AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2008 > November > 27
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Braves fans, it just feels late
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s Thanksgiving and we’re all thankful for something, most of us for a whole lot. So have a good one, everybody, and try to be thankful for what you have despite these rough times.
We’re glad you come here to the Braves/Man In Black blog, whether it’s once in a while or all the time. We really are. All of you. Well, most of you (smile).
Now, on to biz, though we’ll hurry through because we’ve got three eating stops to make on the bike before 5 p.m. (yes, thankful it’s warm enough to motor around a traffic-free city on the bike at Thanksgiving).
Since the other blog was getting close to the magic crash number (it tends to stagger, then bend and break around 1,000 comments) we figured we should get up a clean slate since I know a lot of you are going to get tired of eating and watching some bad football at some point. So when that holiday family dysfunction gets too dysfunctional, post a comment or two. Don’t cost nothin’ (reference to the movie we recently debated here).
And speaking of the movie Animal House, they’re showing another comedy I personally rate even higher, The Big Lebowski, twice today at the Plaza Theatre on Ponce in Atlanta.
Where were we? Oh, the Braves. Yes. Hey, it’s Thanksgiving and some of you act as though the offseason is basically over and has been an abject failure for the Braves. Folks, you’re getting waay ahead of yourselves.
The offseason has barely begun. It just feel like it’s been excruciatingly long and fruitless because the Braves immediately were immersed in the Jake Peavy Saga, before most other teams even started whipping up rumors and talking to free agents and other teams about trades.
Keep in mind, it’s not even Dec. 1, the deadline for teams to offer arbitration to their free agents. Until that day, players such as Edgar Renteria and a bunch of other Type A free agents aren’t going to be signed by other teams, because those teams want to wait to see if said players are offered arbitration.
Why would a team sign a Renteria today and give up a first-round draft pick as compensation to the Tigers (who’d also get a sandwich pick as compensation) if they can wait until Monday (Dec. 1) and sign him without giving up compensatory pick if, as expected, the Tigers don’t offer arbitration? Makes no sense.
Several pitchers are in that same situation, less-than-dominant but still classified as Type-A free agents including Oliver Perez, Jamie Moyer Brad Penny, Randy Wolf, Randy Johnson. Even Ben Sheets, who’d get more than Milwaukee would care to pay him if the Brewers offered arbitration and he accepted it.
So just try to relax, folks. If the Braves are going to sign anyone like that, it was never going to be until at least next week. And most of those guys will wait until the Winter Meetings a week later in Las Vegas.
If you’re a free agent and you came this far, chances are your agent is going to urge you to wait until the buying frenzy begins and dominoes start falling in Vegas (along with some writers’ checking-account balances, I’m guessing.)
Meanwhile, the Braves are, as A.J. Burnett’s agent said, one of six teams “fully engaged” in talks for the Toronto right-hander. They’ve expressed interest in Derek Lowe and already tried to lure Ryan Dempster. Lowe is a Boras client, which means he probably won’t sign for a month or more, and Dempster re-upped with the Cubs, as most people figured all along that he would.
Is there risk in offering a four- or five-year contract to Burnett, which is what it’s going to take, probably for at least $15 mill annually, to sign him? Sure there is. Like Ben Sheets, he’s had plenty of DL stints throughout his career and, like Sheets, never won more than 12 games before this season. By the way, isn’t that amazing, that two veterans who never won more than 12 games in a season before 2008 are so highly sought as free agents?
(Well, wait, actually I haven’t heard of a great deal of interest yet in Sheets … but you get my point.)
But that’s what happens where there are a bunch of pitching-needy teams with money to spend and so few top-shelf type of pitchers available. And before anyone dismisses Burnett on that count, don’t try to tell me that a guy who goes 18-10 and leads the AL with 231 strikeouts in 221-1/3 innings isn’t top-shelf, particularly when he won 18 games for a team that plays in a division with the Red Sox, Yankees and pennant-winning Rays.
In his last 19 starts beginning June 24, he went 12-3 with a 3.12 ERA and 141 strikeout with 40 walks in 130 innings. In his last 15 starts, he had nine wins, 11 quality starts and 113 strikeouts in 102-2/3 innings, a 15-game stretch that included nine starts against the Rays, Red Sox and Yankees.
Realistically, if Burnett had pitched for an NL East team the way he pitched this year for Toronto, don’t you think he could’ve been a 20-game winner?
Not saying he’s not flawed, but he had Tommy John surgery four years ago, and scar-tissue breakup two years later in the elbow. Almost every pitcher who has TJ surgery will tell you they get scar-tissue breakup, it’s just that most of them usually get it during the months-after recovery period; Burnett’s came later, and scared a lot of people including him.
Dr. James Andrews told him after a fearful visit that it was nothing to be alarmed about, and Burnett’s had no problems with the elbow since. Folks, we could make a list of 40 accomplished major league pitchers who’ve had TJ surgery and never had another problem with their elbows.
Not saying Burnett won’t, but these days, more pitchers don’t have recurrences of elbow problems after TJ surgery than pitchers who do. Burnett’s also had a couple of shut-down periods for shoulder soreness in the past few years, but the Blue Jays said they were only being cautious bringing him back slowly from those DL stints because he’d had a big workload leading up to those periods and/or they were out of contention at the time. MRIs of his shoulder have been fine.
But yes, there are risks with such an injury-plagued pitcher, to get back to that issue we were discussing. Risks with him, Jake Peavy, for any pitcher with some mileage and especially those with multiple DL stints in the past.
But to use a cliché, you can’t swim in the waters with the big boys without taking risks. It’s the price of doing business in this industry.
If you want to compete now, you’ve got to fill holes, not cross fingers and hope that your own homegrown players continue to develop and fill those holes in a couple of years or more.
Sometimes, you can’t sit on the sideline and wait for kids to develop in a year or two. For instance, if you’re a GM whose former perennially contending team has missed the postseason three straight years, and some folks are getting antsy with attendance declining and those inroads you made with rejuvenated fans a few years ago now showing some erosion, and with a horrible economy ready to exacerbate that erosion should your team struggle out of the gate again.
And just to reiterate, I don’t believe the Braves are completely out of the Jake Peavy sweepstakes, as it were. Regardless of what’s said publicly, until he’s traded to another team I’m not going to believe the Braves are entirely out of it.
If they’re not, it would sure explain why they’re slow to trade for, say, a Ryan Ludwick or Jermaine Dye or another other outfield power bat (that’s a need they’d rather fill via trade that through a multi-year contract). Because the Braves don’t intend to trade Yunel Escobar and Kelly Johnson in the same offseason, don’t intend to start over with two new middle infielders at spring training.
So of there’s any chance they could still get Peavy in a deal with Escobar as the centerpiece, then they’d not want to deal Kelly Johnson for Ludwick, as was discussed at the GM meetings. As you can see, this is complicated. These are moving parts that are all part of the offseason process for the Braves, and so much depends, potentially, on the Peavy deal.
That’s why it was so frustrating for the Braves when Kevin Towers kept coming back to the table asking for another prospect, every time the deal looked like it might get done. And probably why the Braves announced publicly they were pulling out, to put pressure on Towers to get a deal done.
That’s just me speculating there. But think about it: If that’s not the case, why wouldn’t the Braves have just quietly stopped negotiating with Towers for Peavy, rather than announcing it publicly, which is so unlike the Braves’ usual policy of keeping almost everything private in all negotiations?
But anyway, the bigger point is that, as I said, it’s still early in the process. The Braves have a lot of oars in the water, many more than just the ones that are leaked (those leaks usually come from the other team involved or from agents, not from the Braves).
Oh, by the way, for those who don’t mind the potential salary and wait involved with signing a proven client of Scott Boras, but cringe at the thought of signing the injury-plagued Burnett, consider this comparison.
Since the beginning of the 2007 season, Lowe is 26-25 with a 3.55 ERA, .250 opponents’ average and 294 strikeouts (104 walks) in 410-1/3 innings. He received 4.8 support runs per nine innings pitched in that span.
In that same period, Burnett is 28-18 with a 3.93 ERA, .234 opponents’ average and 407 strikeouts (152 walks) in 387 innings. He received 5.0 support runs per nine innings pitched in that span.
For the record, in that same period, Peavy is 29-16 with a 2.61 ERA, .215 opponents’ average and 403 strikeouts (125 walks) in 389 innings, with 4.9 support runs per nine innings. And a Cy Young Award.
Diversions: For me, the DVR is neck-and-neck with the Ipod shuffle mode for most significant technological developments of the past decade, or however long they’ve been around. Just worked out and this song list popped up on the shuffle: “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” by Lucinda Williams, “Let Down” by Radiohead, “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” by Johnny Cash, “Glass” by Gang of Four, “” by The Selmanaires, “Somewhere On Skid Row” by Merle Haggard, “Cherry Bomb” by John Mellencamp, “Don’t Say Nuthin’” by The Roots, “Magic Trick” by M. Ward, and “Straight To Hell” by Hank III (not quite as great as the Clash song by the same name, but brilliant nonetheless).
An R.E.M. top 10: I was inspired by uga-brave and Braveheart’s late-night blogging Wednesday, so I thought I’d come up with my own top 10 list of R.E.M. songs from their earlier years, from their albums on IRS. A few of these were on the jukebox at Louise’s West, our favorite dive bar during college in Lawrence, Kan., where I was immediately hooked on Athens’ favorite sons after seeing them play on campus in 1983, not long after Murmur was released.
Feel free to give us your own R.E.M. top 10, but keep it to the IRS years if you can. We’ll do another top 10 of their more recent stuff later.
My favorite 10 from IRS years: 1. Begin The Begin, 2. Sitting Still, 3. So. Central Rain, 4. I Believe, 5. Radio Free Europe, 6. Harborcoat, 7. Driver 8, 8. Carnival of Sorts (Box Cars), 9. 7 Chinese Brothers, 10. Pretty Persuasion.
(“The One I Love” isn’t on my list simply because it was too ubiquitous. I just heard it too damn many times, but it’s a terrific song, as were at least 25 others that could make this list. “It’s the End of the World” doesn’t make my list. Always felt like more of a novelty song. I’m sure many will disagree, since it’s one of their most popular.)
OK, a tune: Stipe has written some strong lyrics, but he’s so often been arcane or cryptic, especially back in the day. The lyrics weren’t as crucial to me when it came to R.E.M. as they are for most of my favorite rock artists. For instance:
”CRIME IN THE CITY” by Neil Young
Well, the cop made the showdown
He was sure he was right
He had all of the lowdown
From the bank heist last night
His best friend was the robber
And his wife was a thief
All the children were killers
They couldn’t get no relief
The bungalow was surrounded
When a voice loud and clear
Said, Come on out with your hands up
Or we’ll blow you out of here.
There was a face in the window
The TV cameras rolled
Then they cut to the announcer
And the story was told.
The artist looked at the producer
The producer sat back
He said, What we have got here
Is a perfect track
But we don’t have a vocal
And we don’t have a song
If we could get these things accomplished
Nothin’ else could go wrong.
So he balanced the ashtray
As he picked up the phone
And said, Send me a songwriter
Who’s drifted far from home
And make sure that he’s hungry
Make sure he’s alone
Send me a cheeseburger
And a new Rolling Stone.
Yeah.
There’s still crime in the city,
Said the cop on the beat,
I don’t know if I can stop it
I feel like meat on the street
They paint my car like a target
I take my orders from fools
Meanwhile some kid blows my head off
Well, I play by their rules
That’s why I’m doin’ it my way
I took the law in my hands
So here I am in the alleyway
A wad of cash in my pants
I get paid by a 10-year-old
He says he looks up to me
There’s still crime in the city
But it’s good to be free.
Yeah.
Now I come from a family
That has a broken home
Sometimes I talk to Daddy
On the telephone
When he says that he loves me
I know that he does
But I wish I could see him
I wish I knew where he was
But that’s the way all my friends are
Except maybe one or two
Wish I could see him this weekend
Wish I could walk in his shoes
But now I’m doin’ my own thing
Sometimes I’m good, then I’m bad
Although my home has been broken
It’s the best home I ever had
Yeah.
Well, I keep gettin’ younger
My life’s been funny that way
Before I ever learned to talk
I forgot what to say
I sassed back to my mom
I sassed back to my teacher
I got thrown out of Bible school
For sassin’ back at the preacher
Then I grew up to be a fireman
Put out every fire in town
Put out anything smokin’
But when I put the hose down
The judge sent me to prison
He gave me life without parole
Wish I never put the hose down
Wish I never got old.
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