Our Savior, Kosuke Fukudome?

Nope not him, but he'll help. Everyone and their brother will be after this guy and i'm willing to bet that one of the 3 teams likely to snag him will have a dilemma on their hands. Check out this article from armchairgm.com and see what i mean.

Why won't we try and sign him? It's a no brainer. First, JS doesn't like to spend money on FAs that don't pitch. Second, Fukudome is not a good defender. We're talking worse than Diaz in left bad (although i think Diaz is serviceable). Third, our hole will be at CF, not RF where Fukudome plays. Finally, the braves are not in a town that's very rich in Japaneses fans (Atlanta is a Hispanic town if anything) and thus the signing does little to improve the fan base like it would in San Fran.

Why does someone else signing him help? Well, look at the top three names in the running. The Red Sox have nowhere to put him w/o trading. Manny, JD, and Coco patrol that outfield in one of the most overpaid landscapes in the game. If they sign Fukudome how much you want to bet Coco is gone? The braves have made a trade for an under performer before (Edgar anyone, who came over TO GET Coco) and i'd bet they'd try and do it again.

The Yanks have the second most overpaid outfield but Abreu comes off the books after this year (that option is daunting). Since the big man patrols RF Fukudome could fit there, but that puts Cabrera as the 4th OF. I don't think that will sit well with a guy who's used to playing almost every day.

The Ms have the best shot in my opinion, but they also have RF blocked by a guy named Ichiro. Ichiro is an amazing player and a good defender, but CF is not an option for the Ms with their big prospect Adam Jones lurking.

This one has to wait till the winter, but it'll be fun to watch!

I don't want to talk about it..

On a night where most of us could stay up late and watch this west coast game that starts at an unbelievably late hour (i mean come on, who decides this time is a good idea to put a game on TV?) we were treated to one of the worst pitching i've seen in weeks. Our good friend evil Davies reared his head and likely ended good Davies's role as starter on the Braves. I'm hoping he'll go the way of H. Ram (u know, the guy we gave to the M's for Soriano?). I hate to say it, but i'd rather have Buddy out there than Kyle right now. Ouch. Let's hope Chuckie can fix this today.

Braves 6, Dodgers 7

W: R. Seanez (5-1)
L: W. Ledezma (0-1)
S: T. Saito (23)

Braves sign Julio Teheran

If this kid was stock i'd be buying like crazy right now. We've been following this kid for a while, and for good reason. He was rated the best prospect in the international arena and he's ours. Teharan has 3 plus pitches, is a power righty, AND IS ONLY 16! We were damn lucky to get him as a lot of other teams were drooling over this one. Financials weren't included in the article but we can assume it was a fair chunk of the braves budget for international prospects.

Ugly

The title says it all about last night. McCann looked like he was drugged and Chipper seems to have given up on life. The umps didn't help much as quite a few pitches that would have been strikes in ANY other park were called balls. I remember one pitch in particular (a slider I think) was almost right down the middle on TV and on pitch track but was called a ball. I think I actually threw the clicker at the TV, judging by the remote shaped crater in the wall next to the entertainment center (hey, it's a 42" Flat, I ain't hitting the sucker).

Out of all that the good news is that we get Wolf tomorrow. He is hittable and the Bravos better break out of this funk, especially McCann. If we see something like last night from him again Bobby might begin to listen to Salty.

Braves 2, Dodgers 8
W: J. Beimel (2-1)
L: J. Smoltz (9-5)

HR: M Kemp (3, 6th inning off J Smoltz 1 on)

New Metric

So i've been tinkering with team quality metrics and wanted to share the results of one attempt with you. This is an old method but it says a lot about relative quality. What i'm doing is making a cumulative score for team rank in the NL of important stats. Dumb i know, and stats heads like me cringe when people try and compare stats like this but amazingly enough this method does give a good and simple metric for team quality.

To set up the data set i've taken all the major team stats from ESPN as of noon today and assigned a point value for rank with 1pt being first in the league and 16pt being last. I've ranked teams based on R, H, HR, TB, BA, and OPS then summed their scores. Here are the results:

1 Philadelphia 17
2 Milwaukee 22
3 Chicago Cubs 25
4 Colorado 30
5 Florida 30
6 Atlanta 32
7 NY Mets 37
8 Cincinnati 41
9 Houston 48
10 LA Dodgers 53
11 Arizona 70
12 St. Louis 72
13 San Francisco 77
14 Pittsburgh 80
15 San Diego 80
16 Washington 94

By this metric the braves have the 6th best offense in the NL. Now for the pitching. Same method of analysis using ERA, R, BB, SO, and BAA. The results:

1 San Diego 15
1 LA Dodgers 15
3 Chicago Cubs 24
3 Milwaukee 24
5 NY Mets 26
6 San Francisco 38
6 Arizona 38
8 Atlanta 40
9 Houston 52
10 Pittsburgh 54
10 St. Louis 54
12 Florida 59
12 Cincinnati 59
14 Colorado 60
14 Philadelphia 60
16 Washington 61

Here the Braves are 8th. Now we combine metrics to find:

1 Milwaukee 46
2 Chicago Cubs 49
3 NY Mets 63
4 LA Dodgers 68
5 Atlanta 72
6 Philadelphia 77
7 Florida 89
8 Colorado 90
9 San Diego 95
10 Cincinnati 100
11 Houston 100
12 Arizona 108
13 San Francisco 115
14 St. Louis 126
15 Pittsburgh 134
16 Washington 155

And amazingly enough the braves are 5th, or just out of the playoff race. Now, personally i feel that the Cubs and Brewers are over performing but this method of analysis shows that the Braves are going to be in a dogfight for the wild card with the Cubs... scary. Fortunately we have 1/2 a season to go. Let's hope those numbers improve.

All Stars?

So John Smoltz and Brian Mccann are All Stars. Yay. We all knew Smoltzie was going, how could he not? Brian had a good chance because of the lack of depth in catching in the NL, it's nice that he got a nod from the players. But I can't help wondering who missed out. So without further ado I offer you my all star list, with a twist. The following is a list of my BRAVES all stars. These three players have made more of a difference to the braves than any other AND they're not getting a nod nationally.

OF: With deference to Matt Diaz I have to give the nod to Willie Harris. The boy is blazing on the base paths and money in the box. His aggressiveness has been the spark the braves need. A few stats realy prove this. First, Willie is hitting .373 overall and .461 in the first 2 pitches he sees. That's something we'd expect from Frenchy (Even though Frenchy never hit that good) not Willie. Second, the OBS .929 is 10th in the NL (w/150 min PA) but his OBP of .444 is second to only Mr. Bonds and his AVG of .373 is first. His SBs are 14th but only 2 back of Jimmy Rollins @ #8. Give me that any day even if he hits much better against lefties (not that he's had a chance against righties with only 15ABs).

IF: With deference to Edgar, I'd have to pick Chipper. He's tops of all the regulars in OPS, AVG, and HRs as well as top 4 in all the other major offensive categories despite missing 25 games so far. That's insane production from someone who's been hurting so much this year.

P: This has to go to Peter Moylan. He's got the best ERA on the staff and the second best WHIP all while racking up the most innings out of the pen. Those numbers are nuts for someone who's a retread.

And there you have it; my picks for Braves All Stars. Scream all you want about leaving Edgar, Diaz, Hudson, and even KJ out but these three are players I'd want on my team (and actually have them on several).

Braves drop a heartbreaker in 10

After an hour and a half rain delay chased both starters in the middle of the 4th Oscar Villarreal played the villain and yielded 3 runs in the space of 2 batters. It was all cruddy from there on until the 9th when the braves put men on 2nd and 3rd after a wild pitch from Gregg and Escobar worked a tremendous at bat for a 2 run single. But that was the last offense the braves would get after Wickman and Soriano each gave up runs to drop the braves to 43-39 and still 4 games back after a Mets loss.

WP: Gardner (2-2)
LP: Soriano (2-1)
BS: Wickman

HR: A Jones (13, 7th inning off M Lindstrom); J Hermida (7, 4th inning off O Villarreal), M Olivo (7, 9th inning off B Wickman)