AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2008 > December > 11
Thursday, December 11, 2008
This isn’t what Braves planned
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Las Vegas — There was a time when the Braves didn’t have to worry about whether a player would waive a no-trade clause to come to Atlanta. A time when the Braves would go dollar-for-dollar with the Yankees or anyone else. A time when seemingly every pitcher wanted to be a Brave.
That time has passed.
Players do not want to come to Atlanta the way they used to want to come to Atlanta. Especially pitchers. It’s still more attractive than a majority of the 30 teams in baseball, but not necessarily more attractive, or even as attractive, as a handful or more big-money, big-market teams competing for top players.
Much of that has to do with the facts that A., the Braves have missed the postseason for three years running, and will have to knock off the defending World Series champions and/or the new-stadiumed, deep-pocketed N.Y. Mets to get to the playoffs in 2009; and 2., the Braves are competing against a few teams, one in particular (hint: pinstripes), that are spending far more money than the Braves.
If the Braves’ payroll is arbitrary and not set by ownership, then I’d suggest it might be time to raise it about $10 million above whatever that private payroll figure was that Braves officials had in mind. That, or realize that it’s going to take a confluence of favorable events to get the Braves into the postseason next year, because they just aren’t going to have a combination of rotation/bullpen/lineup that stacks up against the Mets and Phillies without getting at least one more top-notch starting pitcher and another big bat to help out Chipper Jones and Brian McCann.
The Yankees overnight became the first team to guarantee a fifth year for Burnett, Peter Gammons reports. That’s the length of contract Burnett’s agent had said would be there for his client, now it is. I thought all along that the Braves would be willing to guarantee that fifth year, too, but now I’m not sure if they will. We might soon know if they did, probably after Burnett signs with the Yankees.
This is history most of you already know, but here goes: Until five or six years ago, the Braves were in the top five consistently in major league league payroll, and sometime in the top three, very close to the Yankees’ spending levels. They’ve spent between one-third and one-half of what the Yankees have spent in payroll during the past five seasons, and the divide is only growing with every new contract the Evil Empire hands out as it pursues market saturation of pitching talent.
The Braves, then owned by Time Warner, cut back their spending earlier this decade, while the Yankees literally doubled their payrolls from those days when they and the Braves used to have payrolls just over $100 mill (it really wasn’t long ago, believe it or not).
Don’t get me wrong: The Braves aren’t some sort of woebegone, hopeless franchise with no hope of drawing any free agents; they’re just not one of the top draws for the top free agents anymore. That’s the big difference that a lot of long-time fans are struggling to accept, or are angrily accepting.
Bobby Cox might retire after next season, and players know that. There’s that uncertainty, plus no reason to believe that payroll will rise significantly in the future to give the Braves the power to compete for most top free agents.
What they do have is a rebuilt farm system that’s once again regarded as one of baseball’s best, and plenty of payroll flexibility in the future, as only Brian McCann is signed beyond 2009. But until they get back to the postseason, until they show players they can win again, I don’t know how much a farm system and future payroll flexibility matter to attractive free agents and players with no-trade clauses.
And whereas the Braves of old would have been the ideal destination for a country boy from Alabama who grew up cheering for them, it’s now a team that, according to a couple of people I know who have talked to Peavy, does not excite him because he doesn’t think they are on a level with the Mets and Phillies and he’s had enough of losing with the Padres.
If it’s any consolation, Braves fans should at least know that Peavy doesn’t appear at all to be the type of guy who’d want to come in and put the Braves on his back and lead them back to prosperity, like their aces of old. Instead, it now appears pretty clear that he’d prefer to go to Chicago — so much for that Southern Boy-wants-to-go-home notion — and pitch for an already formed playoff team.
Now, we’ll soon find out if A.J. Burnett prefers the Yankees and the juggernaut they’re assembling for their first season at new Yankee Stadium, over a return to the NL with the Braves, who may or may not match the Yankees’ contract offer, but, so far at least, have been very close (the Braves’ first offer, four years and $60 mill with an option for a fifth year) was already far longer and richer than they would have envisioned spending on Burnett a couple of months ago, when they were optimistic about their chances of landing Peavy, the 2007 Cy Young Award winner from Mobile, who was owed $63 mill over the next four seasons or $81 over the next five, either figure not out of line for a pitcher of his ilk.
But here we are, 2-1/2 months into the offseason, wrapping up the Winter Meetings this morning, and the Braves have so far this offseason acquired Javier Vazquez, a good middle-rotation starter but no ace, and backup catcher Dave Ross, and a couple of promising but unaccomplished lefty relievers.
The outlook could change in a hurry. Maybe the Braves suddenly decide, “You know what? We really, really need Burnett or Derek Lowe, or Ben Sheets, so let’s match or surpass any offer for at least one of those guys.” Then the Braves have a guy who, if healthy, can go toe-to-toe most nights with any other team’s ace, a guy who could set the tone for the rest of a rotation that would suddenly look pretty solid.
But so far, the outlook isn’t exactly splendid for Los Bravos.
”THERE SHE GOES, MY BEAUTIFUL WORLD” by Nick Cave
The wintergreen, the juniper
The cornflower and the chicory
All the words you said to me
Still vibrating in the air
The elm, the ash and the linden tree
The dark and deep, enchanted sea
The trembling moon and the stars unfurled
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again
John Wilmot penned his poetry
riddled with the pox
Nabokov wrote on index cards,
at a lectern, in his socks
St. John of the Cross did his best stuff
imprisoned in a box
And Johnny Thunders was half alive
when he wrote Chinese Rocks
Well, me, I’m lying here,
with nothing in my ears
Me, I’m lying here, with nothing in my ears
Me, I’m lying here, for what seems years
I’m just lying on my bed
with nothing in my head
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again
Karl Marx squeezed his carbuncles
while writing Das Kapital
And Gaugin, he buggered off, man,
and went all tropical
While Philip Larkin stuck it out
in a library in Hull
And Dylan Thomas died drunk in
St. Vincent’s hospital
I will kneel at your feet
I will lie at your door
I will rock you to sleep
I will roll on the floor
And I’ll ask for nothing
Nothing in this life
I’ll ask for nothing
Give me ever-lasting life
I just want to move the world
I just want to move the world
I just want to move the world
I just want to move
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again
So if you got a trumpet, get on your feet,
brother, and blow it
If you’ve got a field, that don’t yield,
well get up and hoe it
I look at you and you look at me and
deep in our hearts know it
That you weren’t much of a muse,
but then I weren’t much of a poet
I will be your slave
I will peel you grapes
Up on your pedestal
With your ivory and apes
With your book of ideas
With your alchemy
O Come on
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send that stuff on down to me
Send it all around the world
Cause here she comes, my beautiful girl
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes, my beautiful world
There she goes again
