Is it just the AJC blogs, or are Braves’ fans obnoxiously pessimistic in general? I mean, seriously, it was a shitty, shitty way to lose a game. But it’s one game, and if you’re going to give up 13 runs to the Phillies in a series, isn’t it a lot better to give up 12 of them in one game?
Of course, I’m wondering what the locker room speech to the bullpen was after the game…
The Braves held another town hall for season ticket holders over lunch at the 755 Club on Thursday. Frank Wren spoke and took questions from fans (a brave [no pun intended] move just a week after letting Smoltz sign with the Red Sox). Wren addressed the things that have happened so far this offseason and talked about the upcoming season.
While he didn’t break any news, he did give some indication about a few rumors going around. Here are are my notes on the luncheon.
(To be clear, everything that follows is strictly my interpretation of what he said. Of course, he was just as politic with his answers as he would have been with the media. You know never know when someone you’re talking to is one of those pesky bloggers, after all.)
My emotional side certainly agrees with you. How could it not? Smoltz is an icon, one of the greatest players ever to don a tomahawk. And there’s certainly a good chance that he’ll put in productive innings again next year. I was mad and hurt, too, when i heard the news.
But take a step back, take a deep breath (hell, get mad and wait until tomorrow to do it) and think about it for a minute. We’re coming off a 2008 season that was doomed because 4 of 5 projected starters were lost for two or more months due to injury. Right off the bat we know Smoltz wouldn’t be ready until at least May. And he’s been a health risk the entire decade. Can we really afford to take that kind of risk in 2009? Wren said going in to the off season that we wouldn’t be counting on Smoltz or Glavine returning. Didn’t we all applaud that?
Sure, Smoltz was brilliant in the starts he was able to make, but he was playing hurt, as he has been for years. The Red Sox are in a position where they can take that chance. The Braves aren’t and made Smoltz an offer reflecting that. It’s a good move for the Red Sox and it’s a good move for the Braves. And it’s Smoltz’s right to decide that going to the Red Sox is in his best interest.
Seriously, people. He made five starts last year. Five. We should have guaranteed more than $5 million on the chance (CHANCE) that he would be healthy for two thirds of a baseball season?
But this sort of underscores something else. Braves fans (and players, apparently) need to get over this notion of “loyalty.” Teams don’t owe the players a single bit more than the dollars they agree to pay on the contract for the period of time they agreed to pay. Players don’t owe teams anything more than to play their hardest and represent their team for the period they are under contract. Major league baseball players have fought hard to make sure they have their free agent rights and their guaranteed, multi-year contracts, so it’s a little jarring to hear them asking for loyalty as well.
What about players taking less money to play with the Braves in the past? Is that loyalty? We heard a lot about “hometown discounts” during our 14 year run (over 3 years ago, by the way). But that was never about, “I’m going to take less because I love the Braves.” It wasn’t selflessness. It wasn’t loyalty. If you signed with the Braves, you knew you were going to play in October. It was Mark Teixeira taking less with the Yankees than with the Nationals. It’s a lot easier being loyal to a franchise when you know they’re going to win. That’s worth something.
Notice Smoltz didn’t sign with some bottom dwelling franchise.
As J.C. Bradbury pointed out, we’ve already paid him $130 million (including a value I’ll leave someone else to figure out for ample time he spent on the bench injured).
We let him go to the bullpen when he decided that was the best place for him to pitch. We let him come back to the starting rotation when he decided that was best. We signed him for $14 million dollars last year knowing that he was playing hurt and let him call the shots on his offseason program.
The Braves have done right by John Smoltz. Here’s what the Braves offered, by the way:
The Braves would have paid Smoltz incrementally based on his health up to a maximum of $5 million if he remained on the major league roster for 60 days, and the guarantee was for no more than $3 million. The offer also included another $5 million in performance bonuses and $2 million in additional incentives. So Smoltz could have earned up to $12 million by staying healthy and pitching extremely well.
Who’s to blame here? No one is to blame. Things worked out exactly how they should have.
I wish Smoltz all the best and hope he has a fabulous season in Boston. Now let’s go sign Derek Lowe and a bat and get ready for February 14.
Here’s the word on Luis Sumoza, the duder we get in return for the college player of the decade for the ’90s:
Shows the potential to be a five-tool player, but needs a lot of refinement. High power potential. Above average speed. Strikes out too much, still has some holes in his swing. Hits from a slightly open stance. Keeps his hands around his helmet. Swing tends to get a bit too long and he can jam himself. In the field, Sumoza has above average range, a decent glove, and a good arm. Overall, he has a ton of potential, but still a long way to go.
So, long, good luck, thanks for the memories. We’ll always have the cycle.
Atlanta 10, Miami Marlins of Miami 9. The Marlins are never a big draw and with the remains of Tropical Storm Fay pushing through the metro area, there weren’t many folks motivated to make it out to the ballgame. The official attendance last night was around 17,000, but I’d be surprised if half that many were actually in the crowd. At one point before the rally, both Marlins fans started shouting “Let’s go Marlins” to each other across the stadium and you could actually hear them.
On the one hand, it was an ugly game. The Braves gave Jair an early 3-run lead which he pissed away. He’s obviously starting to wear down a bit. (And seriously, what does he have against Josh Willingham who he hit twice?) We kept trying to crawl back in, but the Marlins were answering. It looked like a hopeless case in the bottom of the 9th. Yet, with the help of a couple of walks and some clutch hitting, we managed to overcome a 9-6 lead in the bottom of the 9th.
I can’t help but think what the rest of the season would have been like if we’d played with this kind of drive.
We at Section 435 have been watching the various Kotsay rumors closely throughout the the last month. There’s been dueling strains of “He’ll be gone in a week” and “We’ll bring him back next year since Jordan Schafer won’t be ready.” But now it looks like the former is more accurate. With J.D. “Mike Hampton” Drew going on the DL for the Red Sox, they need an outfielder. And, well, Kotsay is an outfielder.
A month of Mark Kotsay won’t get us much. At best a minor league pitcher (no, not Clay Bucholz), at worst Curt Schilling’s sock.
Atlanta 11, San Francisco 5. It was a beautiful night for baseball at the Ted last night, something you don’t expect this time of year. I’ll let you decide whether I’m talking about the weather or the 2008 Braves. It looked like we hanging this one up before it started with Bobby sitting the entire Kot* crew today. But Matt Palmer of the Giants was quite happy to let anyone hit and to walk anyone who didn’t want to swing. Some quick hits:
Regular readers of this here www.baseball.braves.interweb.blog know that we who dwell up in section 435 are big Mark Kotsay fans. I was a little bit crushed to find out that I wasn’t present for his big day, opting instead for a 5-mile run and Bull Durham DVD, obnoxious Cubs fans having made this series unbearable to sit through.
Still, big congratulations are in order for a rare feat. The cycle is kind of interesting in that it is so rare, and yet most regular major leaguers are capable of pulling it off. Doubles are just singles that found a better hole, so you have to have the speed to leg out a triple and enough strength to clear the outfield fence once in a while. If Brian McCann can do the former and Gregor Blanco can do the latter, there are few men who aren’t within reach of the cycle.
Interestingly, as reported by Carroll Rogers at the AJC, this should have been Kotsay’s second career cycle:
He had very nearly become the first San Diego Padre to do it seven years ago on May 19, 2001, when he needed a triple in his final at-bat against Montreal but stopped at second base.
Kotsay went 4-for-7 that game with a single, two doubles and a homer. It was the ninth inning of a game the Padres won 20-7, and he stopped at second out of respect, he said.
“Graeme Lloyd was on the mound,” Kotsay said. “I didn’t want to show anybody up. But everybody was yelling at me from the dugout that I should have gone for third and hit for the cycle. Nobody had done it in Padre history. I legitimately could have walked into third base and stood at the bag.”
Class act.
Also note that Kotsay brought his average back up to .300 with a 5-5 day. It had dropped way off after a slow start returning from the DL in July. Chasing the dream, once again.
Of all the fans in baseball, the Cubs have the absolute worst. You may accuse me of being a sore loser after an ugly doubleheader today, but the truth is, I have been professing this since the 2003 division series. Sure, fans in New York and Philly get a bad rap, but people from New York hate everyone and everything so you can’t take it personally and the fans in Philadelphia tend to direct their bile towards their own teams rather than their opponents.
Cubs fans, on the other hand, are just nasty people. The way they go about cheering for their team is tasteless. It’s as much about goading the other team as it is about supporting their own team.
And in Atlanta tonight, they decided that they owned the place as much as they own Wrigley field, chanting “Let’s go Cubbies,” something about “I fucked your mom,” and unfurling big blue W banners when the game was over. Folks, coming into our home and cheering for your team is just fine. As a city with a short sports history, booming only recently due to suburban diaspora, we’re used to that. But when you do, remember that you are guests in our home.
(The Cardinals, with their notoriously loyal fans, just recently came through town during another series in which visiting fans rivaled the home fans. And yet, we got none of this from them. They were positive supporters of their teams. Good sports both when they won and lost.)
Part of the reason, I think, that Braves fans get a bad rap for being fair weather fans is that is we’re just not like these people.
What was truly abhorrent though, was when the Cubs fans decided that the tribute they played to Skip Caray before the game was really a Cubs tribute to Harry Caray and blew up every time Skip’s dad appeared in photos on the screen. That was our moment, our solemn farewell.
Cubs fans, you are an embarrasment to yourselves and to baseball. I for one will be cheering loudly when the Phillies once again crush your dreams this October.
On to the game… I don’t know how a guy can pitch a game in which he walks approximately 432 batters and gets pulled after 5 innings because he’s already thrown over 90 pitches and yet give up 0 runs and only two hits. But Rich Harden pulled it off tonight. Good job.
Jorge Campillo, on the other hand, must have walked under a ladder on the way to the game. The Cubs managed to put 4 on the board in the first inning without getting a single hard hit ball. They were helped on the way by a terrible throw home from Casey Kotchman that cost us a run and out. Campillo would allow one more in 5 total innings of work, though it was one of those “he pitched better than his line” games.
The first run would be all they needed, but they collected 3 more in the 9th when Mike Gonzales decided that if walking pretty much every batter you face is good enough for Rich Harden then it’s damn well good enough for Mike Gonzales.
The public masturbation from the Cubs fans in attendance became unbearable after that.
I want to catch Kotchmania, I really do. I’m trying. I wish it was the most virulent disease to hit Atlanta since the Teixeira Fever epidemic of August ‘07. Yet, Kotchman has been unimpressive so far. We all knew going into this relationship that he didn’t swing quite a weighty bat as his predecessor, but we heard that he was still solid and a clutch performer for the Angels this year. We also heard that his defense was at least as good as Teixeira’s, in not better. (Though, anyone who said better obviously wasn’t watching Tex this year.)
So far, though, Kotchmania has barely rivaled Thormania. (And Thorman’s a freaking Olympian right now. Like in Beijing. For real.) As a Brave, he slipped under .200 tonight and has only 3 extra base hits and 5 RBIs in 14 games. Tonight, he grounded softly to first twice with 2 out and runners in scoring position. His defense hasn’t been spectacular either. Maybe some of that can be attributed to adjusting to a new park, new league, and new team. If that’s the case, let’s hope he gets pretty well adjusted before next season.
We turn our attention to the future once again. Here’s what Mark Bowman says about Mike Hampton returning for 2009:
No, there likely won’t be many teams knocking on Hampton’s door during the offseason. But if he stays healthy the rest of this season, I could see the Braves offering him an incentive-laden contract. They’ve paid him a lot of money while he was idle the past couple of years. Why not take a small risk and try to at least be compensated for at least a fraction of the assistance their coaches and medical staff have provided him over the past few years?
As I talked about last time, more than anything, losing Hudson for most of next year really changes the outlook for the starting rotation next year. It means we’re not in need of just one proven starter to go along with the youngsters, but at least two. Could Mike Hampton fill one of those spots? Mark Bowman thinks so, but I disagree.
I will agree with his premise that the best way to sign Hampton for 2009 would be to an incentive-based contract, with milestones for innings pitched and wins moving a nominal salary towards something respectable should he put in a full-time effort.
Yet, I don’t agree with Bowman that there won’t be many teams looking at Hampton when the year is up. Even with Hampton’s injury track record over the last few years, you can’t deny that he still has the potential to be a quality starter. He’s a great competitor, he has a ferocious breaking ball, and he can hit. Absolutely, he’s a risk. But he’s finally made it back to the mound in the majors and completed several starts without injury. If he can make it to the end of the season in a similar fashion and regain some of the dominance that he was showing in the months before he was injured so many years ago, he’ll definitely be someone worth looking at for a number of teams. Don’t underestimate how hard it is to acquire good starting pitching the major leagues.
Sure the number he signs for next year won’t approach what he signed for in 2000. But that will be part of the lure. A former 20 game winner who can still pitch at a bargain price.
Still, I don’t think it will be the dollar signs that will dissuade the Braves from pursuing another year with Hampton. I think the organization has probably succumb to the same kind of Hampton fatigue that the fans have. Not ill will. There certainly haven’t been any reports that Hampton’s situation has been a clubhouse distraction. Just that after learning over and over again that we can’t rely on Hampton, it’s going to be very hard to put ourselves in a position to do just that one more time.
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