Ordinarily this weekend would be time for our Super Duper Preview Edition, but A Brett has been farmed out to Venice of the Eye-Talian League, and M Norman and I are going to Tunica to blow Junior’s incipient college fund.
But when we return, get ready for another season of sporadic posts featuring an undercurrent of [...]
Entries from March 2006
March 30, 2006
Brave-O-Matic Breaking Camp
March 29, 2006
Fortunate Injury?
John Thomson was scratched from his start today because of “elbow tenderness”. There’s been a lot of buzz in the last 48 hours about a possible trade of Thomson for Craig Wilson, and this injury might forestall such a deal.
Which would be a good thing, to my way of thinking. Even if keeping [...]
March 28, 2006
The Closer Trauma Begins
One week away from Opening Day and the Braves cannot say with any certainty who their closer will be. The man who last earned the position, Chris Reitsma (which is Flemish for “flimsy body”), was pulled from Monday’s pre-season game with a bad hammy on his left leg. Last year it was a hyperextended [...]
March 25, 2006
What some Yahoo! Thinks
Preparing for this Sunday’s draft, I recently perused some fantasy baseball info on Yahoo sports. In their season predictions, both Tony Gwynn and Jeff Passan have pegged the Braves to take the NL East crown yet again. Gwynn expects the Mets to make a strong run, but thinks they do not have enough to knock [...]
March 23, 2006
Whither Thomson?
The AJC reports further indications that John Thomson is being shopped for bullpen help, now that it appears likely that Foster, McBride, and Boyer will be unable to begin the season. Unless the injuries to McBride and Boyer are worse than they’re letting on (always a possibility), I just don’t get this. We [...]
March 22, 2006
Globalization comes to Atlanta
The Braves and the Hanshin Tigers of the Japanese League have reached a “working agreement,” whatever that may mean, which will eventually help the Braves with international scouting, especially in the Far East.
The Braves have seemed to lag a bit in signing Asian players, missing out on a chance to ink the next Nomo, Ichiro, [...]
March 22, 2006
Jordan vs. Jurries
The AJC reports today that Matt Diaz will be our fourth outfielder this season. Great news. He’s put together a fine pre-season, with a Francoeur-esque .391 average, including extra bases on 5 of his 18 hits. As soon as Skip Carey starts doing the pre-game call-in show I’ll see if he knows how one computes [...]
March 21, 2006
Don’t Call It A Recap
The Bravos took care of the Cardinals 8-1, and it looks like Cox is starting to use his pitchers in their anticipated roles: Smoltz went 5 scoreless innings, followed by an inning from each of Remlinger, Villarreal, and Reitsma, with Lerew pitching the ninth after the game was out of reach.
Remlinger gave [...]
March 19, 2006
Spring Training Stats
A few nuggets from ESPN.com’s spring training leader boards (all rankings are for both leagues combined):
– James Jurries (.467) and Wilson Betemit (.464) are #10 and #11 in batting average
– Jurries is tied for sixth with 12 RBI
– Matt Diaz is tied for second with 17 hits. Diaz and Jurries appear to [...]
March 16, 2006
Time Out For Some Madness
Who’s your Final Four? I’ve got Duke, Kansas, UConn, and Ohio State, with UConn beating Kansas in the final game.
Upset specials include Texas A&M over Syracuse, and Utah State over Washington.
Maybe we’ll hear from Jeff Francoeur about his picks — he hasn’t been doing much. I’m cool with the WBC, but Frenchy is [...]
March 15, 2006
An Andy Rooney post
I just thought I’d say how much I like the new AJC print format for the Braves news and other baseball items. Everything neatly divided out into big boxes. Great for short attention spanners. Read a box or 2 now. Read another one later. It works for me. First time in a while we haven’t [...]
March 14, 2006
Cox Resigns? No- Cox Re-Signs
Real news? During spring training? Yeah, it happens sometimes. The Braves have decided to stretch the division crown streak for at least 2 more years. It was announced that Bobby Cox and John Schuerholz signed one-year contract extensions Monday, keeping them in Atlanta through 2007.
This ‘Matic likes to hear news like that. And how much [...]
March 13, 2006
The Absence of Leo Effect
The Braves signed Damian Moss to a minor league deal yesterday. It’s not mentioned in the article, but Moss was one of those young pitchers who evidently didn’t get along well with Mazzone. It was cast as a personality clash, but maybe Moss’s walk totals had something to do with it, too. [...]
March 10, 2006
Holy Mother of Crap!!!
John Schuerholz’s new book, “Built to Win,” was given an advance screening by the folks at AJC (free subscription required), and some of the revelations are shocking. To wit:
Barry Bonds was a Brave for about 15 hoursApparently in 1992 we had made the deal to get Bonds for Alejandro Pena, Keith Mitchell and some other [...]
March 9, 2006
Spotlight: Matt Diaz
Matt Diaz has caught the eye of both Bobby Cox and the AJC (free subscription required) with his early season heroics. Hitting .364 with a homer and two RBIs tend to garner attention in early March.
Diaz is battling for a roster spot, either in the outfield, or as a right-handed platoon (along with about 25 [...]
