We're Not Sinking, That Was Not An Iceberg, and We Have Plenty of Lifeboats...Look! Something Shiny!

I hate Jay Mariotti and other writers who just rip into teams/managers for no apparent reason. It seems bitter and angry to just tear into a team/manager based on a personel vendetta. There is a flip side to this though. Unbridled enthusiasm from a should-be neutral columnist that takes a negative and tries to make it positive or goes to old, "at least we still play hard" excuse. Jeff Schultz, blind us with bullshit first please.

Given that the line between sports and accounting blurred years ago, the Braves could be excused if they viewed this off-season much like Ms. Peebles in bookkeeping. Never mind the names, the Q-scores or the legacies of exiting players. How fat are the paychecks?

I am not googling this reference but I am assuming it has nothing to do with baseball and should be exorcised from this column. The Braves have made horrible personnel moves in the past and now they are all coming off the books! Get me 45 virgins and 45 bottles of wine for every man! They can't run a team efficiently and now they have more money to screw it up. Giddy up bitches, we are headed away on the wagon of stupidity!

Make way. The Braves are about to head somewhere they haven’t really been in years. The mall.

The postseason? The World Series? Headed towards respectability?

It is now a good thing the Braves have free agents that either:

1. are horrible at the game of baseball

2. are too old for the game of baseball

3. are too old and injured to play the game of baseball

If the object of the sport were to accumulate as many contracts as possible for players who are 5 years past their prime, then the Braves have won the World Series.

“It’s a situation we relish, and we’re looking at this off season with great enthusiasm,” said Braves chairman Terry McGuirk.

The front office has proven themselves to be horrible personnel decision makers and are glad they get a chance to change the players on the roster in the off season due to their inability to put together a good team.

Hello, C.C. Sabathia or Ben Sheets?

Goodbye money and common sense? Ben Sheets is an injury machine and will want too much money. I say no, which means they will say yes.

No more plugging holes with slight irregulars or Corky Millers.

Now they can plug one of the eight holes they have with a player who costs $20 million per year. This makes perfectly no sense.

Also, nobody forced them to play Corky Miller or even sign Corky Miller and they did it anyway. What makes you think they are going to not overpay for someone who is even shittier?

When asked if that meant the Braves were free to balloon the payroll to $200 million, McGuirk said: “I have some sense of what would be the right thing to do. I’m not going to do something stupid.”

Quick summation:

Signing a 34 year old coming off back surgery is smart.

Signing a 41 year old pitcher for $8 million is smart.

Counting on a 40 year old pitcher with an injury history is smart.

Having Corky Miller be your back up catcher is smart.

Signing Ben Sheets who has never had 30 starts in a year is smart.

Ballooning the payroll is stupid.

I would agree, but I am not sure we can all agree they are not going to do something stupid with all of this money they have. This from the same team that once traded for J.D. Drew intentionally.

I think everyone who even cares a little about the Braves should worry a little bit. Except Jeff Schultz, he is positive they know what they are doing, even though there is no track history to support this over the past 5 years.

So began the slashing. A perfect storm of broken down bodies and expiring contracts has killed the season but plowed the field.

It is actually good news the whole team is injured and horrible this year, it means we don't have the same players next year! Awesome!

McGuirk calls it “the first time we’ve really had the chance to have a rebuilding effort.”

Remember when the Braves trotted out Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz on consecutive days? That sucked, now the Braves get to start over, that is way more exciting! So what if your house burnt down? Now you get to build a whole new house!

Tons of money to spend on free agency is not the solution to a broken team, smart personnel decisions is the key. That has not happened in Atlanta in five years.

What flavor Bobby Cox brand Kool Aid is Terence Moore drinking?

Terence Moore is just happy there is still hustle in the team. Which is pathetic, if I do say so myself. You can tell a team is really bad when someone writes the obligatory, "at least they are still playing hard" column. That is rock bottom.

The Braves haven’t stopped losing, but you know what? They also haven’t stopped hustling.

Unfortunately the entire point of the game of baseball is to win and not lose. Hey, hustling is great though, just combine that with winning, and it sounds really good...which the Braves have not done.

Then Glavine added, “To be honest with you, they should be playing hard.”

They should also attempt to win a ball game. You don't get runs in a game for just playing really, really hard.

Yeah, but it’s like this: Sometimes, with 162 baseball games stretching forever, the hustling vanishes. The Philadelphia Phillies are winning, and it happened to them, when reigning MVP Jimmy Rollins was benched for failing to sprint to first base on a dropped pop fly.

What an asshole! So the Braves should feel lucky the team is still playing hard, even though it is not reflected in the team's record, while the Phillies should drink cyanide because one player failed to run out a pop fly, but they are winning. I would rather have a team full of base clogging fat ass players who never hustle but are .5 games out of the wild card spot, than a team far below .500 that runs around the bases on pop flies like they are being chased by the cops.

Call me crazy on this but it is just how I feel. I enjoy winning, no matter how the team looks doing it. If winning was heroin, I would always have an open vein for it.

The Tampa Bay Rays are winning, and it happened to them. The gifted B.J. Upton was benched for loafing on a double-play grounder.

What a lazy piece of shit. Now I am embarrassed for the Rays and I bet they are embarrassed as well. I called the Rays and B.J. Upton to see how they felt about this, but was told by a secretary with a husky voice named Claire they have the best record in baseball and hustle doesn't matter much if you are winning baseball games. Claire was such a bitch.

Such issues haven’t happened to the otherwise imploding Braves, owners of one winning month this season.

Thank God the only issue the Braves have had this year is their ability to win baseball games and put a winning team on the field. I am sure the fans feel really great knowing all the players are running out the weak pop flies they hit and are trying to break up all the double plays they are hitting into.

Since when was mediocrity accepted and encouraged by a major league team? Have some pride.

They’ve had other issues, though.

You must mean the hitting, pitching, and bullpen issues that has prevented them from winning games? The manager's inability to make effective changes to the lineup that resulted in Greg Norton hitting cleanup? You could also be speaking of the front office's inability to identify and draft young players so the team is forced to trade current prospects for expensive free agents to be that has not only depleted the farm system but also caused Casey Kotchman to be a centerpiece of a major trade.

(Kotchman is on bereavement leave right now. There is no word if it is a family member or his baseball career that has died.)

The issues could also be the Braves consistently count on Mike Hampton to pitch well and had not taken any steps to work on Jeff Franceour's swing until it became a major problem.

After left fielder Omar Infante caught a line drive on Monday in the first inning, he trotted toward the Braves’ dugout. It was the second out of the inning, not the third, which is why the Giants’ Dave Roberts tagged up from third base and scored without a throw.

I guess the issue he is talking about is the basic inability for the players on the team to understand the rules of baseball and stay focused on the field. I am sure Infante hustled to the dugout though, so all is forgiven! Take a couple laps Omar---wait, you love to hustle so you would love to do that. Your punishment is you have to help your team win a game or two. That will show you.

Regardless of whether the team loses constantly, don't know the rules of baseball, nor can they make any good personnel decisions, regardless of all that, Terence Moore is just happy the team is hustling.

Infante’s gaffe was more a lack of focus than of effort.

Both leading to the same result...the team loses, so there is no difference if it was a lack of effort, focus or poor bladder control that caused him to have to leave the field at that moment. Either way, Dave Roberts scored a run and here is the kicker...it doesn't fucking matter why or how he scored, but the fact is he scored a run. Let's get back to basics here. Hustling, dancing, and doing somersaults in the outfield do not matter if you and your team stinks. Quit drinking the Bobby Cox Kool Aid and get into the real world.

The ongoing show for the Braves is wretched. As a result, much less than the announced crowd of 18,113 came to Monday’s finale against the Giants,

Attendance is going down and the team stinks? Sounds like you need to up that payroll as soon as possible because it makes perfect "business sense." Mr. Moore go to the cubicle next door and speak with Mr. Schultz, you may want to speak to each other about how when revenues are going down, it does not make sense to spend more money.

Of course then you would have to think for yourself and that is not quite as much fun as just quoting someone in the front office about how things are going to get better.

but that’s more folks than the Braves of the late 1980s often attracted at home during an entire week. Glavine remembers, because he was there, when the Braves were destined to lose 100 games before the first pitch of each of those seasons.

Explain to me, Terence with one "R" Moore, how the hell this is a good thing to compare the present situation to the most losingest point in the history of the franchise.

(Patient) "Three of my four arteries are clogged aren't they doc? Will I ever get the movement back in my left arm?"

(Doctor) "Probably not, but remember in 1990 when you had quadruple bypass surgery? Wow! You were really clogged then, this time it is only three arteries, so this should not be bad at all to fix."

(Patient) "What about my left arm paralysis?"

(Doctor leaves room walking backwards saying words of encouragement about the patient only having three arteries clogged)

Any comparison between the Braves of then and now? “No, because with those teams, we were so bad that there was no light at the end of the tunnel,” Glavine said. “I think with this team, you look and go, ‘Oh, man.’

"Oh man, this team is bad and I am glad I am not going to be here next year to suffer through all of this misery?"

You get a couple of guys here and there healthy, and they’re back next year. And if you make a splash or two with a free agent or even a trade — I mean, this team has a chance of being right back in the thick of things next year.”

The problem is this. What if these new guys don't hustle? Then the Braves would just be a team that won ball games and what good is that really?

First, the Braves have to get through this year, and that’s the problem.

They are still hustling though! The problem is not getting through this year, the problem is a lack of good baseball players chosen to be on the team, and whether they hustle or not, new ball players are not guaranteed to be any better.