-make-it-better. I was going to talk about how we’re finally settling into some stability in our rotation, even it wasn’t the dream rotation we had envisioned at the beginning of the season when we were looking at four previous 20-game winners followed by a rookie phenom.

In other non-news… Everyone in the world mentioned that Royce Ring snagged the win on Sunday with a single pitch. Here’s one that’s a little less common: pitcher’s getting a win without facing a batter. The last one was Big Chad Paronto last year.

Anyway, thank goodness we finally managed to win a one-run game by one run. You probably already know how I feel about that silly stat, but it was good to see us rally back on a day on which two of our pitchers had to come out due to injury. It’s been our hitting in clutch situations and when behind that’s been the concern all along, not the final score of the games.

I know, I know. The idea is to try to somehow eliminate the luck factor from our actual record. And Pythagorean records end up being remarkably accurate except for when they’re not. But the two numbers that matter at the end of the day are the ones in the W and L columns. I said this a few weeks ago when folks were over analyzing the one-run game situation.

And, yes, I know that theoretically means that our team is a better team than our record shows. But that’s not going to be much consolation if this pattern holds true through October.

The story, however, does not end there. Not only has Hampton been injured and unable to pitch, he has also been making millions of dollars. I can’t imagine the sort of sleuthing it took Heyman to come up with information as it has been under lock and key.

Congratulations for breaking this story, Mr. Heyman. You just wait by the mailbox; your Pullitzer is on the way.

In other news, according to Forbes, Atlanta is the most miserable sports city in the country. One interesting fact I learned from this article is that Atlanta has a professional basketball team.

Yup, all those pennants are making me cry myself to sleep every night.