Section 435 An Atlanta Braves blog. From the upper deck at Turner Field.

Bye, Mark

Here’s the word on Luis Sumoza, the duder we get in return for the college player of the decade for the ’90s:

Shows the potential to be a five-tool player, but needs a lot of refinement. High power potential. Above average speed. Strikes out too much, still has some holes in his swing. Hits from a slightly open stance. Keeps his hands around his helmet. Swing tends to get a bit too long and he can jam himself. In the field, Sumoza has above average range, a decent glove, and a good arm. Overall, he has a ton of potential, but still a long way to go.

So, long, good luck, thanks for the memories. We’ll always have the cycle.

Redemption + Kotsay Watch 2009

Atlanta 10, Miami Marlins of Miami 9. The Marlins are never a big draw and with the remains of Tropical Storm Fay pushing through the metro area, there weren’t many folks motivated to make it out to the ballgame. The official attendance last night was around 17,000, but I’d be surprised if half that many were actually in the crowd. At one point before the rally, both Marlins fans started shouting “Let’s go Marlins” to each other across the stadium and you could actually hear them.

On the one hand, it was an ugly game. The Braves gave Jair an early 3-run lead which he pissed away. He’s obviously starting to wear down a bit. (And seriously, what does he have against Josh Willingham who he hit twice?) We kept trying to crawl back in, but the Marlins were answering. It looked like a hopeless case in the bottom of the 9th. Yet, with the help of a couple of walks and some clutch hitting, we managed to overcome a 9-6 lead in the bottom of the 9th.

I can’t help but think what the rest of the season would have been like if we’d played with this kind of drive.

Kotsay Watch

We at Section 435 have been watching the various Kotsay rumors closely throughout the the last month. There’s been dueling strains of “He’ll be gone in a week” and “We’ll bring him back next year since Jordan Schafer won’t be ready.” But now it looks like the former is more accurate. With J.D. “Mike Hampton” Drew going on the DL for the Red Sox, they need an outfielder. And, well, Kotsay is an outfielder.

A month of Mark Kotsay won’t get us much. At best a minor league pitcher (no, not Clay Bucholz), at worst Curt Schilling’s sock.

Francoeur, Hampton Enjoy San Francisco Treat

Atlanta 11, San Francisco 5. It was a beautiful night for baseball at the Ted last night, something you don’t expect this time of year. I’ll let you decide whether I’m talking about the weather or the 2008 Braves. It looked like we hanging this one up before it started with Bobby sitting the entire Kot* crew today. But Matt Palmer of the Giants was quite happy to let anyone hit and to walk anyone who didn’t want to swing. Some quick hits:

• Yes, Francoeur has 7 hits in his last 14 ABs over the last three games (including another far 0-fer on Friday), but only two of those are for extra bases, so it’s a step in the right direction but it doesn’t mean Francoeur’s back.
• Mike Hampton, however, continues to have a huge season at the plate. His RBI on Saturday put him at 4 in 9 ABs. That’s one more than the catcher formerly known as Corky Miller had all season.

Saturday Quick Hits

• Glavine is back on the DL. Here’s a question: how come nobody was heaping the same kind of shit on Glavine for thinking that he was miraculously cured of his torn flexor tendon that was being heaped on Hudson for thinking his elbow was going to miraculously heal?
• Is it just me, or did Kotsay get hot just after Jeff Francoeur shaved off his beard? This can’t be a coincidence. I think that, like me, Kotsay derives most of his powers from his beard and, when Francoeur grew a beard, his bad mojo was channeling to Kotsay through the hirsutosphere.

Congratulations, Mark Kotsay!

Regular readers of this here www.baseball.braves.interweb.blog know that we who dwell up in section 435 are big Mark Kotsay fans. I was a little bit crushed to find out that I wasn’t present for his big day, opting instead for a 5-mile run and Bull Durham DVD, obnoxious Cubs fans having made this series unbearable to sit through.

Still, big congratulations are in order for a rare feat. The cycle is kind of interesting in that it is so rare, and yet most regular major leaguers are capable of pulling it off. Doubles are just singles that found a better hole, so you have to have the speed to leg out a triple and enough strength to clear the outfield fence once in a while. If Brian McCann can do the former and Gregor Blanco can do the latter, there are few men who aren’t within reach of the cycle.

Interestingly, as reported by Carroll Rogers at the AJC, this should have been Kotsay’s second career cycle:

He had very nearly become the first San Diego Padre to do it seven years ago on May 19, 2001, when he needed a triple in his final at-bat against Montreal but stopped at second base.

Kotsay went 4-for-7 that game with a single, two doubles and a homer. It was the ninth inning of a game the Padres won 20-7, and he stopped at second out of respect, he said.

“Graeme Lloyd was on the mound,” Kotsay said. “I didn’t want to show anybody up. But everybody was yelling at me from the dugout that I should have gone for third and hit for the cycle. Nobody had done it in Padre history. I legitimately could have walked into third base and stood at the bag.”

Class act.

Also note that Kotsay brought his average back up to .300 with a 5-5 day. It had dropped way off after a slow start returning from the DL in July. Chasing the dream, once again.

A Cubs Fan Raped Your Mother

Of all the fans in baseball, the Cubs have the absolute worst. You may accuse me of being a sore loser after an ugly doubleheader today, but the truth is, I have been professing this since the 2003 division series. Sure, fans in New York and Philly get a bad rap, but people from New York hate everyone and everything so you can’t take it personally and the fans in Philadelphia tend to direct their bile towards their own teams rather than their opponents.

Cubs fans, on the other hand, are just nasty people. The way they go about cheering for their team is tasteless. It’s as much about goading the other team as it is about supporting their own team.

And in Atlanta tonight, they decided that they owned the place as much as they own Wrigley field, chanting “Let’s go Cubbies,” something about “I fucked your mom,” and unfurling big blue W banners when the game was over. Folks, coming into our home and cheering for your team is just fine. As a city with a short sports history, booming only recently due to suburban diaspora, we’re used to that. But when you do, remember that you are guests in our home.

(The Cardinals, with their notoriously loyal fans, just recently came through town during another series in which visiting fans rivaled the home fans. And yet, we got none of this from them. They were positive supporters of their teams. Good sports both when they won and lost.)

Part of the reason, I think, that Braves fans get a bad rap for being fair weather fans is that is we’re just not like these people.

What was truly abhorrent though, was when the Cubs fans decided that the tribute they played to Skip Caray before the game was really a Cubs tribute to Harry Caray and blew up every time Skip’s dad appeared in photos on the screen. That was our moment, our solemn farewell.

Cubs fans, you are an embarrasment to yourselves and to baseball. I for one will be cheering loudly when the Phillies once again crush your dreams this October.

Rich Harden Pitches 5 Crappy 2-Hit Innings

On to the game… I don’t know how a guy can pitch a game in which he walks approximately 432 batters and gets pulled after 5 innings because he’s already thrown over 90 pitches and yet give up 0 runs and only two hits. But Rich Harden pulled it off tonight. Good job.

Jorge Campillo, on the other hand, must have walked under a ladder on the way to the game. The Cubs managed to put 4 on the board in the first inning without getting a single hard hit ball. They were helped on the way by a terrible throw home from Casey Kotchman that cost us a run and out. Campillo would allow one more in 5 total innings of work, though it was one of those “he pitched better than his line” games.

The first run would be all they needed, but they collected 3 more in the 9th when Mike Gonzales decided that if walking pretty much every batter you face is good enough for Rich Harden then it’s damn well good enough for Mike Gonzales.

The public masturbation from the Cubs fans in attendance became unbearable after that.

Breaking News: Kotchman Unimpressive So Far

I want to catch Kotchmania, I really do. I’m trying. I wish it was the most virulent disease to hit Atlanta since the Teixeira Fever epidemic of August ‘07. Yet, Kotchman has been unimpressive so far. We all knew going into this relationship that he didn’t swing quite a weighty bat as his predecessor, but we heard that he was still solid and a clutch performer for the Angels this year. We also heard that his defense was at least as good as Teixeira’s, in not better. (Though, anyone who said better obviously wasn’t watching Tex this year.)

So far, though, Kotchmania has barely rivaled Thormania. (And Thorman’s a freaking Olympian right now. Like in Beijing. For real.) As a Brave, he slipped under .200 tonight and has only 3 extra base hits and 5 RBIs in 14 games. Tonight, he grounded softly to first twice with 2 out and runners in scoring position. His defense hasn’t been spectacular either. Maybe some of that can be attributed to adjusting to a new park, new league, and new team. If that’s the case, let’s hope he gets pretty well adjusted before next season.

Hampton in 2009?

We turn our attention to the future once again. Here’s what Mark Bowman says about Mike Hampton returning for 2009:

No, there likely won’t be many teams knocking on Hampton’s door during the offseason. But if he stays healthy the rest of this season, I could see the Braves offering him an incentive-laden contract. They’ve paid him a lot of money while he was idle the past couple of years. Why not take a small risk and try to at least be compensated for at least a fraction of the assistance their coaches and medical staff have provided him over the past few years?

As I talked about last time, more than anything, losing Hudson for most of next year really changes the outlook for the starting rotation next year. It means we’re not in need of just one proven starter to go along with the  youngsters, but at least two. Could Mike Hampton fill one of those spots? Mark Bowman thinks so, but I disagree.

I will agree with his premise that the best way to sign Hampton for 2009 would be to an incentive-based contract, with milestones for innings pitched and wins moving a nominal salary towards something respectable should he put in a full-time effort.

Yet, I don’t agree with Bowman that there won’t be many teams looking at Hampton when the year is up. Even with Hampton’s injury track record over the last few years, you can’t deny that he still has the potential to be a quality starter. He’s a great competitor, he has a ferocious breaking ball, and he can hit. Absolutely, he’s a risk. But he’s finally made it back to the mound in the majors and completed several starts without injury. If he can make it to the end of the season in a similar fashion and regain some of the dominance that he was showing in the months before he was injured so many years ago, he’ll definitely be someone worth looking at for a number of teams. Don’t underestimate how hard it is to acquire good starting pitching the major leagues.

Sure the number he signs for next year won’t approach what he signed for in 2000. But that will be part of the lure. A former 20 game winner who can still pitch at a bargain price.

Still, I don’t think it will be the dollar signs that will dissuade the Braves from pursuing another year with Hampton. I think the organization has probably succumb to the same kind of Hampton fatigue that the fans have. Not ill will. There certainly haven’t been any reports that Hampton’s situation has been a clubhouse distraction. Just that after learning over and over again that we can’t rely on Hampton, it’s going to be very hard to put ourselves in a position to do just that one more time.

2009 or Beyond?

For the unsuccessful 2006 and 2007 campaigns, the Braves decided that they had enough talent in the queue to make a few key moves to re-up for the next season. In 2007, the Braves just didn’t have the starting pitching depth to take them all the way. It was Hudson and Smoltz and pray for rain. This year, injuries to almost our entire pitching staff and serious underachievement at the plate from the corner outfield positions doomed our hopes.

With the trade of Mark Teixeira to the Angels for Casey Kotchman and Some Duder, the Braves made it clear that they’re in rebuidling mode. But the question that we should all be asking is, “When are we rebuidling for?”

After losing Tim Hudson for most of next year to Tommy John surgery (and I’m wondering if I prophesied this way back when), it’s not quite such a sure thing that we should be looking to compete in 2009. With Hudson and Jurrjens, we would still have a fomidable front end of the rotation which we’d be able to fortify in the back in with guys like Campillo, Reyes, or Morton, and maybe the offseason acquisition of a reliable number 3ish quality veteran.

But with Hudson gone for the first two thirds of the season and in rehab mode if he makes it back for the rest, the whole tenor of our offseason search changes. Jair’s been fantastic this year, don’t get me wrong, but he’s still a bit off in development and durability from being a number one guy. So now we’re at least an ace-caliber starter away from contention for next year. With the price and scarcity of starting pitching, even if we’re ready to drop a huge load on an arm of that caliber, it’s not even certain that we could find someone. And while we’ve got some talented pitching in the minors, none of those arms are ready to take up that mantel next year either.

Aside from the pitching, we’re also going to need some help in the outfield next year. Left field has been a train wreck. Right field has been a train wreck for different reasons, and I don’t expect we’ll be seeing the return of Mark Kotsay next year. Honestly, after the year Francoeur’s having, I wouldn’t give it more than 2-1 odds that he’ll be back, especially when there’s been some interest in a guy who’s turned into a bit of a risky proposition.

The infield is pretty much set with Kotchmania, KJ, Yunel, and Chipper and his body double. McCann is looking more and more like the guy who will inherit Chipper’s role as the face of the Braves as Chipper’s health continues to limit his role.

So we’ve got a big choice. Do we re-up and aim for 2009 or do we take a few steps back, load up on prospects and build from within for 2010 and beyond? We’ve got a lot of exciting talent that we keep hearing about in our farm system, and a shot at the post season for next year will definitely cost us some of that (and some serious cash). After the patchwork, band-aid rosters of the past two seasons, I could probably accept another rebuilding year next year if that gives us hope to reignite the old dynasty. At the same time, losing has become a foreign, uncomfortable feeling for Braves fans, one that I don’t think most of us are ready to accept in the name of rebuilding. I think we all know which direction the front office will be looking, but what do y’all think?

Peace Out, Corky

109 games too late, the Braves finally closed the door on our long Corky nightmare. I can’t imagine that he won’t clear waivers. I also can’t imagine why the Braves would want to keep him in any capacity. Of course, I couldn’t fathom why they’d keep the Corkster over Brayan Pena way back when, so who knows what they front office is thinking. Maybe Corky has some unflattering pictures of Frank Wren or proof that Bobby Cox beats his wife… oh, wait. Corky has never been more than a below average AAAA-type backup catcher. But this year he’s been unbelievably bad on every level. Offense. Defense. Facial hair. All bad. And that the Braves chose to start him in any number of key games is just scary.

The downside of releasing Corky is that we only have Chucky James and Jeff Francoeur left to boo. And with Francoeur on a lukewarm streak over the last week or so, it’s truly fortunate for the boobirds that Chucky has returned. They (we?) will be booing his performance against the Brewers for weeks to come.

Folks, I’ve seen some bad games pitched in my life. I’ve seen pitchers give up more hits and more runs in fewer innnings than Chucky gave up last night. But I have not seen many performances that were just that convincingly bad. Besides a Prince Fielder popup, pretty much every batter he faced was a walk or a hard hit ball. The Brewers doubled Corky Miller’s yearly offensive production in 2.2 innings.

On the Catcher Situation

Just a quick note after tonight’s stormy affair with the Cardinals:

Corky Miller, in 26 games and 54 at bats this season, has 5 hits, 1 HR, and 3 RBIs.

Clint Sammons equaled Corky Miller’s HR and RBI totals tonight alone.