AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2007 > December > 28
Friday, December 28, 2007
Big Three untainted, still plugging away
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Though the timing was purely coincidental, Baseball America couldn’t have picked a more appropriate winter to present a lifetime achievement award to Atlanta’s longtime Big Three: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz.
With the latter part of Roger Clemens’ storied career now under suspicion due to Mitchell Report allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs, the Rocket could soon — if it’s not already happened — be replaced by Maddux as the general consensus pick for best pitcher of the past 25 years.
Maddux, 41, needs only eight wins to pass Clemens’ 354. And as Peter Gammons noted last week, since Maddux made his big league debut in 1986 he actually has notched 39 more wins than Clemens in that period. Since Glavine debuted the following summer, the once-and-again Braves lefty has 303 wins to Clemens’ 302.
By most measures, including wins and durability — not to mention squeezing every ounce possible out of one’s talent — Glavine isn’t far behind Maddux.
And then there is Smoltz, the bearded Braves icon, and a different case than Maddux and Glavine in that he lost out on perhaps 50 wins during three-plus seasons as an elite closer, a role he first took out of necessity (elbow problems) and then remained in at the request of his team.
Different from the pitching-savant genius and creativity of Maddux and craftiness of Glavine, Smoltz was a pure power pitcher most of his career, which he believes gave him the short shrift when some of us observers judged the merits of the pitchers.
While that’s open for debate — many baseball writers I know consider Smoltz’s career to be on a par with Glavine’s, or at least close to it, because of Smoltz’s unique combination of wins, saves and postseason excellence — what’s almost certain is that his max-effort pitching caused Smoltz to break down a few times while his buddies Maddux and Glavine have made start after start, year after year after year.
(By the way, how ‘bout the fact that all three of them are over 40 and still being very much counted on in the rotations of playoff-hopeful teams, Maddux with San Diego and the other two with the Braves? Pretty remarkable, really.)
Smoltz has overcome four elbow surgeries and made numerous adjustments both in-season (who can forget his throwing sidearm, or resorting to knuckleballs because of throbbing elbow pain?) and between seasons, adjustments he believed he needed to make to remain a legitimate ace. Whatever he’s done, it’s worked. The man knows his body, abilities and limits about as well as any athlete I’ve ever been around.
How many of us seriously believed that Smoltz would still be a No. 1-caliber pitcher at this stage? How many really believed that his elbow would hold up after he successfully lobbied for the Braves to let him return to his beloved starting role before the 2005 season? (My own hand is not raised.)
Yet, here he is. With only one DL stint and no surgeries since he moved back to the rotation (although plenty of aches and pains, some that you know about and others he’s kept to himself and team trainers).
It’s been a difficult couple of years for Smoltz, both on the field and off it (a divorce from wife Dyan after 16 years of marriage and four children). Between nagging injuries and a staggering lack of run support, he nevertheless compiled a 30-17 record and 3.31 ERA in 437-2/3 innings during the 2006-07 seasons, with 408 strikeouts and 102 walks in that span.
Smoltz is a fiend for statistics, so he knows how many more wins he could’ve had if the Braves had scored just two runs in this game, or one more run in that game, or if the bullpen had held a lead in this one. Doesn’t complain about it, but he knows.
Yes, a lot of pitchers could say the same thing, but statistically there’s no denying Smoltz had tougher luck than most pitchers during 2006-07.
Which brings me to my point, which is tied to the recent arrival of the Bill James Handbook 2008, and further evidence of Smoltz’s ongoing performance (yes, a rambling intro and a point you had to find, not the way they teach it in j-school, but it’s a blog and I’m working quickly here).
I was thumbing through the pages of the new handbook when I got to a section I always enjoy, where James projects hitting and pitching statistics for virtually every player in the majors for the upcoming season.
It’s done, I assume, by running reams of recent statistics for each player through a computer program, which takes into account factors including run support and spits out the results each player could be expected to produce. (I’m assuming this; it probably says clearly how it’s done in the intro to the section, which I skipped.)
Folks, I had to go over the wins column in the individual pitching projections twice to make sure I wasn’t missing someone, and I’ll probably go over it twice more when I get home tonight to check twice more (I’m on a one-day trip to Arizona, in the air as I type this, and will file it at the Phoenix airport).
The reason I checked and double-checked? Because the projected wins total for Smoltz: 17. No other pitcher in the majors was projected to win more than 16. Not Johan Santana, Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb or Dan Haren. No one but The Beard. All others projected to win 16 or fewer (hey, I’m just the messenger).
Again, whether you put much stock in the projections or not (more are usually fairly accurate than not), I think that 17-win projection says plenty for how good/steady Smoltz has been in recent years, that you could pump his stats into a computer program that would tell you Smoltz should win more games in 2008 than any other pitcher in the majors, if he just keeps doing what he’s been doing.
Do I necessarily believe it? No, because the computer hasn’t talked to Smoltz recently, and hasn’t heard him admit that he’s not the same beast he was. He’s slowing down a bit, and sounds as if he’s preparing us for the possibility of him missing a start or two in 2008.
Nevertheless, it’s worth noting what the computer projection says, because it’s a reflection of recent performance by the old man who keeps defying skeptics, those who say each year, “He’s going to break down sooner or later, he can’t keep doing this forever….”
He was 30-17 with a 3.31 ERA in 437-2/3 innings the past two years, with 50 quality starts in 67 games. Yes, fifty quality starts (six innings or more, three earned runs or fewer). At his age, a decade or more older than most aces.
Santana was 34-19 with a 3.04 ERA in 452-2/3 innings over the past two seasons, and 45 quality starts in 67 games.
Peavy? He was 30-20 with a 3.28 ERA in 425-2/3 innings, with 50 quality starts in 66 games. Haren? He was 29-22 with a 3.59 ERA in 445-2/3 innings.
Brandon Webb was 34-18 with a 3.06 ERA in 471-1/3 innings. He’s the innings-eating horse Smoltz used to be, or getting there.
Peavy, Haren and Webb are the young lions, just coming into their primes. Smoltz is winding down a great career, one that will almost certainly land him in the Hall of Fame along with certainties Maddux and Glavine.
But with a little help from the back of the rotation, and a little more run support, and a little more fun pitching and playing golf with his buddy Glavine, who knows? Smoltz has an option for 2009 that vests with 200 innings, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him last until 2010, perhaps longer.
But for now, Smoltz has at least one expert projecting he’ll win 17 games at age 41. And if we’ve learned anything about Smoltz through the years, it’s to never underestimate him. So I’m not.
After all, he did record a hole-in-one on a course in Las Vegas this winter. On a hole that Smoltz claims not even his friend Tiger Woods has aced.
And he seems more optimistic than he’s been the past couple of winters about the Braves and their pitching staff (though he and most Braves would feel a lot better about the franchise’s future if they’d sign Mark Teixeira and Jeff Francoeur to contract extensions).
In recent seasons Smoltz has added pitches to his repertoire, resigned himself to throwing at less than max-effort on most pitches, and been honest with himself enough to concede he could no longer hoist the team on his shoulders and will it to win by staying on the mound eight or nine innings through soreness.
That’s a reason Smoltz is optimistic about the tweaked Braves roster, as he eases into his offseason throwing program with the countdown under 50 days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training. More so than he was last year.
That’s because last year the Braves went to spring training with six starting pitchers. They lost Mike Hampton (again) before he’d even thrown a Grapefruit League pitch. Then they lost spring sensation Lance Cormier before Opening Day.
They signed Mark Redman, literally out of his Oklahoma basement, where the out-of-work Redman was throwing in an underground pitching tunnel to stay sharp until some team called in the spring. He was not sharp. To say the least.
Redman was dumped early in a season that saw the Braves scramble to fill out their rotation, making moves and subbing out pitchers almost on a weekly basis.
By midseason the bullpen was haggard, Chuck James’ elbow was barking, and journeyman Buddy Carlyle was pretty the third-best starter behind co-aces Tim Hudson and Smoltz, representing a precipitous drop in quality from No. 2 to No. 3 for a team that would’ve stood a good chance of making the playoffs if it had had someone, anyone, to provide quality starts behind the top two veterans.
Now the Braves have Glavine back in the fold, a 303-game winner expected not to be an ace, but a very good No. 3 starter.
And they should have several options to choose from to fill out the last two spots in the rotation, including James, Hampton (if healthy), promising rookies Jair Jurrjens (acquired from Detroit in the Edgar Renteria trade and lefty Jo-Jo Reyes, plus Jeff Bennett and Carlyle.
Smoltz likes the depth and particularly the prospects of having someone such as Bennett, a former Milwaukee reliever who pitched well in September starts, to fill what Smoltz envisions as a “sixth starter” role as long reliever/spot starter.
It was Smoltz who confided after an end-of-season game at Philadelphia that he hoped the Braves would consider going with, in effect, a six-man rotation in 2008 in order to permit those who might need to skip a start to do so and preserve their health and energy.
“I’m best suited for the stretch run,” Smoltz said in Nashville during the Winter Meetings, where he went to accept the Baseball America lifetime achievement award.
The old lion is still one of the elite starting pitchers in the National League, but Smoltz wants to be at his best in September and October, and knows he can’t be, at his age, if he has to go hard all season without getting a break if he needs one.
He concedes he can’t pitch 220-230 innings like he used to, or expect to churn out quality starts even if he’s got pain in his shoulder or elbow or wherever.
“If we have for the first time in a long time, the luxury of having a long man …. That is something that’s beneficial, to be able to take a start off. I’m realizing that now. Me and Hampton — Hampton more than anybody, we need to protect.”
Smoltz seems to have more confidence in Hampton giving the Braves something — maybe just 15-20 starts, but good starts — than most others seem to have in Hampton at this point. Many have written off the veteran lefty after Hampton missed the past two seasons for elbow surgeries, then was hurt again (hamstring) in the first inning of his first start this winter in Mexico.
But it’s the other depth, particularly the return of Glavine, that makes Smoltz feel better about this Atlanta rotation’s chances of returning to some semblance of the proud Braves starting pitching of years past, and to be able to take some pressure off a promising bullpen unfairly maligned last season.
“Not to oversell the Glavine addition, but what he gives you is a solid 3-4-5,” he said. “And he gives you a lot of knowledge and advice that I can’t really give those [young lefties]. If they’re smart, they’ll use him and be like a sponge.”
“And I hope it brings about a little more of a ‘unit’ with the rotation. We had something special [with the former Braves rotations]. It makes the days go by faster.”
GILES UPDATE: The venerable Hall-of-Fame scribe from Denver, cowboy Tracy Ringolsby, reports that the Rockies are expected to resume discussions about second baseman Marcus Giles after the holidays. Giles, 29, was a bust with San Diego last season, hitting .229 with four homers and 39 RBI in 119 games and losing his starting job along the way. They non-tendered him this winter, just as the Braves had done a year before. Right now, the Rockies have Jayson Nix and a few others to compete for the job previously held by Kaz Matsui. They’ve also contacted Todd Walker.
OK, we’re landing in Phoenix. And I need to file this soon as I get in the airport.
By the way this song’s not a reference to anyone mentioned in this blog, believe me. Just a great song by a terrific songwriter, a tune I’d already picked out. One a lot of us can surely relate to.
“A MAN IN NEED” by Richard Thompson
I packed my rags, went down the hill
Left my dependents a-lying still
Just as the dawn was rising up
I was making good speed
I left a letter lying on the bed
From a man in need, it read
You know it’s so hard, It’s so hard to find
Well, well, well. Who’s going to cure the heart of a man in need?
All of my friends don’t comprehend me
Their kind of style it just offends me
I want to take ‘em, I want to shake ‘em
‘Till they pay me some heed
Oh, you’ve got to ride in one direction
Until you find the right connection
You know it’s so hard, so, so, so, so
Well, well. Who’s going to cure the heart of a man in need?
Who’s going to give you real happiness?
Who’s going to give you contentedness?
Who’s going to lead you? Who’s going to feed you?
And cut you free?
Well I’ve sailed every ship in the sea
But I travelled this world in misery
You know it’s so hard, so hard, so hard
Well, well. Who’s going to cure the heart of a man in need?
Well who’s going to shoe your feet?
Ah who’s going to pay your rent?
And who’s going to stand by you?
Well, well, well, well
Who’s going to cure the heart of a man in need?
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Of a man in need
Services »
