Atlanta Braves II

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#6,630
#6,630
Season crashes down on rookie closer - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

In his first full season, Kimbrel has been the best closer in baseball, a flame-throwing automaton whose gaudy strikeout ratio and rookie-record 46 saves left hitters fearing him. At least until September. While Kimbrel’s raw stuff remained powerful – his fastball dancing near triple digits, his slider with more wipeout power than Windex – his command of it waned. The easy culprit was Fredi Gonzalez, the Braves’ first-year manager, whose usage patterns of Kimbrel prompted worry as early as May.

By the end of the month, Kimbrel had pitched in more than half of Atlanta’s games. At the All-Star break, he had thrown in 47 of 91, including 11 stints on back-to-back days and two more times pitching three consecutive days. Fans worried. Media, too. Gonzalez shrugged it off, even as the most respected man in his clubhouse said he was concerned with the overuse of Kimbrel and his two setup men, Jonny Venters(notes) and Eric O’Flaherty(notes).

“Yeah, I worried,” Chipper Jones said. “But when you get in a tight game, you worry about today today and deal with tomorrow tomorrow. Unfortunately, they were a part of today a lot and tomorrow a lot and the next day a lot.”

While other modern closers have matched Kimbrel’s workload, none have been rookies, let alone one shoehorned into a playoff race. After going 38 consecutive appearances without giving up a run – and with striking out 67 in 37 2/3 innings – Kimbrel blew a save Sept. 9. Then came another Sept. 19, and Wednesday night’s. Venters’ struggles in September left Gonzalez at least considering the Braves’ stretch gag – 9-18 over the final month – and the relievers’ efficacy might be of his own doing.

“Maybe they are [tired], maybe they’re not,” Gonzalez said. “Again, for me, those are excuses. If we hold their appearances back down, maybe we’re a .500 club. Maybe we’re not in this situation.”
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#6,632
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golfballs03 said:
I don't think so. Even in the late 90s, attendance at NLDS games were relatively weak
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It became a combination of it being old hat getting into the playoffs and also Atlanta got an inordinate number of midweek day games due to the TV schedule.
 
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golfballs03 said:
I agree. If the ball park weren't in the ****ing ghetto, people might go.
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That's way overblown. It's not the greatest area, but it's not threatening either. I've gone to Braves games for most of my life and never even slightly been concerned for my safety.
 
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Vercingetorix said:
He just turned 22. Although nobody apparently noticed, he started to turn it around in September -- .258, .375 OBP, .739 OPS -- while the rest of the team was collapsing. He was injured for a big chunk of the season. It's way too early to start giving up on him. He's still the guy who put up those incredible minor league numbers and had a ROY-quality season in the majors last year. He needs to take some time off and then go play winter ball.
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I didn't mean that to sound like a bash on Heyward. I just mean that no matter how good he ends up being, he will never live up to the expectations some have of him. You would have thought he was the second coming of Hank Aaron at some points in 2010 if you listened to certain people.
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Calculon said:
I didn't mean that to sound like a bash on Heyward. I just mean that no matter how good he ends up being, he will never live up to the expectations some have of him. You would have thought he was the second coming of Hank Aaron at some points in 2010 if you listened to certain people.
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Stop listening to those people.
 
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#6,637
Big chokes, luckily Boston choked on the same day so it is a bigger story...at least ATL has a young team that should grow from this
 
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GAVol said:
That's way overblown. It's not the greatest area, but it's not threatening either. I've gone to Braves games for most of my life and never even slightly been concerned for my safety.
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Well verc had it right. It's more about getting to and from there
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Co. Aytch said:
Always have wondered why they didnt do that.
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Supposedly when they put MARTA in, the Braves and Falcons were actively opposed to a stop near Fulton County Stadium because they were afraid they'd lose all that parking revenue. So they literally ran the line around it.
 
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Regulator said:
Hadn't really thought about it from that viewpoint, but it's a valid one. I wonder if they have given/would give any thought to moving back start times, at least on occasion, especially over the summer months. 7:30 or 7:45 might be enough to do the trick.
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The problem is that the games last three hours plus now, so if you start at 7:40 then families don't want to go because the game's not over until pushing 11:00 most nights. Most parents are not like me; even in the summer they want their kids in bed by then. I'm pretty sure I remember them moving the start time up hoping that they'd get more families out, but then they're in the traffic. There's just no way to fit three-hour baseball games plus an hour's worth of traffic into an evening without it being a PITA for anyone who has kids.

Heck, even way before we had kids, my wife and I always tried to work it so that we went to games when Maddux was pitching, because we knew we'd be out of there by 9:30.
 
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Vercingetorix said:
Heck, even way before we had kids, my wife and I always tried to work it so that we went to games when Maddux was pitching, because we knew we'd be out of there by 9:30.
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I remember one midsummer "night" going to a game where Greg Maddux pitched a complete game shutout and as we walked out of the stadium I looked up and realized it wasn't even completely dark yet.
 
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#6,646
golfballs03 said:
Well verc had it right. It's more about getting to and from there
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The biggest problem is that most of their customer base that's able to spend $100+ to take the family to a baseball game lives up north. So to get to the ballpark on a weeknight you've got to go all the way through downtown in the teeth of rush hour. And then when you get down there there are only about three surface-street routes into the ballpark vicinity, all of which are packed, so that's another 20 minutes. It's just a cluster. I'm not saying they needed to put the ballpark up in Roswell or anything, but taking the easy convert-the-Olympic-stadium route chained them to a horrible location for their customer base. Surely they could have found some spot on the northeast side of downtown. Imagine if the ballpark were where Atlantic Station is now -- attendance would be vastly better just because it would be so easy to get there.
 
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#6,647
GAVol said:
I remember one midsummer "night" going to a game where Greg Maddux pitched a complete game shutout and as we walked out of the stadium I looked up and realized it wasn't even completely dark yet.
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He was like clockwork. You could go to the 7:30 game, count on meeting people at the bar afterwards by 10 or a shortly thereafter, and still get home in time to get up for work the next morning.

Those were the good old days. In a lot of ways.
 
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#6,648
The funny thing is that I can probably get from Macon to the ballpark within 10 minutes of the amount of time that it takes to get there from the top end during rush hour.
 
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#6,649
No doubt. I live basically at Clairmont and 85, so I'm relatively far in, and when we went to the game a couple weeks ago we left the house at 5:45 and still weren't in our seats by first pitch.
 
#6,650
#6,650
In 1988, a corner outfielder for Atlanta finished fourth in the ROY and looked like a potential superstar. The next year he was injured, really struggled, and didn't look anything like the same player from the year before. The next year he put a 30/30 season, with a .303/.357/.539 line.

His name is Ron Gant. Who would have been a Braves HOF had ne stayed off the damn motorcycle.

The lesson. Be patient with young players.
 
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