The Atlanta Braves (thread 1)

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#10,626
#10,626
Vercingetorix said:
The shiny, disappointing new version of Fado in Buckhead. I still go in there because I've known some of the staff since, uh, Peyton Manning was our quarterback. If Brazil plays a soccer game of any kind on TV, go there. They bring a crowd. And somehow 70 percent of their crowd seems to be girls in their 20s who apparently regard clothes as an inconvenience they have to put up with.
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Buckhead sucks now.

I was there last week. They are really making some progress on that new building next door.

Or not.
 
#10,627
#10,627
Vercingetorix said:
Arguing about whether he's going to be part of the Braves' core is entirely a semantical argument -- it's like talking about the Braves' starting pitching in 1996 and discussing whether you ought to include Denny Neagle as part of the "core" group along with Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz.
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The comparison above is not apropos. Those pitchers were perennial All-Stars by 1996. Your hitting core includes a guy who has never seen a Major League pitch and a guy who has played slightly more than a half a season in the bigs. I love those 2 guys and think they'll do great, but they're not proven like Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz were in 1996.

Prado has a significantly higher BA and slugging % than Heyward, a career BA 20 pts higher than McCann, more doubles this year than both, and more hits this year than any other NL player.

Prado absolutely should be considered part of the core of the braves' lineup in the next few years. In fact, it's not crazy to say he's the Braves' best hitter right now.

(Here's another dirty little secret: Prado's BA away from Turner Field is still higher than McCann's and Heyward's overall).
 
#10,628
#10,628
TennNC said:
The comparison above is not apropos. Those pitchers were perennial All-Stars by 1996. Your hitting core includes a guy who has never seen a Major League pitch and a guy who has played slightly more than a half a season in the bigs. I love those 2 guys and think they'll do great, but they're not proven like Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz were in 1996.

Prado has a significantly higher BA and slugging % than Heyward, a career BA 20 pts higher than McCann, more doubles this year than both, and more hits this year than any other NL player.

Prado absolutely should be considered part of the core of the braves' lineup in the next few years. In fact, it's not crazy to say he's the Braves' best hitter right now.

(Here's another dirty little secret: Prado's BA away from Turner Field is still higher than McCann's and Heyward's overall).
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Martin Prado = waiter
 
#10,630
#10,630
VOLinthaATL said:
:eek:lol: Let's list all the 2B or SS in the MLB that are currently on pace to hit 25HR's this year. I'll start.

1. Dan Uggla
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Which, as I said, is why second basemen are so rarely difference makers. The vast majority of middle infielders are basically spare parts. You find some good ones to plug the holes, and then you win championships by finding power guys in the outfield and the corners.

This is why it has been so frustrating to watch the Braves be content to have a rotating cast of stiffs in LF and 1B for so long. You make it a hell of a lot harder on yourself if you have to get your offense up the middle.
 
#10,631
#10,631
VOLinthaATL said:
Buckhead sucks now.

I was there last week. They are really making some progress on that new building next door.

Or not.
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It's awful. I wouldn't ever go in there anymore if I hadn't known half the staff for, in some cases, 13 or 14 years. The most frustrating thing about the whole thing is that they apparently tore the old pub down so they could build a hole in the ground. I'd like to drive a nail through the forehead of the developer who ruined the whole area.
 
#10,632
#10,632
TennNC said:
The comparison above is not apropos. Those pitchers were perennial All-Stars by 1996. Your hitting core includes a guy who has never seen a Major League pitch and a guy who has played slightly more than a half a season in the bigs. I love those 2 guys and think they'll do great, but they're not proven like Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz were in 1996.
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If Heyward and Freeman don't turn into perennial all-star type players, then the Braves' post-Chipper plans are in dust and they're going to have to start the rebuild all over again. Go back and look at my post which started all this mess; you'll see that it began with the word IF. Everything the Braves have done for the last two or three years has been predicated under the assumption that Heyward and Freeman are going to be huge impact players at the ML level. When talking about what else the Braves are going to do this offseason, I think it's reasonable to go ahead and operate under that assumption as well. Because if it's wrong, they're screwed.

Prado has a significantly higher BA and slugging % than Heyward, a career BA 20 pts higher than McCann, more doubles this year than both, and more hits this year than any other NL player.

Prado absolutely should be considered part of the core of the braves' lineup in the next few years. In fact, it's not crazy to say he's the Braves' best hitter right now.

(Here's another dirty little secret: Prado's BA away from Turner Field is still higher than McCann's and Heyward's overall).
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So? Jimmy Rollins has a higher career batting average than Ryan Howard. Which one's the more important player?

I don't know how to say it any clearer -- power, power, power. Power in the middle of the lineup. If you have power in the middle of the lineup, you can take the guy hitting .300 at the top of the order, replace him with somebody hitting .260, and you'll still win. If you replace the power hitters with three more .300/10 HR guys, you'll lose. If Martin Prado is still arguably the Braves' best hitter in three years, then that will be three more years that the Braves will have gone without winning a title.
 
#10,633
#10,633
Vercingetorix said:
Go back and look at my post which started all this mess;
...
I don't know how to say it any clearer -- power, power, power. Power in the middle of the lineup.
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I think this mess wouldn't have happened if you'd stated it as the "power core" instead of the "offensive core."

Or maybe you assumed that everyone else sees those two as the same. When I see "offensive core," I think of the players most crucial to scoring runs - both crossing the plate and driving in runs. (QBs need guys to catch their TD passes). And according to the numbers, Prado is as crucial to both pieces of that equation as anyone else on the team. Without him, we do not have the best record in the NL East, or the best record the Braves have had in many years.

(fwiw, Prado does have a higher slugging % than either Heyward or McCann. It'd be interesting to see how his RBIs might go up if he were hitting 3rd with a .320 hitter like him hitting in front of him).
 
#10,634
#10,634
Back to a more important topic to waste time on: the lineup once Lee is inserted. My preference:

2B Infante
3B Prado
LF Heyward
1B Lee
C McCann
LF Diaz
CF Cabrera
SS Gonzalez
 
#10,635
#10,635
TennNC said:
I think this mess wouldn't have happened if you'd stated it as the "power core" instead of the "offensive core."

Or maybe you assumed that everyone else sees those two as the same. When I see "offensive core," I think of the players most crucial to scoring runs - both crossing the plate and driving in runs. (QBs need guys to catch their TD passes). And according to the numbers, Prado is as crucial to both pieces of that equation as anyone else on the team. Without him, we do not have the best record in the NL East, or the best record the Braves have had in many years.

(fwiw, Prado does have a higher slugging % than either Heyward or McCann. It'd be interesting to see how his RBIs might go up if he were hitting 3rd with a .320 hitter like him hitting in front of him).
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I don't think anyone will argue against needing guys like Prado, but the most successful teams have guys who hit for power and drive in a lot of runs, typically. What use is a Prado if there is no one to knock him in? I'm not trying to take sides here, but I see the logic.
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#10,636
#10,636
TennNC said:
Back to a more important topic to waste time on: the lineup once Lee is inserted. My preference:

2B Infante
3B Prado
LF Heyward
C McCann
1B Lee
LF Cabrera
SS Gonzalez
CF Ankiel
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Considering this is coming amidst Ankiel's 5 game hit streak w/ two last night, I am keeping him in.

I also like McCann batting cleanup at this point.
 
#10,637
#10,637
Vercingetorix said:
Before you start screaming GREAT!!!!!! in all caps about him, look carefully at his career home/away numbers -- not just average, but also homers and doubles. If he played in a ballpark without Turner Field's left-center power alley, you never would have heard of him.
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From 2007-2009, Prado has a higher BA/OBP/SLG ON THE ROAD. This year his ISO is higher ON THE ROAD.

For whatever reason, you seem to fetishize the home run and attempt to rationalize that those who don't hit them in abundance cannot be highly valuable players.
 
#10,638
#10,638
Ben said:
From 2007-2009, Prado has a higher BA/OBP/SLG ON THE ROAD. This year his ISO is higher ON THE ROAD.

For whatever reason, you seem to fetishize the home run and attempt to rationalize that those who don't hit them in abundance are simply waiters.
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:good!:
 
#10,639
#10,639
TennNC said:
I think this mess wouldn't have happened if you'd stated it as the "power core" instead of the "offensive core."

Or maybe you assumed that everyone else sees those two as the same. When I see "offensive core," I think of the players most crucial to scoring runs - both crossing the plate and driving in runs. (QBs need guys to catch their TD passes). And according to the numbers, Prado is as crucial to both pieces of that equation as anyone else on the team. Without him, we do not have the best record in the NL East, or the best record the Braves have had in many years.

(fwiw, Prado does have a higher slugging % than either Heyward or McCann. It'd be interesting to see how his RBIs might go up if he were hitting 3rd with a .320 hitter like him hitting in front of him).
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With a few rare exceptions, leadoff hitters are like fifth starters -- you can't win if you can't find somebody to fill the role adequately, but mostly they're pretty fungible. It is a hell of a lot easier to find a guy with an OBP of .350 whom you can stick at the top of the lineup than it is to find a cleanup hitter.



Ben said:
From 2007-2009, Prado has a higher BA/OBP/SLG ON THE ROAD. This year his ISO is higher ON THE ROAD.
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You must be slicing Prado's stats up differently than what I'm seeing on baseball-reference. For his career, he's hit for a higher average at home. This year, in his first full year as a full time player, he's hitting a hundred points higher at home. I could not be less interested in the ISO of a hitter who comes up with the #8 and pitcher's spots in front of him all the time.

For whatever reason, you seem to fetishize the home run and attempt to rationalize that those who don't hit them in abundance cannot be highly valuable players.
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I'm not fetishizing the home run; I'm making an empirical, testable statement that teams that don't have sluggers don't win the World Series. Go look at the rosters of the last 25 title winners. You do not win if you don't have at least one and usually two sluggers in the middle of the lineup. When you're building a team (or figuring out whom you'd call a "core" offensive player"), you start with 3-4-5 and then flesh the rest of the team out.

Again, I like Prado. But if he lost a hand in a meat slicer this offseason, it wouldn't have a dramatic effect on the Braves' chances to win a WS in the next five years. If it happened to McCann, the Braves would be screwed. Prado's simply a much easier player to replace.
 
#10,640
#10,640
TennNC said:
Back to a more important topic to waste time on: the lineup once Lee is inserted. My preference:

2B Infante
3B Prado
LF Heyward
1B Lee
C McCann
LF Diaz
CF Cabrera
SS Gonzalez
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I like this lineup too, but if Cox were willing to use Heyward in the 3 slot then he'd already be there.
 
#10,641
#10,641
Here's one way to think about it -- imagine the Braves had had Prado playing 3B for the last 15 years instead of Chipper Jones. How would that have affected their win totals every year?
 
#10,644
#10,644
I guess I'll miss most of this one. It is electrical engineering time. I'll have to pull out the MLB At Bat app a few times to check on the score.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#10,645
#10,645
CardassianVol said:
I guess I'll miss most of this one. It is electrical engineering time. I'll have to pull out the MLB At Bat app a few times to check on the score.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
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If you have the free Sportacular app (assuming you have an iPhone), you can easily set up single-game push notifications to have it send you a message every time a run scores. Great way to keep up with a game that you can't watch or listen to.
 
#10,646
#10,646
Vercingetorix said:
If you have the free Sportacular app (assuming you have an iPhone), you can easily set up single-game push notifications to have it send you a message every time a run scores. Great way to keep up with a game that you can't watch or listen to.
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Thanks. I am going to try that.
Posted via VolNation Mobile
 
#10,648
#10,648
Vercingetorix said:
Ah, thanks for the heads up. Big Prado fan here too. I don't get why saying that he's not as important to the Braves' future as Heyward or McCann is apparently the same thing as saying he sucks.
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I think he is just as important if he could string together several years like the one he has had so far...The big boppers are important, but the versatility,defense as well as the obp that Prado provides is invaluable imo. But, I think they're all important, esp if we're gonna be pulling for a contender year in and year out.:good!:
 
#10,650
#10,650
MadcapLaughs said:
Thanks for the heads up. This thing is well worth the $2.

Off Topic.

Roger Clemens being indicted for lying to congress.
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I like how I can sit in Neyland, set up score notifications for all the other games I care about, and then not have to pull out the phone every so often to see if any other scores have changed. If something happens, you know about it without having to look anything up.

I don't have a problem with Clemens being indicted for perjury -- other than the fact that it was dumb for Congress to be investigating steroids in baseball in the first place -- but if they were going to indict him, it's ridiculous that it's taken so long. What's it been, two years?
 
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