Show #178: Nightmare Start for the Braves
The significance of the sweep. Should Fredi go? And Good Signs/Bad Signs of the week.
219 Responses to “Show #178: Nightmare Start for the Braves”
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April 9th, 2012 at 8:50 am
Hate to say it, but it wasn’t our happiest show.
April 9th, 2012 at 9:16 am
I’m with you on it making no sense for Bourn-Prado-McCann-Uggla to create so little. I also remember when fangraphs did their write up a couple years ago on wasted WAR, showing which teams were getting the least value out of the individual players with good talent. Leading the list: Fredi Gonzales’s Marlins.
The very best case scenario for this team is to get swept by the Astros and fire Fredi.
Good show.
1-5 record this week, to bring us to a sterling 1-8 on the season.
April 9th, 2012 at 9:28 am
Maybe Hanley was onto something? He sure as hell got Fredi out of Miami. The bad players like Wes Helms wanted him to stay because they actually got a lot of playing time when Fredi was around. Regardless, Fredi has taken a post Cox team that was young and talented and turned them into the walking dead. This team is a reflection of Fredi Gonzalez.
The hitting should be much better. I wouldn’t trade our 1-5 in the lineup for any other NL team’s 1-5. Our 7-9 is in bad shape, but we should still be scoring more runs.
3-3 this week.
April 9th, 2012 at 10:20 am
Joe Girardi is a good manager? He did intentionally walk the bases loaded to get to Carlos Pena. I don’t care who is pitching, intentionally walking the bases loaded is almost never a very good idea. Well, maybe with two outs and the pitcher due up. But it’s not a good idea to do so in order to get to a guy who can hit the ball out of park. You give your pitcher no margin for error.
So before we think we have it much worse than many other teams, try watching some other managers, perhaps most other managers.
April 9th, 2012 at 10:20 am
And that’s the really crazy thing, Nate. And I’d call it 1 – 6 once Chipper returns. Formidable as hell. And yet, this crazy underperforming start.
Also crazy (sad) that we can’t include Heyward in the “wouldn’t trade them for any other lineup” group. Hopefully that changes soon.
April 9th, 2012 at 10:36 am
Shaun (#4) – other managers aside, do you think Fredi is doing a good job? Do you want him at the helm (not being belligerent, just really asking)?
April 9th, 2012 at 10:41 am
Shaun – I was really referring more to Leyland than Girardi, but to be fair, Girardi has won a WS. And I echo Steve’s question – is Fredi doing well? If so, what is he doing well? And I mean that sincerely.
April 9th, 2012 at 11:09 am
Oh, no way, Steve and Ham. There are a lot of bad managers and Fredi is one of them. Don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t mean I’m arguing that the Braves should keep on trucking with Fredi at the helm.
As Ham pointed out, a team like the Braves can’t afford to go the traditional route with a manager. They need to squeeze out every possible win from the roster given that they aren’t going to blow teams away in the free agent market and didn’t outspend other teams in the draft (when the CBA allowed them to).
I wish the Braves had done something bold and hired a manager that thinks completely out of the box, someone like a Joe Maddon. (I realize he’s not available.) But there has to be some non-traditional, sabermetrically-inclined (for lack of a better description) managers out there that teams haven’t tapped in to.
As for Girardi, as with most managers, the GM and the players deserve most of the credit for the World Series win.
April 9th, 2012 at 11:16 am
I guess the only thing I would add is that I still think the Braves could overcome their manager enough to win 90 games. I think they have the players, the GM and the organizational depth to do that. Plus, when most other managers are incompetent, it helps even things out a little.
Again, that doesn’t mean I’m okay with the manager they have. I certainly don’t want to give that impression.
April 9th, 2012 at 11:37 am
Actually Heyward was the only one this series getting walks and extra base hits so I would say when Chipper comes back there is no reason 1-7 should be tearing up the National League.
Also I don’t want to bring up an old topic like TP again, but when was the last time a hitting coach led his team to the highest OBP in the league an got fired. This the classic “be careful what you wish for”.
April 9th, 2012 at 11:47 am
#10 – I agree with Heyward to a point. He had some nice at bats (the 2 walks on Saturday and the hits, of course), but he also had some ugly, 2011-like at bats, too. Particularly on opening day. So, the jury is still out for me on Heyward.
April 9th, 2012 at 11:56 am
The Braves have talent. They should be okay, even good..but I must express, they are constantly making poor management decisions. There is only so much impact a manager can make, but he is making every poor decision. We cannot expect to win a game over a team with the same level of talent. Fredi stacked the line-up with left-handed hitters against left-handed pitchers. No one is going to agree with me, but I feel he should have played David Ross in lieu of McCann against Niese. He has no Continuity with his management. Over the course of a season he will overuse McCann like this. Bobby Cox would ignore criticism and continue his philosophy and eventually over the long haul it works out. Fredi doesn’t do this. As long as anyone is playing well he is going to continue playing them until they slump. That is a poor way to manage.
April 9th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Right now, I’d prefer Terry Pendleton as a manager, Jim Fregosi, even better.
April 9th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
I think you will be somewhat surprised at their improvement on offense over the next few months. I think Greg Walker is doing okay and will do okay, but it will take time…maybe a couple of months, but he is a good communicator and I think that will be okay; but I really do feel we do need a new manager, even though it might alienate us from Bobby Cox, knowing his friendship with Fredi.
April 9th, 2012 at 12:05 pm
I feel Minor will pick things up.
April 9th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
When nobody’s hitting Prado presses. He tries to bail everybody out. Tries to make something happen. Now, Curt, GO SIT IN THE CORNER!
April 9th, 2012 at 12:20 pm
I’m still at a loss as to why they made a change at hitting coach prior to last season. You look at the offense when Pendleton was the hitting coach and there was nothing to indicate the Braves needed a change.
The Phillies, Rockies and Cardinals are the only three NL teams that scored more runs than the Braves during Pendleton’s tenure as hitting coach, 2002-2010.
April 9th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
@17
Very wierd indeed. It was one of those make a change just to do it moves.
April 9th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Nightmare start?
Worst case scenario start?
No, sorry, wcss would have been to be no hit in each game and have each of our starting pitchers get hurt.
We faced their starter 1-2-3, a freaky (knuckle baller) in the middle that each had pretty good games against us. Mets hitters started off hot and the Braves were pressing (maybe trying to get off to a good start after last year)???
Red Sox started 0-6, up to 1-7 then up to 2-10 and it took a 7-20 finish to keep them out of the playoffs… if this year’s wild card rules were in place last year, they still would have made the playoffs… I also noticed that no one was talking about the “no team starting 0-6 has ever made the playoffs” on September 1st of last year…
How about waiting for a little more than 19 thousandths (.0185) of the seaon’s games before we doom the season?
April 9th, 2012 at 2:31 pm
As for Frank “not doing anything”, what did you want him to do?
Any deal for a OF he could have made (that didn’t include Prado) puts Prado on the bench most games (assuming Chipper playing – which was the plan at the time) – unless you play Prado at SS (which is his worst IF position defensively and would probably hurt his hitting – so you hurt your defense and offense).
The only other deal would have been for SS and what contending team (can’t see a non-contender wanting to “pay” for JJ) is going to give up a good hitting SS?
Trading JJ before you know what you are going to have in Huddy is dangerous.
That being said, do you think they “shop” JJ in later in May or early June if Huddy returns and pitches well?
April 9th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
#19: I don’t think any of us said that the season was over or that there was no chance of a turnaround. That said, yes, yes and yes on nightmare start. How else would describe 1 – 14 with RISP, hitting for almost no average, no stolen bases, errors in the field, no SP going more than 5, all against one of the concensus worst teams in baseball? And, really, the main reason I describe the sweep in that fashion is because of how nothing looked different from September. From a fan psyche and (I have to guess) team psyche perspective, the season started about as poorly as it could have.
April 9th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
#20: Yes on JJ.
April 9th, 2012 at 2:58 pm
“No, sorry, wcss would have been to be no hit in each game and have each of our starting pitchers get hurt.”
Actually, the wcss would have been if the team plane crashed into a nuclear reactor, prompting Russia to accidentall blow up the whole earth. But in real world terms, getting swept by the friggering Mets is close enough.
And truly, many signs were worse than the surface results, including JJ’s pitching. And the manager could not have performed worse. It’s not this 19 thousandths of the season that worries us; it’s this plus the way it looked plus Spring Training plus last season plus general observations about our personnel.
April 9th, 2012 at 3:19 pm
#17: I don’t have any numbers in front of me, but the last couple of seasons with TP the bats would go crazy quiet (despite the overall Runs numbers). There were calls from the fanbase for those last couple of years based on really terrible offensive stretches. This was not some random move for the sake of a move. There were game to game results that warranted it at the time.
Anyone remember more details?
April 9th, 2012 at 3:33 pm
MarkinM- Just to reiterate – I know it is early. Way too early. But (as Bub and Steve also pointed out), this feels like a stretch that goes back way longer than just this past weekend. And after a historic collapse, a quiet and non-shakeup off-season (granted with limited opportunities for big moves), and a less than stellar ST, there was a lot of hope put on this weekend for some sort of catharsis which did not come through (to say the least). If we have a winning week, will we be singing a different song? Yes. Are we overreacting to one series? Yes, probably. Can you blame us? I say no.