Our Trail of Tears Has Ended

The removal from playoff contention is complete, and the remaining Braves, ailing and listless, have settled in the foreign lands of Offseason.  As with any grieving process, anger comes early; with it, blame.  We must give face to our bewildered indignation.  The following wake today with bloody hands.

Fredi Gonzalez.

Any Braves executive who did not try to talk Fredi Gonzelez out of overworking O'Flaherty, Venters and Kimbrel all summer.

The Expos.

The football lights at Sun Life Stadium.

Jason Heyward's bizarre development curve.
Nate McLouth's continued presence.
Hunter Pence.
Hunter Pence's stupid bloop hit.
Hunter Pence's stupid right arm.
Hunter Pence's stupid winning smile.
Father Time's iracible battle with Derek Lowe.
Any Braves executive who did not try to talk Fredi Gonzalez out of starting Derek Lowe with the season on the line.
Fredi Gonzalez.
Third base coach Brian Snitker.
Dan Uggla's first-half incontinence.
Mr. Met.
Kent Hrbek.
The Yunel Escobar-Alex Gonzalez trade.
Brian McCann's oblique.

Tommy Hanson's shoulder.

Jair Jurrjens's knee.

Tim Hudson's male pattern baldness.

Barenaked Ladies/Big Bang Theory promos.

Billy Wagner's loving family.

The generational talent deterioration in the Caray family.
Fredi Gonzalez.

Let flow the hate, release it, and let the healing continue.  Though it must weather the bitter winds of Offseason, the Chop will rise anew.

Astrode to Glory

Tonight, many fates will be decided or prolonged on the results of four baseball games.  In the American League East, a Red Sox collapse that would be joyous if not for the Atlanta parallels comes to a head, with Boston riding cancer-fighting Jon Lester into battle against the Baltimore Orioles and possible murderer Alfredo Simon.  Meanwhile, the Devil Rays, behind ace-2 David Price, battle the New York Yankees.  The Yankees, in the interest of playoff self-preservation and possibly hilarious spite for their hated rivals, will start someone named Dellin Betances.

In more pertinent Georgia news, the Braves will take on the Philadelphia Phillies, who have also made the playoff-savvy move of pulling Cole Hamels in favor of innings-overeater Joe Blanton.  Blanton will do battle with Braves ace Tim Hudson.  All these games begin at 7:00 Eastern Time; at 8:00, the Cardinals will throw ace Chris Carpenter against former Philly Brett Myers and the Houston Astros.  Assuming the early games remain close, the following two-three hours will be a gut-wrenching span for any baseball fan with a dog in the fight.

The Braves may or may not win.  We will be relying on the performance of a past rival (the Clemens-era Astros were an NLDS scourge to Atlantans), and possibly the benevolence of a permanent rival (the Phillies, who have the option of resting more players for a deep playoff run or letting loose the dogs, to eviscerate a wounded foe).  The Braves have fallen far, and no longer truly control their own fate.  A win guarantees at least a season extension, but a one-game playoff with the red-hot Cards is itself almost a death sentence.  Make no mistake, this team is weary and rattled  It needs a win, coupled with a Cardinal loss, to give them any chance of some gracious releif and positive playoff vibes. 

We then turn humbled to the field of Enron, the house of Baggio and Bagwell, of Berkman and Bell.  The spirits of Darryl Kile and Jose Lima, we beseech thee.  Persist, ye Killer Bs.  Don't stop the Chop.

Former Brave of the Fortnight: Mike Remlinger

            One of the more consistently welcome sights to ever emerge from the Atlanta Braves bullpen, Mike Remlinger salvaged a career and briefly became a gold standard for middle relievers.  Throughout his career, Remlinger provided examples for both time-honored and modern lessons of the baseball world.  With Atlanta, he simply put fans at ease in the middle innings.

Remlinger was an ace at Dartmouth, leading the NCAA with a 1.59 ERA in his sophomore and following that up by leading the NCAA in K-rate (14 strikeouts per 9 innings) and making second-team All-American his junior year.  The San Francisco Giants liked those credentials and selected Remlinger with the first pick in the 1987 draft. 

            Remlinger did not reward the Giants for their faith, pitching just 35.1 mediocre big-league innings after four largely unproductive years in the minor leagues.  He bounced around the Giants, Mariners, Mets and Reds farm systems, pitching just 95.1 innings in the majors until he was over thirty years old.  In 1997 the Reds finally gave Remlinger an extended look in the big leagues; he was again mediocre, then disappointed fully in his first full season, going 8-15 with a 4.82 ERA in 1998.

            Remlinger’s career appeared to be winding down, dooming him to bust-y never-was status.  His collegiate pedigree never translated to sustained minor league productivity.  Pitching arms only deteriorate over time, and Remlinger’s hadn’t been fertile in the best of his professional days.

            Nevertheless, the Braves called Remlinger to camp in 1999 and applied a blunt staple of baseball logic – starters that can’t cut it might work on the bullpen.  Throwing one or two innings is much easier than throwing six or seven, for many reasons.  Batters only get one look at middle relievers, while they face a starter two or three times.  Batters can grow more comfortable with the starter’s mechanics and repertoire in multiple looks; meanwhile, relievers come in and disrupt that rhythm with a different pitching motion and style later in the game.  Middle relievers also have the luxury of throwing their best stuff as hard as they can for most, if not all, of their outing; something starters can’t do - as Stephen Strasburg learned the hard way[1]. 

            Remlinger ended the 1998 season as a starter on the brink of failure.  He left Braves camp in 1999 as a smooth lefty reliever, and never looked back.  Remlinger finished that season with a 2.37 ERA and 1.21 WHIP and a conceptually ludicrous 10-1 record.  He struck out 81 batters in 83 innings, delivering on the K potential he’d shown at Dartmouth and briefly in Cincinnati.  He was an integral piece of the bullpen on a Braves team that found its way past the Mets and into to the World Series, but was unable to crush the spirits of New York City for two series in a row.  Remlinger pitched just one inning in the quiet sweep at the hands of the Yankees’ swelling juggernaut.

            Though 2000 was a bit of an off year for Remlinger (he still finished with a respectable 3.47 ERA and 1.26 WHIP) he was a stalwart out of the pen in his four-year run with the Braves.  In 2001 he struck out 93 batters in just 73 innings.  In 2002, he finished with a 1.99 ERA, 1.12 WHIP and his only All-Star selection.  Ironically, in Remlinger’s (arguable) career year, he was probably just the third or fourth best arm out of the bullpen.  That season, John Schuerholz put together a remarkable collective faction of ancient arms that was hands-down the best bullpen in baseball.  Joining Remlinger in the middle were dual 36-year-old reclamation projects[2] Chris Hammond (0.95 ERA, 1.11 WHIP) and Darren Holmes (1.81, 0.97).  Along with youngsters Kerry Lightenberg (2.97, 1.28), Tim Spooneybarger (2.63, 1.25) and Kevn Grybowski (3.48, 1.68), this group set the stage for newly converted 35-year-old closer John Smoltz, who saved 55 games with a 3.25 ERA and 1.03 WHIP that were actually largely inflated thanks to an early season drubbing from the New York Mets.

            Alas, the vaunted bullpen never came into play in the deciding fifth game of that year’s divisional series.  The San Francisco Giants’ fat ace Russ Ortiz stymied the Braves hot-and-cold offense in the deciding game and Barry Bonds’s Giants went on their way to a (refreshing), soul-crushing World Series collapse against John Lackey and the Anaheim Angles.

            Hard as it may have been to watch at the time, the Braves again followed conventional wisdom and let big-spenders pick away at the bullpen.  Chris Hammond took $2 million to join the New York Yankees and Mike Remlinger signed a $10 million deal with the Chicago Cubs (Smoltz stayed on for several more years of closing and starting, while Darren Holmes remained but regressed significantly). 

            Remlinger spent the next two years with mid-3 ERAs for the Cubs.  He faced three batters in the Cubs 3-2 defeat of Atlanta in the 2003 NLCS.  In the League Championship Series, Remlinger actually gave up an RBI single to Juan Pierre before he recorded the final out of the Marlins fabled 8-run eighth inning in the Steve Bartman game.

            Remlinger could not escape controversy in some form or other during his Cubs tenure.  Early in his ineffective final season with the Cubs in 2005, Remlinger was placed on the 15-day Disabled List, the team claiming his left pinkie was broken from being caught in a chair.  The injury was dubious and many felt it was just an excuse to clear roster space without cutting Remlinger; “sitting in Remlinger’s chair” has became a jovial warning to slumping Cubs players.  Remlinger was also in the Cubs’ bullpen in 2003, when Sammy Sosa’s corked bat exploded against a Geremi Gonzalez pitch in the first inning.  Remlinger slyly snagged a piece of that corked bat, held it for seven years and put it to auction in 2010, which is great because any situation in which Sosa’s rampant cheating causes him humiliation is great.

            Remlinger was traded to Boston during that pinkie-breaking 2005 season, where he gave up 11 runs in just 6.2 innings.  The following offseason, Remlinger signed with the Braves and made the roster again.  Lightning did not strike twice, however, and after 22.1 (actually not-horrible) innings, the 40-year-old was designated for assignment and subsequently released.  He retired shortly thereafter.

            Remlinger was a rare lefty who actually fared better against right-handed betters, a feat that belies over a century of baseball knowledge.  On all other counts, he fit the bill in terms of baseball lessons.  He demonstrated the Moneyball motif of selecting proven college pitchers over riskier high school hurlers; the implication that college pitchers, even if they don’t live up to their billing, provide less risk long-term.  This didn’t work for the Giants, but they also failed to heed the strategy of salvaging starter’s careers by moving him to the bullpen.   Though effective for the Cubs, Remlinger also demonstrated why paying top dollar for middle relievers is rarely worthwhile; better to spend that money on several options from the scrap heap and play the odds that a Remlinger, Hammond or Holmes will emerge for a fraction of the cost.

            More than anything, Remlinger was a four-year beacon of reliability in the Braves pen, a kindly salt-and-pepper bearded lefty with an accurate low-90’s fastball and a trap-door change-up.  He had a concise, staid delivery that belied his strikeout potential, but not his reliability.  We knew him in 1.1 inning increments, but we trusted him to hold the fort for a Braves bullpen that was all too often a danger zone.  Remlinger’s All-Star selection may have been a symbolic nod to the entire 2002 ‘pen, but it had to be Remlinger, the original retread, to bear the torch for the trio of grizzled Phoenixes rising from the ashes of baseball’s past.  Though he was far from an original Braves product, though it made no sense to pay a late-30s middle reliever four million dollars, it hurt no less to see him reap his rewards in foreign colors.  Remlinger was our thrift store treasure, the little secret we discovered off the beaten path and displayed proudly in the seventh and eighth.  Don’t stop the Chop.

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[1] Strasburg was the Washington Expos first round pick and phenom who blew the league away in 2010, throwing 98 mile-per-hour fastballs into the late innings and striking out the world.  Predictably, this strategy destroyed his elbow and he underwent Tommy John surgery before the season ended. 

[2] Hammond had been out of baseball since 1997; Holmes had missed the 2001 season.

Chop Half Full

In the spirit of eternal optimism, I present five more devastating ways the Braves could lose an important regular season game in the ninth inning than having the Hall-of-Fame, face of the franchise third basemen lose a groundball in the lights with two outs, then the (undeserving) contact-hitting All-Star infielder you traded away for Dan Uggla hit a two-strike walk-off homerun off an elite closer.

5.  Brian McCann hits a deep gapper with the bases loaded, but second base-runner Nate McLouth confuses clockwise with  counter-clockwise and causes Chipper Jones and McCann to be doubled off for the final two outs.  A confused McLouth needlessly slides into home plate as the game ends.

4.  Brooks Conrad is forced to play third base due to injuries and has two groundballs go through his legs.

3.  After making a fine running catch on a one-out foul ball, Jason Heyward is discreetly tripped by the Phillie Phanatic.  While Hewyard lies unconscious, Ryan Howard tags from first and narrowly beats Michael Bourn's throw for the game-winning run.

2.  After 7.1 shutout innings, Julio Teheran is hit in the face with a line drive.  On successive pitches in relief, Ed O'Flaherty, Jonny Venters and Craig Kimbrel suffer torn labrums.  Attending the game in person, Braves legend Hank Aaron suffers a major stroke.  Watching from his home in Marietta, iconic manager Bobby Cox forgets to turn the stove off and ruins his favorite saucepan.

1.  With two on and one out, a lineup error forces Fredi Gonzalez to bat Alex Gonzalez three times in a row in a one-run game.

Former Brave of the Fortnight: Matt Diaz

Though he played in the College World Series title game for Florida State and accrued 131 plate appearances over three years in the American League, most Braves fans were introduced to Matt Diaz in the spring of 2006, when the unheralded 28-year-old won a backup outfielder job and proceeded to do the one thing he existed to do – mash left-handed pitchers.

Though born in Portland, Oregon, Diaz became a Sunshine State product \ growing up in Lakeland, starring at Florida State University and becoming the 17^th round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  In Tampa Bay, where outfield prospects spring eternal, Diaz could never earn an extended look with the big club.  Despite putting up big minor league batting averages in 2003 (.354) and 2004 (.332) , Rocco Baldelli, Carl Crawford, Randy Winn and Aubrey Huff blocked his ascent and limited him to just 30 major-league at-bats with Satan’s Rays.  Diaz did not impress in his limited opportunities and was released in 2004.

Diaz took his frustrations out on the Kansas City Royals’ minor league opponents, hitting .369 with 15 homers, and earned an 89 at-bat stint in The Show.  He was more respectable this time, but nonetheless failed to impress the Royals brass.  Now 27 years old, Diaz was beginning to resemble a Quad-A player, destined to spend a Crash Davis career dominating the minors.  But the fateful hand of John Schuerholz intervened, and Diaz was shipped to the Atlanta Braves for well-regarded never-was Ricardo Rodriguez.

Matt Diaz was quietly acquired and stealthily made the main squad.  In the summer of 2006, Matt Diaz truly became ours.  Platooning in left field with The Last Gasp of Former Big-Time Prospect Ryan Langerhans, Diaz gave lefties fits, smashing his way to a .465 average in May after a sluggish start.  With the stocky face of comic-book superhero and hard-working righty chop-stroke, the 28-year old Diaz quickly became the more excitable half of the platoon.  He finished the year at .327 in 297 at-bats, and then proved it was no fluke with a .338 average in 358 at-bats in 2007.  Injuries limited Diaz in 2008, but he returned in 2009 to hit .313 in 371 at-bats. 

Diaz’s run skidded to a halt in 2010, when he hit just .250 with a .313 on-base percentage.  Never a power hitter or a speedster, Diaz’s dip in productivity made him expendable.  When the Braves acquired second-baseman/ Dan Uggla from the Florida Marlins, super-utilityman Martin Prado was slated as the everyday left-fielder and Diaz’s fate was sealed.  The Pittsburgh Pirates grabbed Diaz with a two-year, $4.25 million contract to platoon in rightfield, and Diaz was gone.

Hark, tho, did fate intervene.  In 2011, the Braves, boasting the lowest average against left-handers of any team in the majors (a woeful .227, currently), reached to Pirates (early-season darlings fallen on hard times) and brought back their former son.  Miscast as an everyday player in a weak offense, Diaz still managed a .300 average against lefties.  He went 2-3 in his first game back, and has picked up right where he left off against southpaws.

In his previous tenure as a Brave, Diaz was a rock in a downtrodden era.  His run with Atlanta coincided with the team’s fall from glory; Diaz’s first season in Atlanta was the first non-National League East Champion squad in 14 years, his last was his only playoff appearance.  Diaz labored for mostly competitive yet postseason-less teams during his Atlanta tenure.  With career highs of 13 homers and 12 steals, Diaz was never flashy in the stats department; nor was he a defensive whiz.  He could take a walk, but Diaz mainly existed to get base-hits against left-handed starters.  Diaz was a flag-bearer of a distinctively un-emblematic era.  Those teams had few heroes; with Chipper Jones, Andruw Jones and John Smoltz far from peak form, prospects Chuck James, Jo-Jo Reyes and Jeff Francouer failing to deliver, and the Mark Teixeira trade casting a shadow over the future.  The Braves fought the good fight, with Bobby Cox scratching out what he could day-in and day-out.

On workman-like teams, Diaz was the shining crown of the blue-collar approach.  He’d worked his way slowly to the big leagues, and, when he arrived, gratefully accepted his role as a part-timer.  There were no All-Star aspirations, no fantasy stardom, no grandeur.  Diaz at-bats were rarely exciting, but they were tinged with optimism.  Line drive singles were Diaz’s bread-and-butter.  He wasn’t expected to win games, but he could do his part to help.  And when Green Man impersonators charged the field in Philly, he was there to trip them.

Diaz is not boring per say.  He seemed to only hit homeruns in pairs, and, in the on-deck circle, he is a haunting specter for lefty relievers.  He has just enough patience, pop and speed to keep from being “empty batting average.”  He possesses a supreme ability to hit left-handed pitchers, but the skill is not quite refined enough – nor is he one-dimensional enough – to label him as a specialist.  Diaz has never been special, but he has been consistently reliable.  He will not go down in the annals of Braves lore for particular moments or with especial reverie.  His .330 batting averages will be underappreciated.  His ample jaw and steadfast stroke may become blurred in the mental barrage of outfielders past.  But when we remember Matt Diaz, we will nod.  We will recall Matt Diaz being less effective than he really was, but no less reliable.  In our collective conscience (and in no way as pejorative), Matt Diaz is an everyman.  He is our everyman.  Don’t stop the Chop.

Former Brave of the Fortnight delayed this fortnight

In remembrance of September 11th.

Never Forget.  Never Stop the Chop.

Vision Questing the Arms of Tomorrow Today

As another baseball season draws to a close, the Braves seem locked  into the National League Wild Card, earning a playoff birth for the second consecutive year.  Last year the Braves played the eventual champion Giants as close as anyone; they were preseason darlings this year and remain a chic playoff sleeper.  Yet, as the volimunous regular gives way to quick-hitting playoff series', the Braves long-term 2011 chances appear bleaker and bleaker.  This is not to write them off.  The team has the talent to contend across the board.  But playoff baseball is a different animal - in particular, it will turn one of Atlanta's greatest strengths into a notable weakness.

A regular sports bar question in the Deep South is a strikingly simple one: Who do the Braves start in Game 1 of a playoff series?  This question is not inherently bad - though Charlie Manuel's answer is obvious, Phillies fans could entertain themselves similarly - but, in searching for an answer, Atlanta fans have to find their confidence shaken. 

There is no obvious answer, not at one, not at two; no where do the pieces perfectly fit.  That is because the Braves, for all their seemingly limitless depth at starting pitcher, don't have the top-line guys to match up with most contenders.  Seven quality starters is wonderful for a long season, but three of those guys do no good in October.  The Braves have several aces but no Ace, no Cy Young contender to stand toe-to-toe with the Lincecums, Halladays, Lees and Becketts who folklorically punch through autumnal lineups.

After a rock solid start, the Braves rotation was punctured up the middle after the All-Star break.  Injuries and ineffectiveness have turned what was undoubtedly the best 1-5 in the game prior to the break into a big question mark come playoff time.  So who goes first?

The Candidates

6.  Mike Minor
Mike Minor - a former top prospect, and still highly regarded lefty- is the likeliest candidate to get pulled from the rotation (it's a sure thing if everyone's healthy).  He's looked good lately, but something will have gone wrong if he makes a postseason start.

5.  Derek Lowe
The Opening Day starter was mediocre all year, then went through the ringer in July.  He was the hottest guy in baseball last year, and pitched very well in two losses to the Giants last season.  He's also the most battle-tested, pitching in several crucial games for the Red Sox in 2004.  Unfortunately, he's 38, and he's been pretty bad this year.  He's also the only Braves starter with major bullpen experience.  Logically, it makes the most sense to pull him from the rotation come playoff time.

4?  Tommy Hanson
Hanson, the young phenom who is supposed to be the big Ace, went down to a shoulder injury on August 6th.  A couple setbacks later, Dr. James Andrews found slight rotator cuff tear.  This was good news, and Hanson is supposed to return soon, no one knows for sure what to expect from this point forward.  Even before the injury, Hanson was no true #1, faltering too often in the middle innings with command and homer problems.  If he's healthy, he's shown huge potential.  This year, he's a wild card.

3.  Jair Jurrjens
Jair Jurrjens, the gem of the early season with a microscopic ERA (after starting the season late with an injury), came back from a second DL stint looking increasingly human.  Jurrjens is a talented young pitcher, but he is hittable and doesn't miss many bats.  Pitching out of trouble isn't a talent, and only elite strikeout guys are able to continuously limit damage with runners seemingly always on base.  Jurrjens has regressed, as expected, and still doesn't look completely healthy (Update: he's getting an MRI on his knee) on the mound.  Even at full strength, he's much closer to his 3.50 career ERA than the sub 2.00 master we saw in the early summer.  Unless he's on another otherworldy hot streak, he can't really be counted on at the top of a rotation.

2.  Brandon Beachy
Rookie Brandon Beachy is a strikeout machine, and might have the best raw numbers on the staff.  Beachy should have a long career ahead of him, and its tempting to buck conventional wisdom and go with the young gun as the frontline starter.  But Beachy's hard throwing sometimes keeps him from getting far into games, which could tax the bullpen early in a series, and he gives up a lot more homers than the guy with very similar numbers.  He's also in his first big-league season.  He's already spent some time on the DL, and rookies tend to wear down as they surpass their career-high in innings pitched. 

1.  Tim Hudson
Take out strikeouts, and Hudson is right there with Beachy.  He's also much more experienced, with nine career postseason starts.  His 3.46 postseason ERA is not top-shelf, but he's usually capable of keeping a  team in it for six or seven good innings.  It's seems obvious that Fredi Gonzalez will use him first, as it's the least controversial decision.  You could do a lot worse than Tim Hudson, but he's probably not gonna throw a team on his shoulders.

If current division standings hold, the Braves will have some luck on their side in the first round.  The Braves struggle mightily against left-handed pitchers, but both Arizona (Ian Kennedy, Daniel Hudson, Josh Collmenter) and Milwaukee (Zach Greinke, Shawn Marcum, Yovani Gallardo) feature three righties at the top of their rotations.  Milwaukee could sub in Randy Wolf (11-9, 3.58 ERA, 1.30 WHIP) to play the match-up, but the Braves will still have the left/right advantage on their side in either series.  Of course, the problem is that all six are all better than any pitcher on Atlanta, except a healthy Hanson or locked in Hudson.  With no dominant seasons emerging from the Braves, the regular season depth becomes postseason mediocrity.

The bullpen should not be overlooked, as O'Flaherty, Venters and Kimbrel are as good as it gets in the 7th, 8th and 9th.  But the Braves have to get there with the lead first.  As the pitching staff limps to the finish, a formerly dominant rotation will now just try to get by in the first round, much less worry about matching up with the Phillies Four Horsemen, featuring three Cy Young candidates and a recovering Roy Oswalt.

Ideally, the Braves turn back to mid-season form at the right time and a Hudson/Hanson/Beachy/Jurrjens quartet allows each guy to throw on ample rest and gives Atlanta a real shot.  But Hanson and Jurrjens are no guarantee, healthwise.  The Braves should have the luxury of setting their rotation before the postseason begins; unfortunately, this is hardly an advantage.