Two years to the week
June 1, 2011 at 10:38 pm by Kevin Orris under Atlanta Braves
It was this week, two years ago that it all began – the craziest stretch in Frank Wren’s tenure at the top. 10 transactions were made in just a six day span which would change the state of the organization for years to come. It would be a waste of my time to cover all of them, especially the Gregor Blanco call-up, but here’s how we got to where we are today.
June 2
Jordan Schafer optioned to Gwinnett Braves.
Every Braves fan remembers Schafer’s first at bat – a home run at Citizens Bank Park on Opening Night. It was the worst at bat of his young career, because for the next two months, Schafer attempted to be something that he wasn’t – a power hitter. Through the first two months of the season, the skinny center fielder posted a .204/.313/.287 line. Little did Schafer know, he wouldn’t return to Atlanta for another two years.
June 3
Atlanta Braves released Tom Glavine.
I’ve never spoken to Frank Wren, but I’d imagine that was one of the most difficult moves that he’s made. Getting rid of a fan favorite/300 game winner/franchise player/tremendous clubhouse presence is never easy. The Braves were short on starters following the 2007 season, signing Glavine to a one-year, $8 million contract. Due to multiple DL stints, he only managed 13 sub-par starts, finishing the year with a 5.54 ERA. In 2009, he signed for a few million dollars, beginning the season in the minors to rehab from shoulder surgery before being released while with Triple-A Gwinnett.
Atlanta Braves traded Charlie Morton, Jeff Locke, and Gorkys Hernandez to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for Nate McLouth.
I’ll admit it – I was pumped when this news broke. The Braves traded away two decent prospects and a poor excuse for a pitcher in Morton for an All-Star center fielder that would fill in for Schafer. Today, Locke is in Double-A Altoona, sporting a 5.33 ERA. Hernandez, the most coveted player in the deal, is hitting .258/.333/.320 in Triple-A, yet Morton appears to have figured it out in Pittsburgh. Through 68 IP, he’s tallied a 2.51 ERA, 3.82 xFIP, and 1.1 WAR. Although McLouth has been rather lackluster in each of the past two seasons, it’s not like the Braves gave up a pot of gold.
June 7
Atlanta Braves called up Tommy Hanson from Gwinnett Braves.
As soon as Glavine was released, it was made aware that top prospect Tommy Hanson would be promoted to join the rotation for years to come. I’d say it was the right choice. In 66 career starts, Hanson has posted the following numbers: 8.07 K/9, 2.80 BB/9, 3.10 ERA, 3.33 FIP, 3.78 xFIP, and 8.3 WAR. That’s pretty good for any pitcher’s first two seasons in “The Bigs.”
Atlanta Braves placed Casey Kotchman on the 15-Day disabled list.
Thank goodness he’s gone.
June 11
The MLB Draft started on the 11th. More on this years down the road.
Today
- Jordan Schafer is starting in center field for an injured Nate McLouth.
- Tom Glavine is doing color commentary.
- It appears that neither Gorkys Hernandez nor Jeff Locke will ever make it to their arbitration years.
- Tommy Hanson went six strong innings, allowing just three hits and two walks while stirking out four.
- Casey Kotchman is doing well. Darn.
I’d like to think that it’s not worth my time to discuss Gregor Blanco, Briant Barton, or Jorge Campillo, but if you feel so inclined, feel free to do so in the comments.
Loading ...
@51
If Jurrjens stays on the pace he’s on for the rest of the season, he’ll go something like 24-3 with a 1.5 ERA.
As no starting pitcher in MLB has had an ERA that low since Dwight Gooden in 1985, I don’t see what value you could get in return for Jurrjens that would provide more value than Jurrjens does.
If you take away Jurrjens’s decisions from the Braves record right now, the team would be two games under .500 and likely out of the NL East race altogether.
I think he’s talking about performance, not results. Obviously his ERA and W-L record isn’t going to stay the same, but no major-league franchise is stupid enough to look at a pitcher’s ERA and W-L record when they’re thinking about acquiring him, anyway. They’ll scout the hell out of him and apply their advanced metrics/aging curves.
Hey folks…I agree with everyone who says Schafer should be playing no matter what happens with McLouth. I was thinking last night that he just looks like a gamer and that I’d like to see him stay around for a while, then he makes that catch at the end, and I was sold. I was also thinking how frustrating it is that ~17% of this years payroll is going to McLouth and KK and neither have done squat…add in Uggla whose been UGLY and that is more than a third of our total payroll for nada…and I’m generally an optimist. Still not worried about Uggla, as I expect him to come out of the slump with a bang, but McLouth needs to go.
McLouth has stunk and even though I want to see the guy do well, he just doesn’t make us better in any way. Schafer can’t be worse than McLouth I just wish FW could find a sucker that would take him for some sneakers, a rozen (sorry if I butchered the spelling of that) bag or a pack of bubble gum…even if we have to foot the bill for the rest of the season.
As for FF, he’s been more than solid, and he looks like he is gaining more and more confidence with each at bat. I mentioned this yesterday in Bradley’s blog at the AJC, but the FF-J-Hey deal is reminiscent of the Francour-McCann intros to the bigs as McCann was not near as highly regarded as Frenchy but has gone on to be far better…hopefully J-Hey can get healthy for us and they can both be cornerstones, but I’m not sure, guess that’s the optimist coming out in me.
Enjoyed the posting and most of the comments. GO BRAVES!
@55
I agree that Schafer’s catch to end the game sealed the deal for me as well. McClouth probably almost gets to that ball, or gets to it and drops it. Schafer has put up a good on-base percentage, has had some extended at-bats where he really wore the opposing pitcher down and earned a walk (he did this right before Prado hit the game-winning two-run homer on Sunday Night Baseball last week), and has actually hit into bad luck that he has had several line drives right at people. I’m not an expert on all of the advanced stats, but I hate the way McClouth swings the bat with that one hand flying off the bat on his follow-through – it looks to me like McClouth is trying to do the same thing that got Schafer sent to Triple-AAA – i.e., be a power hitter when all he has is warning-track power.
Bourjos and change would be nice
@55 again
I agree that Freeman is on the verge of really getting it and transitioning from hot prospect into good major league player. I think that by the time this season is over, Freeman will have matched or even surpassed Heyward’s rookie numbers.
Driver 8, I think you are right about Freeman. I think as long as he can stay hot, we can survive Uggla having a sub par season as long as he gets it together.
And I agree about McLouth, but he just looks confused with no confidence, kinda like Frenchy on his way out.
Also, not sure if anyone else read it, but ESPN insider had some really good things to say about Freeman and the Braves @
http://insider.espn.go.com/sports/fantasy/blog?name=karabell_eric_baseball&id=6395543
if you are a member.
Good stuff…
@SP Says
Thanks for the correction. I did misfire on that. Unacceptable. Would you believe I had been drinkin’?
#58, let’s not get carried away by a recent hot streak. Heyward is still a much better hitter than Freeman and his rookie numbers will be tough to get near.
#60, that link points to an article from April, did you mean a different one?
I know McLouth put up good numbers the year he made it to the all star team, but was he voted in or was he the token pick to be on the team because the Pirates suck and no one else made it?
Here is a nice post/article on Hitter Aging Curves.
I haven’t completely digested it, but there seems to be a bit of hope for Uggla, at least till ~ age 33.
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2011/5/31/2199146/hitter-aging-curves
Loved Campillo. Liked Blanco a lot. Would have liked to seen Barton get more of a shot… he was pretty solid when with the Cardinals and given a chance.
He got hurt and was never the same. It’s a shame, too, the kid had legit tools.
I loved Campillo, too. The way he never walked anyone was just fantastic.
Kind of a Venters performance thus far is perspective fact. The year Eric Gagne won the Cy Young (obviousley for his 55/55 saves mainly, but still) he posted an ERA+ of 337. Jonny Venters currently stands with at ERA+ of…..732. Small sample size, and still kind of a fluky stat, but thats still pretty impressive imo.
I also liked Campillo, his season in ’08 was one of the few bright spots on that team
I’m glad that we are finally over the “fire fredi/parrish” posts.
Not to mention that we are now in June and only 3 teams have more wins than we do (31).
Oh and if you look positively we are technically one bad 4 game series behind.
I wonder what 4 game stretch was bad…
I’m going to say that was around the Dback/Angels.
Win two of those games and we have 33 wins and are about 1 game out of first.
I don’t think we’re past fire Parish/Fredi, I just think the that people are more concerned with the fact that everyone on the team other than McCann is under expectations and only like 2 others are even average for a team that was going to have a SUPER DUPER NUMBER 1 OFFENSE.
Sound logic.
I had a race tonight in my area, I was driving a Ferrari and everyone else was on bicycles. I finished in 4th place, which is pretty good I think.
I always loved the “Fredi Gonzalez had a .500 record while managing a team with a $30 million payroll!” logic. As if it’s the manager’s job to put the talent on the field.
Type 1A begging the question.
Uggla is about to get going, he’s better than this… Ok, anyone’s better than this, Rafael Belliard was better than this, but this is a mental thing, and these things are unpredictable. There’s a series coming up in Miami, he’ll do a little bonding with his old crew, a little ass-grabbing with Billy the Marlin, & then (to quote another notable second baseman) get ready for the laser show!
I don’t know that I’m ready to cut Parrish any slack yet. I wonder if he, and Uggla, have fallen for the belief that 0-0 is one of the best counts, statistically, to hit on. I just finished reading a paper by two guys from Stanford where they show that that’s a statistical fallacy, and that 0-0 is actually one of the worst counts to swing on.
Do you have a link to the paper?
68/Knock-a-homa: Just because you haven’t seen it, you believe that people have stopped thinking about it? There are few things that can be said that haven’t been said, and to continue to beat the dead horse would do no good. Regardless, it’s only been, what? two weeks since there were a few people beating that drum. Since then, the Braves bats haven’t recovered that much. A few hitters are on hot streaks, but that’s not much of anything to jump around about.
With Trout coming next year, I don’t see any reason why the Braves can’t get Bourjos from the Angels in the off season. He’d be a perfect fit.
Bourjos is a perfect fit, he too cannot hit. Somewhat kidding aside, he’s a CF Alex Gonzalez. I know why hes a fine player and better than what the team has, just want to make sure people don’t think he would suddenly start hitting.
How about JJ for frenchy, melky, and bruce chen? Hell, they could even throw in brayan pena.
@63/JFH,
McLouth’s numbers were good enough at the All-Star Break in 2008 that he would have made the team regardless of what team he played for.
.281/.357/.542 and 11/14 SB. 33 dbls at the All-Star Break. It was almost certainly a fluke, but those numbers get you elected to the ASG, fluke or no.
@CAC
this looks like this is the paper
http://faculty.engr.utexas.edu/bickel/Papers/AVG_by_Count.pdf
Yes Harris, that’s the one. Thanks — I was having trouble finding it again.
Jon I hate to admit it but I am starting to get convinced that we are being held back by bad management.
I mean everyone here thinks that bad management is holding us back.
I will never admit that anyone will get fired this year, however, I will admit that we are being held back by something other than skill.
Yet we are still one of the best teams in baseball.
Which is undoubtedly why fans are upset.