Heartbreaking end to the season for the Braves, as they capped an ugly September with a five game losing streak that allowed the St. Louis Cardinals to make up 4 games in 5 days and snatch the NL wild card from the Braves on the season's last day. Since the Braves had held sole possession of the NL wild card since the middle of June, it goes without saying that it was a pretty disheartening way to end the season. And looking back on things, its kind of shocking to see that the Braves won 89 games, yet plenty of things went wrong. But first, lets take a look at what went better than expected for Atlanta.
-Eric O'Flaherty, Jonny Venters, and Craig Kimbrel
Despite a bit of a struggle at the end, which may or may not have been due to overuse, this trio was awesome. They combined to put up 6.6 fWAR this year, which is an unheard of number for just 3 relievers. For comparison's sake, Cliff Lee and Clayton Kershaw each put up 6.8 fWAR in roughly the same amount of innings. That just about says it all. O'Flaherty posted the highest K rate of his career in tandem with the lowest walk rate, while also maintaining his extreme ground ball tendencies (55.5 %). Venters struck out almost 10 per 9 innings while also topping the league in groundball rate (an absurd 72.5%). And Kimbrel was better than both of them, striking out almost 15 per 9 while combining that with a 3.97 to 1 K/BB ratio. His FIP of 1.52 led all major league relievers who qualified, finishing .01 ahead of Jonathan Papelbon. Ironically, both blew saves when their team could least afford at last night. Strange game, this baseball.
-Brandon Beachy
It sure is nice when your organization is loaded with pitching prospects, and its even better when a guy no one has heard of coming in to the season turns out to be a keeper. Beachy struck out 10.74 batters per 9 innings, an outstanding number for anyone, much less a rookie. In addition, Beachy had to walk 9 guys in his last 10.1 innings just to get his BB per 9 ratio to 2.92. I doubt he ever becomes a true ace, but numbers like that are going to have him in somebody's rotation for many years to come. The next step in his development will be getting deeper into games, but that should come with a bit more experience. With 4 average to plus pitches and plus plus command, he looks like a border line number 2 starter or a very solid number 3. Lots to be excited about with Beachy.
-Freddie Freeman's bat
I didn't really know what to expect with Freddie at the plate this season, as he was very young and was a pretty aggressive hitter all through the minors. You never really know for sure until they hit the majors, but after 6 week adjustment period to the bigs, his bat was very solid. He is aggressive, but he knows what he is doing at the plate and hits an awful lot of line drives (23%). His 8.3% walk rate wasn't bad for a 21 year old rookie either. Freddie's youth and the fact that he has already shown the ability to make adjustments gives reason for optimism about his future. Freddie has some things to work on, mainly his range at first (he has the range of a statue) and his batting eye, but his rookie season wasn't a bad start at all
Tim Hudson and Chipper Jones could go in this category too, but I thought they did about what was expected. Chipper's power had a bit of a revival, but he had a disappointing decline in his walk rate which pretty much neglected the added power. And I always expect consistency and stability from Hudson, and this year was more of the same. He was fantastic, which is just what I and most Braves fans expected.
And what went wrong:
Injuries to Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens-
The pair of young right handers were stellar in the Braves starting rotation for the first half of the season. Hanson was absolutely stellar in the first half, posting a 2.44 ERA with better than a strikeout an inning and a K/BB ratio over 3 to 1. He also gave up less than 1 HR per 9 innings. All those stats say that he was the best Braves starter in the first half of the year, and not having him for the stretch run was a huge blow. Hanson's long term health is one of the biggest factors for the Braves' success for the future, as he has number on starter potential. As for Jurrjens, he was fantastic in the first half as well, posting a 1.87 ERA. He wasn't nearly as good as his ERA indicated, as he doesn't miss nearly enough bats, but his command was excellent, with just 25 walks in 110 innings. He had made improvements this year, and having him down the stretch instead of untested rookies would have been nice, possibly to save the bullpen a few innings. We will see about Jair's future with the Braves, but he's a quality middle of the rotation starter who could help a lot of teams.
-Derek Lowe
I don't think he pitched nearly as bad as his ERA says he did, but a pitcher's number one job is to keep runs from scoring, and in that regard, Derek Lowe failed miserably. Lowe's ERA was 5.05, and he was a disaster down the stretch in the time his team needed him most, posting an 8.75 ERA in September. For 15 million a year, that obviously isn't good enough. The Braves will try to deal him in the offseason I'm sure, but it won't be a very easy chore unfortunately. His K rate did improve, his FIP was actually a very solid 3.65, and he still kept the ball in the yard (.67 HR per 9 innings). Those are the numbers the Braves will be selling this offseason, and a team with a decent defense behind it could be tempted, as long as the Braves throw in plenty of money or perhaps package him with someone. To be continued.
-Offense
The Braves finished 26th out of 30 teams in OBP, their wOBA percentage was 23rd, and tied for 21st in wRC+. It was not pretty at all. Lets go through the Braves' every day lineup and take a look at the carnage from 2010 to 2011. Note on Michael Bourn, his stats will be 2011 with Astros and 2011 with Braves. I'll explain why a bit later
Bourn- 2011-.303/.363/.403 - .278/.321/.352
Prado-2010- .307/.350/.459 - 2011-.260/.302/.385
Jones- 2010-.265/.381/.426 - 2011- .275/.344/.470
Uggla-2010-.287/.369/.508 - 2011- .233/.311/.453
McCann- 2010- .269/.375/.453 - 2011- .270/.351/.466
Freeman- N/A rookie
Gonzalez- 2010- .250/.294/.447 - 2011-.240/.270/.372
Heyward-2010- .277/.393/.456 - 2011- .227/.319/.389
One theme here is that every single Brave hitter had a decrease in on base percentage from 2010 to 2011. The second theme here is that every single one of these Braves had a new hitting coach in 2011, one who preached aggressiveness at the plate. If every single hitter regresses from one year to the next (with the exception of Freeman obviously, as he was a minor league player last year), is it reasonable to believe that the hitting coach might have something to do with it? I think so, and thankfully, the Braves organization does too, as its already been announced Larry Parrish won't be back. All I can say is it was about 3 or 4 months too late.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Clemson Football Fails Despite Succeeding
Yesterday, for the second time in two weeks, saw many members of Clemson's School of Agriculture ran onto its football field, I guess for the purpose of inspecting how the grass was growing or something. In all seriousness, the Clemson fans had seen their team pull off an upset over a Florida State team that hasn't been relevant since some aging Floridians couldn't see their presidential ballot and a presidential recount happened because of it.
The Quorum ranks this as a poor Storming of the Field
Clemson skirted criticism last week despite a very shaky storming last week, when they ran onto the field after a beating a very average Auburn team. Auburn is the defending national champion and hadn't lost since 2009, but had surrendered 490 yards of total offense per game in their first two games, including 227 yards on the ground to Utah State. We can only speculate that Auburn won that Utah State game after Bobby Lowder made a payment directly into the bank account of God, but no one really knows for sure (thanks, JP). However, Clemson fans saw this Auburn victory over USU as a sign of Auburn's collective strength, as Utah State is usually ranked in the top 3 of D-1 teams based in Utah. It's clear that Auburn is very average, but you don't get to defeat the defending national champs very often, so they got a pass from criticism from the Quorum, whether warranted or not.
Clemson can't be let off the hook for this, especially since Clemson fans fancy themselves big time football fans when they are not driving their pickup trucks and going hunting. Clemson football is a religion to those people, and they follow it as closely as Tyrone Biggums follows his next crack rock lead. And for many, many years, this has led to extreme disappointment, as nobody underachieves like Clemson football. So perhaps their judgement has been skewed a bit, but that is no excuse.
Let's take a look at their opponent. Free Shoes University came into the game with a lofty ranking, after putting up a competitive showing against Oklahoma, although we should point out that Florida State never once convinced me or any other viewer that they ever had enough to win that game. They are what they are every year this millenium, which is a good not great team that will qualify for the BCS only if they win their conference. In addition, their starting quarterback was out injured, and he was replaced by a guy who might pass for a high school junior, and FSU coaches and personnel around the program have been saying all along that NEXT year was going to be their year, not this one. Also, Clemson has won the last five home games they have played against FSU. And again, FSU's program hasn't been relevant on a national level since 2000. Why, again, are you storming the field.
As for you, Clemson, we all know that you fancy yourselves an elite program within college football. You have some tradition, with 1 national championship, while also possessing one of the best game day atmospheres in all of college football. However, you are number one on everyone's list when people rank underachieving programs, as it is your birth right to underwhelm everyone's expectations of you. Thus, nobody takes you seriously, and this kills you, as you fancy yourself a big program.
Well, guess what? Everyone takes Clemson even less seriously than they did two days ago. Because storming the field after beating a good, not great, team, who, oh by the way, you had BEATEN 5 straight times on your home field coming into that game, only confirms you as a second rate program. Not only that, you stormed the field last week too, which confirms that every win that you get over a ranked opponent is seemingly a huge win, only cementing yourself a second rate program once again. It was a big win in the conference, sure, but it does absolutely nothing to increase your worth nationally. Save your stormings for a conference opponent that is nationally relevant, competing for national titles on a regular basis. Oh damn, that's kind of an oxymoron when you play in the ACC isn't it?
Even when Clemson is successful, they continue to fail. It's the only way.
The Quorum ranks this as a poor Storming of the Field
Clemson skirted criticism last week despite a very shaky storming last week, when they ran onto the field after a beating a very average Auburn team. Auburn is the defending national champion and hadn't lost since 2009, but had surrendered 490 yards of total offense per game in their first two games, including 227 yards on the ground to Utah State. We can only speculate that Auburn won that Utah State game after Bobby Lowder made a payment directly into the bank account of God, but no one really knows for sure (thanks, JP). However, Clemson fans saw this Auburn victory over USU as a sign of Auburn's collective strength, as Utah State is usually ranked in the top 3 of D-1 teams based in Utah. It's clear that Auburn is very average, but you don't get to defeat the defending national champs very often, so they got a pass from criticism from the Quorum, whether warranted or not.
Clemson can't be let off the hook for this, especially since Clemson fans fancy themselves big time football fans when they are not driving their pickup trucks and going hunting. Clemson football is a religion to those people, and they follow it as closely as Tyrone Biggums follows his next crack rock lead. And for many, many years, this has led to extreme disappointment, as nobody underachieves like Clemson football. So perhaps their judgement has been skewed a bit, but that is no excuse.
Let's take a look at their opponent. Free Shoes University came into the game with a lofty ranking, after putting up a competitive showing against Oklahoma, although we should point out that Florida State never once convinced me or any other viewer that they ever had enough to win that game. They are what they are every year this millenium, which is a good not great team that will qualify for the BCS only if they win their conference. In addition, their starting quarterback was out injured, and he was replaced by a guy who might pass for a high school junior, and FSU coaches and personnel around the program have been saying all along that NEXT year was going to be their year, not this one. Also, Clemson has won the last five home games they have played against FSU. And again, FSU's program hasn't been relevant on a national level since 2000. Why, again, are you storming the field.
As for you, Clemson, we all know that you fancy yourselves an elite program within college football. You have some tradition, with 1 national championship, while also possessing one of the best game day atmospheres in all of college football. However, you are number one on everyone's list when people rank underachieving programs, as it is your birth right to underwhelm everyone's expectations of you. Thus, nobody takes you seriously, and this kills you, as you fancy yourself a big program.
Well, guess what? Everyone takes Clemson even less seriously than they did two days ago. Because storming the field after beating a good, not great, team, who, oh by the way, you had BEATEN 5 straight times on your home field coming into that game, only confirms you as a second rate program. Not only that, you stormed the field last week too, which confirms that every win that you get over a ranked opponent is seemingly a huge win, only cementing yourself a second rate program once again. It was a big win in the conference, sure, but it does absolutely nothing to increase your worth nationally. Save your stormings for a conference opponent that is nationally relevant, competing for national titles on a regular basis. Oh damn, that's kind of an oxymoron when you play in the ACC isn't it?
Even when Clemson is successful, they continue to fail. It's the only way.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)