Capitol Avenue Club Podcast :: Episode 5
April 29, 2011 at 1:58 am by Capitol Avenue Club under Podcast
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We’re back after a long delay for which we apologize. In this week’s episode we discuss the entire major-league club, the Braves’ minor-league, full season affiliates, Joe Mather’s promotion, bullpen construction and usage, the upcoming series with the St. Louis Cardinals, and reader mail on Freddie Freeman’s bat size.
Music taken from Art Tatum’s Havin’ A Ball album.
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As the host, this podcast sucked. Between my internet going out on several occasions and failing to record the first 10 minutes and cutting three different intros it was not fun.
Either way, I hope that you enjoy us rambling. Myself in particular. I love to hear myself talk.
How can Heyward be considered to be slumping if his OPS is up (however slightly) from last year? I’ll take 38 slugging points above 34 BA points any day.
I don’t recall exactly what we said, but it was something along the lines of him “slumping” during the Dodgers series. At the end of the series, his SLG was 0.422, which is 78 points lower than last season. As far as OPS goes, he was at .729 after the Dodgers series and finished last year at .850. That’s a big difference.
Braves’ team ERA is 3.07, just behind San Diego and Florida at 3.06
The Heyward comment on the podcast was along the lines of ‘Heyward has been slumping, but he’ll be fine. He’s the best player on the team. We’re not worried about him.’
And Kevin, and you also talked about how you were asked on another show if Heyward was having a sophomore slump a la Francouer, which, of course, you didn’t agree at all.
KO,
My apologies, sir. I was citing up-to-date stats (incorrectly, I should add, see below). I did a poor job of expressing myself, also, as I didn’t mean to question your sense as the interviewee. I had in mind that, beyond the shoddiness of the general comparison between Francoeur and Heyward, the current-state grounds for comparison were also faulty. A seven-day performance of 11/26 at the plate with 3 BB, 2 HR, and 1 2B have surely turned things around: up from .307 OBP and .422 SLG he’s now sitting at .356 and .500, respectively. If one good-but-not-crazy-good week is enough to effect such a change, then it was probably a bit soon to speak of a slump (although the defining parameters of a slump are surely up for debate).
In the interest of accuracy — and at the risk of further hair-splitting — Heyward slugged .456 last year. The 38 point SLG difference I incorrectly posted was between his current-season SLG of .500 and his career aggregate SLG of .462.
Again, thank you for the clarification. May Cliff Lee’s arm fall off.
Lukas,
No need to apologize – just wanted to set the record straight. Thanks for listening to the show.
Unrelated, but I just heard on ESPN that Lowe was pulled over late last night for apparently racing someone while intoxicated in Atlanta. And the P.R. week from hell keeps on trucking.
@ 7 I just saw that too– I guess Lowe didn’t want Roger McDowell getting so much negative attention so he decided to do something arguably more stupid and distracting to take the heat off of his pitching coach.
Between Fredi’s managerial moves and Lowe and McDowell self-destructing, I get the feeling this team is determined to underperform and screw themselves this year.
I don’t think Lowe’s DUI is really a big deal, Furcal had like what 8 in Atl and it didn’t really have any affect on the way the team performed.
Stupid mistakes with the law will have zero effect, especially on the Braves because the Braves are going to play and win no matter as they have always done and will do, no matter how many of these idiotic mistakes with the law they make. GO BRAVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Obviously it would be amazing to get Adams, but personally I think a bit too much is made of the Braves’ percieved lack of right handed bullpen pitching. The fact is that Venters is perfectly capable of dealing with batters from the right handed side, and once Moylan comes back, he is generally reliable for somewhat lower-leverage situations. If they’re really concerned about their right handed relief, they could of course always call up Marek and give him a shot as well.
If you take three Venters WHIPs you still don’t get as high as a Linebrink WHIP
If I had any say in the Braves organization what so ever, BRAVESNATION4EVER is head of PR and replacing RMD.
I enjoyed the podcast. It was an entire roster run down. Are you the host KO? And who is the other fellow, sounding like he is talking through over a phone or something?
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6450460
McDowell has been placed on administrative leave
15/ That’s Peter, who runs the site. AKA, CAC.
Re: Freeman’s bat size, he chokes up an inch and a half, so that makes it look even smaller.
I am talking over the phone on these podcasts, FYI.
Does the pitching coach have any thing to do with call ups? I’m sure he has some say but how big of force is the pitching coach’s opinion?
I’d assume a very minimal amount, that’s Frank Wren’s call and Fredi has the most input beyond Wren.