buyers/sellers…

as the trade deadline approaches, the question of if the braves are buyers or sellers has been left unanswered because frankly, not even GM frank wren knows. we’re not really in it, but we’re not out of  it either. one thing’s for sure though, mark teixeira will not be a brave come 2009. he’ll chase the big money (who’d blame him) and play somewhere else. i still think he’s one of the players we should build around and with so much money coming off the books this year, there’s absolutely no reason for us not to. either way, there’s two possible outcomes. we let him go and take our chances with the 2 draft picks we get or trade him for some proven mlb ready prospects (if such a thing exists).

now, it’s obvious that our OF is the main source of our offensive problems, we haven’t been getting league average production out of any of those 3 positions. as has been rumored, a trade for Nady or Bay would give us that right handed bat we desperately need, not only for this year but for next. think of it as the mark teixeira trade, 2.0. we get a capable player that’ll help us for a year and a half but we’ll probably lose a few valuable prospects like in the original tex trade. who doesn’t wish we still had saltalamachia or andrus, even that neftali feliz kid has been absolutely nasty in the minors so far for texas.

as for the braves being buyers or sellers, it all depends. mathematically, we still have a shot at the division this year but it’s a far cry from being a sure thing. the question is, do the braves think they can win in ‘09 ? we won’t have teixeira, smoltz will not be in the rotation until the ASB, if he does come back. the only thing that’s set for 2009 appears to be our bullpen. chipper is a question mark because of his health, and without mark teixeira and decent production from francouer, our lineup is full of holes. if the front office seriously thinks we have a shot at 2009,  we could wait until the winter meetings to work out a trade for a power hitting outfielder or bring one in now. If we won’t sign teixeira, he has to go. i’m pretty sure the return for him will be good enough and could help us right away, someone is bound to get desperate and cave in to a high demand, maybe package him with will ohman to get a slightly better return. all i can say is that it’s going to be an interesting deadline.

Southland Tales

I’m not a big Richard Kelly fan. I thought Donnie Darko was pretty good when I first saw it a while back, but I was not all that interested in seeing what Kelly would do next. Film geeks have probably heard the rumors (probably a fact) of Southland Tales’ horrific showing at Cannes. It was practically unanimously slammed and received an overwhelming amount of negative press after it screened. At the time,  the follow up to Kelly’s directorial debut clocked in at 160 minutes. I recently had a chance to see the 144 minute cut on DVD (didn’t have anything to do) and was surprised that I didn’t despise the thing, I actually sort of liked it, despite it being a complete and incomprehensible mess.

It’s clear that Kelly has a lot to say about everything, but the movie just gets so rediculous that you can’t help but not take it seriously, and that was the point where I started to really enjoy the movie. The plot makes little to no sense, it just sets the pieces in motion in order for Kelly to make his allegory to the Book of Revelations (if you’ve seen the movie, check out the FAQS on the IMD page, it really adds more depth and layers to this mess). I’m not going to keep dwelling on this because this isn’t exactly a review and I can’t really recommend this to anyone, but If you’ve seen and liked Southland Tales, you’re definately not alone. I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece like some of Kelly’s fanboys or even a good film, but I did find it to be an entertaining and ambitious mess…with a pretty  cool soundtrack.

Mike Hampton Musings…

Mike Hampton has gotten a lot of flack for his numerous injuries during the last couple of seasons. He hasn’t made  25 starts since 2004  and his recent comebacks (dating back to last year) have all fallen short. His most recent one being just minutes before his first major league start of 2008.  Its a shame he started to fall apart so quickly. His first couple of years in Atlanta were pretty good considering the rotation we were throwing out there at the time and he started 2005 off with a bang, he was destined for greatness but the baseball gods were not all that kind to him. Now Let’s take a look at our 2003 rotation:

1.Russ Ortiz (At the time recently acquired from SF and had beaten us twice in the 2002 NLDS)

2.Greg Maddux (Was starting to show his age, not as dominant as he once was)

3.Mike Hampton (Could he be effective again after two disastrous years at Coors Field?)

4.Horacio Ramirez (Rookie)

5.Shane Reynolds (Washed up Vet)

With the help of Leo Mazzone (or was it?), Hampton was able to revert to form and give us 190 innings, a sub 4 ERA, and 14 wins. Here’s his 2003 line:

31 Starts, 14-8 , 3.84 ERA, 190IP, 186H, 78BB, 110 SO, 1.38 WHIP

Not bad considering that we were basically paying him nothing at the time and only gave up Tim Spooneybarger and a prospect for him (Marlins were paying most of his contract at the time). We had just gotten a #2/3 starter for used scraps. He was decent in the playoffs, making two starts against the Cubs in the 2003 NLDS.

Now, on to the 2004 season. Hamptons following year with the Braves was a fairly inconsistent one. He started the year 0-7 and had an ERA over 7 but eventually settled in and was absolutely brilliant in the second half. Here’s his 2004 line:

29 Starts, 13-9 , 4.28 ERA, 172.3 IP, 198H, 65BB, 87 SO, 1.52 WHIP

That’s probably as average as they come, but considering his horrible start and brilliant second half, it all balanced out as an average year. Up until now Hampton had at least been durable and the trade was looking like a win for the Braves. Hampton again showed promise in the 2004 NLDS vs. the Houston Astros, making a start and a relief appearance. He gave up 2 runs and 4 hits in 7.1 innings pitched, and had  a 2.45 ERA.

After two fairly succesfull years with the Braves, things were looking good for both Hampton and the Braves. Atlanta acquired Tim Hudson in the 2004 Winter Meetings and were hoping to have an elite rotation for the 2005 season. John Thomson had been successfull in his first season as a Brave in 2004, Russ Ortiz had been just average but still wasn’t a washed up has been. With the addition of Hudson and John Smoltz moving out of the pen and back to the rotation, the Braves were starting to look like a real World Series Contending team. Now, back to Hampton. Lets take a look at his first fews starts in 2005.

Date	Opponent	Score	Dec	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K		W	L	SV	IP	ERA
Apr 27	@ NYM	W 8-4	W	7.0	7	3	3	2	2	5		3	0	0	37.2	1.67
Apr 22	PHI	W 6-2	W	8.2	7	2	2	0	3	4		2	0	0	30.2	1.17
Apr 17	@ PHI	L 1-2	-	8.0	3	0	0	0	2	1		1	0	0	22.0	0.82
Apr 11	WAS	W 11-2	W	8.0	7	1	1	1	0	2		1	0	0	14.0	1.29
Apr 6	@ FLA	W 2-1	-	6.0	7	1	1	0	3	2		0	0	0	6.0	1.50

May 31 @ WAS L 4-5 - 4.0 5 0 0 0 2 1 4 1 0 59.0 1.83 May 14 @ LAD W 5-1 - 2.1 1 0 0 0 2 2 4 1 0 55.0 1.96 May 8 HOU W 16-0 W 9.0 2 0 0 0 1 3 4 1 0 52.2 2.05 May 3 FLA L 6-11 L 6.0 8 6 5 1 1 2 3 1 0 43.2 2.47

Impressive right ? Hampton was finally coming into his own and starting to live up to his huge contract, but he got hurt in the final days of May and hasn’t been the same since. It’s a shame that Hampton got hurt, he was starting to really regain his old dominant form and could have been in contention for the Cy Young if things had gone his way. His presence in the rotation was sorely missed in the 2005 NLDS vs. Houston, Hampton had proven he could pitch successfully in the playoffs and would have been a great weapon to have against the Astros, his former team.

Mike Hampton has gotten a lot of flack for his injuries and inability to stay healthy during the last couple of years. But he was effective while he was pitching for the Braves and was just starting to regain his old dominant form before succumbing to injuries. At the end of the day, it was a good trade that worked out in our favor for a while, but it could have been a truly great one if Hampton had continued his 2005 success. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how he comes back, and hope he can contribute to the team in a positive way.

-fyc

willie randolph fired. hudson hammered

lets get one thing out of the way, i’m braves fan, so i don’t and will never like the mets. however, that does not mean i can’t feel bad for what they did to willie. i’m not a fan of willie or anything but the mets couldn’t have handled this situation any worse. I read about randolph’s firing this morning and to be fair, every baseball fan at least knew this was coming but not in the way that it did. the mets finally winning a couple of games, then head out to California  for a couple of games with the Angels and Willie gets fired at MIDNIGHT right AFTTER the game, right in the middle of a long road trip, right in the middle of this disastrous season for them ( i still don’t know who they were kiding thinking they could win with that old beaten down team, except for reyes and wright). Yeah, they got Santana and it was a pretty big boost in the rotation, but he can’t also play 1B were the once great Carlos Delgado is now a shell of his former self or any other position for that matter. I guess that victory cigar at the start of the season a couple of years ago really came back and bit willie in the ass. watch out minaya, you’re next.

Now, on to the braves. they had won 3 of their past 4 road games, a miracle by their road standards this year. the 4 starters during that stretch ? promising rookie jo jo reyes, jorge campillo, recently promoted charlie morton, and braves rookie sensation jair jurjjens (he’s awesome, no doubt).  With our ace Tim Hudson all set for his start against texas, we had a chance to make it 4 out of our last 5 road games. I admit that I was optimistic, but these last two years have been tough on braves fans, plagued by inconsistencies and countless injuries. What happens ? 4 1/3 Innings and 6 runs later Hudson is out of the game, only to see our bullpen hold Texas scoreless through the remainder of the game.  Now THAT is frustrating. Why the fuck can’t they hold a 1 or 2 run lead once in a while ? I’ll be tuning into tonight’s game, Jo Jo is pitching and of course i’m always an optimist, even more so with Mike Gonzalez on the roster today. Our bullpen finally gets a much needed boost, lets just he how he handles coming back from TJ surgery.

first entry.

Ok, so I just made this blog because I have nothing to do at the moment. I don’t really know what it is that people do in these things, it doesn’t look that interesting but hey, i’ll give it a shot.  I don’t know, its weird., I’m here writing shit that nobody else will read, it’s just like talking to myself, but on the internet. So yeah, I’m not sure what the hell i’m going to do with this space, but i’ll eventually get some use for it and get a grip on what i’m supposed to be doing here. And if by chance someone is actually reading this and at the same time recognizes my username, i’ll go ahead and say yes, i like wolf parade and their new album is damn good. So, yeah, now you know. I think that’s about it, yeah, i don’t have anything else to say at the moment. I’m gonna go ahead and lurk around some blogs to see what’s the big deal with these things and steal some cool ideas and shit. later.

- fyc