The Braves Blog

http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/08/24/bud-selig-statue-unveiled-at-miller-park/

I just linked to the first article I could find. I personally think this is a travesty. The only reason Bud Selig deserves a statue is so that birds can poop on it.

I’ve also lost a lot of respect for Hank Aaron who said the following: “Bud Selig is my hero. He has taken baseball to a far better place than where he found it…”

I am of the strong belief that game of baseball is worse off because of Bud Selig. News is currently breaking of teams like the Pirates that have intentionally put together losing teams in order to make more money.

Many Braves fans will remember the game that was not televised earlier this year because Fox decided they wanted to change the time they broad-casted that day, and their clause prohibits others from airing games at the same time, even if Fox has no interest in broadcasting it themselves. Two upcoming games here in Atlanta have been rescheduled because Fox has decided they don’t want to air the games. Due to its large television market, the Braves had to reschedule, but this is an inconvenience for anyone that already had tickets.

Baseball should have never signed such deals, and they were signed under the watch of Bud Selig. As for steroids and other performance enhancing drugs, regardless of your views on them, you have to admit that it was handled poorly by major league baseball. Congress is involved now (which I don’t agree with) and one reason for their involvement is MLBs refusal to take any real action.

If you haven’t heard about the trade made today, I assume it’s because you have horrible internet service and can only access my page. If that’s the case, I apologize, because I’m not going to provide any deep analysis of what happened. There are tons of tweets and retweets about the trades in the twitter feed that pertain to the trade, many of which contain links to articles containing such analysis.

I will, however, give you a brief overview of what happened and a few of my thoughts.

From Braves/To Royals	From Royals/To Braves
Gregor Blanco Jesse Chavez Tim Collins	Kyle Farnsworth Rick Ankiel Cash

Gregor Blanco: I’ve always liked Blanco, but he was never going to be a starter in Atlanta. He didn’t have much power, and that pretty much was going to never allow him to rise above the level of a 4th or 5th outfielder, mainly being used as a pinch runner or late inning defensive replacement.

Jesse  Chavez: I’ve never been candid with my dislike of Chavez. I feel that the good outings he’s had this season were flukes. I’m was only partially joking earlier today when I asked whether we could have got more out of the deal if we hadn’t included Chavez.

Tim Collins: A drink made of 2 parts gin, 1 part lemon juice, sugar, and soda water. No, wait, that’s a Tom Collins. He’s one of the main characters in Rent, first played by Jesse L. Martin. No, wait, that’s also Tom Collins. Tim Collins is a left handed minor league pitcher that was aquired from the Toronto Blue Jays in the Yunel Escobar trade. Reports were that he was a pretty solid pithcer, but as always, the Braves have a bevy of pitching prospects and giving up one like Collins isn’t a big loss at all.

Kyle Farnsworth: A hard throwing right handed reliever that pitched in Atlanta back in 2005. Farnsworth is a solid reliever that will help avoid the need to overwork Moylan and Venters down the stretch. He’ll fit in nice as a 6th or 7th inning guy, and has the experience necessary that he could taken on 8th or 9th inning responsibilities if needed. His numbers this season are pretty good, and they were excellent during his last tour in Atlanta. I saw where one scout had that this year he was “throwing the crap out of the ball,” which is good, because if there is one thing I can’t stand, its balls with crap in them.

Rick Ankiel: A solid outfielder with some power, Ankiel had been on the DL for close ~2.5 months before being recently activated. Since then he has been playing well and will definitely not be a downgrade for the Braves in center field. The Braves also play into his career history, and I’ll be blogging about that later (I was actually including it in this post, but it was getting long enough to where it deserved it’s own post.)

Cash: bread, cabbage, currency, dead presidents, dough, funds, green stuff, money, etc.

While this trade wont go down in history as a blockbuster, I think it was a solid move. We added depth to an already solid bullpen as well as power to out lineup. Ankiel might not be the bat some were hoping for, but he is an upgrade to to the mediocre performance we’ve been getting out of center field for most of the season. Personally I’d like to see Ankiel playing everyday in center field for the Braves while Diaz gets the majority of the playing time in left field. This allows us to give Hinske some starts at first so that Glaus can get badly needed rest. Such a scheme also allows for what I consider to be a very important key to winning the pennant: minimizing the amount of time Melky Cabrera is actually on the field.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Braves (58-43)	0	0	0	2	0	1	0	0	0	3	6	0
Nationals (44-58)	0	2	0	2	0	0	0	1	X	5	7	1

Boxscore

Lots of news about Roy Oswalt getting traded to the Phillies. Check out the twitter feed for a good number of articles I’ve retweeted. Also check out the feed of @FriedBasballATL. He has some excellent analysis on Jurrjens’ vs. Oswalt, and how getting Jurrjens back mid season has the same affect as a mid season trade, and in this case we got the better pitcher.

Clubhouse Comments

Yunel Escobar was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays as part of a 5-player deal that included Jo-Jo Reyes in exchange for two minor leaguers and short stop Alex Gonzalez. Details, reactions, and more, can be found via links in the twitter feed. I’ll be posting my thoughts on the trade soon (probably this weekend.)

The rosters for this years All Star game were announced earlier today. Jason Heyward was the only Brave voted in by the fans, but a few more were selected as reserves.

Brian McCann will be making his 5th appearance in his 5 seasons as the lone back-up catcher, and Tim Hudson will be making his 3rd trip as the only pitcher from the Braves. Martin Prado and Omar Infante were both selected for the first time in their careers, and it has been announced the Prado will start in place of the injured Chase Utley.

One player some thought had a shot but not selected was Troy Glaus. Albert Pujols will be starting at 1st base, while Ryan Howard and Adrian Gonzalez were selected as his back-ups. Below is a comparison of the all stars and Troy Glaus:

Player	BA	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG
Albert Pujols	.305	20	60	.413	.567
Ryan Howard	.293	15	59	.349	.502
Adrian Gonzalez	.294	16	51	.389	.522
Troy Glaus	.260	14	56	.364	.458

In my opinion, the right guys were picked. I think there were two things that went against Glaus. First of all, his stats are low because of a slow start. Second, every team has to have at least 1 player, and Gonzalez is that guy for San Diego. I’m curious what everyone else thinks though.

I’ve re-tweeted the AJC article, so make sure you check that out. Per Dave O’Brien: “When Frank Wren called Omar Infante at 8:30 a.m. this morning to tell him he was an All-Star, Infante at first thought he’d been traded.”

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Braves (34-25)	1	2	0	0	0	1	1	1	1	7	14	0
D-backs (23-36)	2	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	5	7	0

Boxscore

Good game last night. It was nice to see Chipper back in the lineup. Medlen hurt himself sliding into home, but thankfully it doesn’t look like anything serious.

In other news, the latest results in the all star voting are out, and Heyward, McCann, and Prado are all in 2nd place at their respective positions.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Braves (32-22)	1	0	0	2	0	1	0	0	0	4	8	2
Dodgers (31-23)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	3	7	1

Boxscore

This one got a little interesting near the end, but the Braves held on for the win. Medlen pitched a great game but got into trouble in the 8th. Moylan came in with the bases loaded and gave up 3 runs before being replaced by O’Flaherty who struck out %Bn% to end the inning and stranding the tying and go-ahead runs.

Billy Wagner was given the night off and was called on to pitch the 9th. After getting the first two batters out and getting a quick 0-2 count on %Bn%, Saito was forced to leave the game with a hamstring injury. replaced him and struck our Martin with his first pitch, ending the game.

As for Saito, David O’Brien at the AJC had this to say:

It was a potentially costly win for the Braves, who watched reliever Takashi Saito hobble off the field in the ninth inning with a left-hamstring injury. The 40-year-old setup man hopes to avoid the disabled list, but if he’s not doing better in a few days the Braves would probably DL  him. [source]

On a better note, congratulations to Troy Glaus on being named the NL Player of the Month for May, and to Jason Heyward for winning NL Rookie of the Month for the second time (the first time since Ryan Braun in 2007 that the same player has won it in back to back months).

Lastly, one of the game’s greats, Ken Griffey Jr., announced his retirement on Wednesday. In his recent column, Griffey always played the right way, Mike Bauman sums up my thoughts better that I could do myself.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Pirates (20-30)	0	0	1	2	0	0	0	0	0	3	9	0
Braves (27-22)	1	0	0	0	2	1	0	2	X	6	9	0

Boxscore

I probably wont be back until after today’s game is over, and I wanted to get the box score for last nights game up before that. You can follow the box score link for details on the same. The most important thing to know is that the Braves won and got his 1st win as a starter this season.

In other baseball news, congratulations to %Bn% for pitching the 20th perfect game in MLB history. I wish he would have done it for another team though.

In case you haven’t heard, John Smoltz had a setback with his rehab and will not be returning this month after all. Smoltz himself doesn’t seem very optimistic either:

“It could be anywhere between the [late May] timetable I discussed and a lot longer,” said Smoltz, 41, who reported discomfort following his Thursday and Saturday bullpen sessions. He said he doesn’t know yet whether he can pitch in games until the situation improves — or when it will improve.

You can read the full article here.

On another note I thought I would test out the ability to embed a video. Below is the unassisted triple play turned by Asdrubal Cabrera back on May 12th. I wanted to post a video of when Sid Slid, but I can’t find one. Any one know where one exists?