Mark Bradley Speaks Common Sense and Terence Moore Refills His Crazy Pills Prescription

I am not apologizing for the propensity of Braves related posts lately. The amount of denial on the local sportswriter's part concerning their downfall is reaching epic levels. We'll get to Terence Moore and his continual insistence on comparing really shitty Braves teams to the current shitty Braves team to prove some insane point that really only his psychologist should be privy to.

First, it is like Mark Bradley beamed my inner thoughts into a coherent column. Not always easy to do. Read and listen to me cheer with pure glee.

The era of eminence has ended. The Braves are weaker than at any time since 1990
I wish he had started with a palindrome or a paper drawing illustrating his point because it would have been less stupid than this comment. All you have to do is look at the team's record to support this ingenius statement.

and they’re apt to get worse before they get better.

It's like God is whispering sweet nothings into my ear when I hear this sentence. Everyone in Atlanta who owns a pen/paper/typewriter and is employed by the Atlanta Journal Constitution get out of denial and join me and Mark Bradley in the sandbox of truth.

Frank Wren, the general manager since October 2007, believes his team “has the resources and the foundation” to retool. “We still need pieces,” he said, “but we don’t need a major overhaul.”

Hearing, a man asked: “Pieces?”

Said Wren: “They’re not little pieces — they’re big pieces.”

Just to sum up what the man who ran the Orioles into the ground over a year and half span means:

-We need big pieces but this does not count as a major overhaul.

-The resources and foundation are there, they have both been lost apparently.

-A major overhaul to him would be described as beginning as an expansion team...except they would probably hire a competent general manager to run the team, so that is really different from this situation.

Writing for SI.com, Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus offered a ranking of the top 50 players around which an organization could build, and only one Brave — Brian McCann, at No. 11 — made the list.

This really means nothing but it does tell me enough to know Brian McCann is the best baseball player on the team and will probably be traded very soon as part of the "big pieces rebuilding process."

As it stands, Jair Jurrjens — who’s 22 and who has won two of nine starts since the All-Star break — would be the 2009 Opening Day pitcher.

Aren't there anymore old ass Braves pitchers we can sign to prevent this from happening? If Frank Wren was running for President his campaign slogan would be "The Illusion of Hope" and his running mate would be a shady man named Trace with an oddly shaped mustache and a penchant for chewing tobacco.

Wren: “It’s too early to talk to John and Tommy [about possible new contracts] until we get into the offseason and we have more information. There’s no sense talking about it now.”

I have the most important information needed to make this decision. They are very old and very injured so they should never talk about resigning them. Good. Decision made.

I love John Smoltz and Tom Glavine but can we just go ahead and lose their phone number? The only contract we should have for them is a contract out to maim them so they can't ever enter the Turner Field facility to pitch for the Braves again. Ok, maybe Smoltz because I don't ever want him to leave and he is not a human, he is a robot, I am not going to ever be shocked if he comes back next year and throws 200 innings. Glavine can take his ball and go home for all I would care though.

The outfield is in similar shambles. Mark Kotsay is gone. Jordan Schafer, the heir apparent, was suspended 50 games for using HGH; now reinstated, he’s hitting .269 in Class AA with more strikeouts than hits. Jeff Francoeur is fighting to keep his average above .230. Matt Diaz hasn’t played since May. Gregor Blanco and Omar Infante have four homers between them.

Good point but the problem is that he is assuming these players were good in the first place. Here is how I would write this sentence. "The outfield is in shambles, Mark Kotsay, Matt Diaz, Gregor Blanco, and Omar Infante all are way below average baseball players; Jordan Schafer is no longer using illegal products to enhance his performance and Bobby Cox will not give up on Jeff Francoeur so you will be subjected to his embarrassing hitting performances for years to come."

By the way, I am drinking Drano right now.

Yes, Wren could make a trade (or two, or three) to address deepening deficiencies, but who among Braves would yield the needed return? Yunel Escobar? (And who plays shortstop if he leaves?) Casey Kotchman? (Didn’t he just get here?) Jarrod Saltalamacchia? (Whoops, already did that deal.) Question: Do you see a “foundation”?

Answer: No, I do not.

I am giddy with glee upon reading this sentence. I am not trying to be a homer or have a "pity me attitude" but the same people who put this team together and get credit for this success, are not taking the blame for it falling apart. They don't blame the players, the general manager, or the manager. It's got to be someone's fault Casey "Bereavement Leave" Kotchman is the first baseman and not someone who has displayed the core competencies of being able to hit a baseball.

Can anyone outbid the Yankees for CC Sabathia? Is Pat Burrell, who has had two 100-RBI seasons, worth $15 million per annum? Is Adam Dunn, who has had three
So even the grand plan to get the team back to second place is flawed. By the way the answer to these questions are: no one will outbid them, he is not, and I have a crush on Adam Dunn's ability so I would say yes. He would fit in perfectly because he does not give a shit about winning according to the Blue Jay's GM, and neither do the Braves!

The “great, grand organization” — John Schuerholz’s description — is just another mediocrity. Restoring its luster will take years. Not months. Years.

Thank you for not being a homer writer Mark Bradley. You will be welcome in my mom's attic at any point to discuss sports with me.

Now for a semi-alternate view of the situation. What's that in your hand Terence "One R" Moore?

Is that Bobby Cox Kool-Aid?

Kool-Aid!

It’s not Bobby Cox. “No, this isn’t his fault,” said Chuck Tanner, referring to the Braves’ free fall in the National League East standings.

You mean the manager who managed the worst teams in Atlanta Braves history does not think it is the manager's fault? In other news, most criminals claim to be innocent, cops are mostly assholes, and MTV no longer plays music but is now an off shoot of Tiger Beat.

That said, Tanner, who should know such things, suggested that this really is the reincarnation of his 1988 Braves, which isn’t good, by the way.

No one who remembers the 1988 Braves thinks this is a good thing at all. I am not sure if Terence thinks the panic button should be hit or what other options should be looked into to turn the team around. He will suggest zero of these options, he just wants back up from someone it is not Bobby Cox's fault.

Also, why would you ask someone a question who was worse at this job than the person you talking about? Do they ask Mike Shula how Herm Edwards is doing as a head coach? Compared to Mike Shula, Herm Edwards is a freaking genius. Same thing with Chuck Tanner and Bobby Cox.

(Terence) "Chuck, you were a shitty manager. Do you think the current Braves team is Bobby Cox's fault?"

(Chuck Tanner) "Terence, it is not his fault and I know this because I was much worse at my job than he was/is. My ability to manage a mediocre team pales in comparison overall to his, which means I will generally think he is doing a good job, because if he was not, then I was doing an even worse job when I managed them and they sucked."

(Terence) "Thanks, Chuck! How is senility treating you?"

The current ones are wretched, but they already have more victories than the 54 for those other Braves.

So they are NOT the reincarnation of the 1988 Braves. Most non senile journalists when they make a comparison, stick to it, and don't try to bring up points that would make them seem like they are ruining their own hypothesis. Otherwise, that journalist would be rambling.

I don't know how many ways to say this, but continously comparing the current Braves to the shittiest Braves team in history will neither prove a good point of any type nor make any Braves fan feel any better about this year. Considering the hypothesis of your column is that it is not the manager's fault, to compare the old team to the current team and interview the old manager who got fired for being a shitty manager based on that old shitty team, sort of kind of undermines the whole premise Bobby Cox is doing a good job.

As a major league scout nowadays for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he remains close to the game. That’s why he noted a similarity between his Braves of 20 years ago and the current ones imploding in their division.

So they ARE the reincarnation. This is hard to follow.

So even though they are not losing tons of games and Terence sees a comparison between the two, and the manager of the 1988 team got fired, to prove his point Bobby Cox is doing a great job, he interviews Chuck Tanner, who got fired for managing a similar team, who says he sees a comparison between the two. So in Case A, manager gets fired for having crappy team, in Case B manager will not get fired because his name is not Frank Appleton, but is Bobby Cox. At this point the criminally insane Terence Moore has two options:

1. Lie and say there is no similarity between the two teams.

2. Explain how the teams are different and it is not Bobby Cox's fault, you know since that is the title and premise of his column. What does Terence do? Let the 79 year old Chuck Tanner just ramble on...and maybe we can name whose fault this really is.

“Heck, there are games I see where they’re using four or five relievers, just like we did,”

I would like to kindly point out Bobby Cox is a huge fan of having RH relievers pitch to RH batters. Let's look at the two relievers the Braves have had all year and see how many appearances they have compared to how many innings they have:

Blaine Boyer: 73 games, 69 innings, 5.30 ERA

Will Ohman: 73 games, 54 innings, 3.38 ERA

So maybe the reason Chuck Tanner sees so many guys pitching is because the manager makes changes based on what side of the plate the batter bats from. RH are hitting only .255 against Ohman but as a LH, he seems to pitch mostly to lefties. Blaine Boyer has been god awful and should not be anywhere near a major league roster. Last time I checked the manager decides the pitching moves, so this problem Chuck Tanner sees is Bobby Cox's fault.

Also, the other day Bobby Cox had Mike Hampton bunt over a hitter to second with one out, so Gregor Blanco, he of the .260 average could drive him in. Mike Hampton is Mr. Glass, but I am going to go ahead and say if there is any pitcher in the major leagues who should rarely bunt, it is him.

What does this man have to do to get fired?

In three weeks, their arms are hanging, and then your bullpen’s gone.

Ohman and Boyer are at the top of the majors in appearances. Arms are a hangin' and they are shitty, useless run giving up arms as the case may be. That is Bobby Cox's fault.

It doesn’t matter that the right fielder [Jeff Francoeur] isn’t hitting, or you can look at the shortstop, the second baseman, the first baseman or the catcher.

Jeff Francouer is an organizational failure. They never corrected his swing and approach to pitching and now are paying the price. Actually the catcher is hitting and the 1B got traded for Casey "Bereavement Leave" Kotchman, who can go to back to Los Angeles and no one would notice.

We didn’t have it, and for the Braves, it’s not [manager] Bobby Cox’s fault. It’s not the pitching coach’s fault.

Chuck, I realize you work for the Pirates organization and have very little clue about team management and how to run a winning team, but how many appearances a pitcher has, who starts a game, and which reliever appears when is directly linked to the manager. If these decisions are poor, the manager is seen as poor.

They just don’t have Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz anymore.”

This is a common horseshit excuse that I am hearing. If this is the real reason the Braves are not good, then Bobby Cox was never a good manager, John Schuerholz was never a good General Manager, and we can leave it at that. You can't give them all credit when things are going great, but never acknowledge the superior pitching the team had, then not blame them when things go poorly and say it is a lack of good pitchers. If the pitchers are not pitching well and the hitters are not hitting well, this can be traced back to the coaches who currently coach them, and who picks the coaches? Bobby Cox.

But then we had Glavine just getting started, and that’s when I pitched him a lot, knowing he’d be good someday. He was 7-17. Rick Mahler was 9-16, and Pete Smith was 7-15. Zane Smith, 5-10. We had Bruce Sutter, but his arm was done. We were bringing Smoltzie along, but he was 2-7.

Chuck Tanner just inferred the 1988 team had better pitching prospects. This is supposed to make current Braves fans feel better and support the case Bobby Cox is doing a great job. It does not.

“We couldn’t catch the ball sometimes, but they couldn’t pitch it, either. They’d throw a fastball when it should have been a change-up or something.”

It is called "coaching." This is why you got fired, you could not control your players. This is beyond unacceptable and you are/were a horrible manager.

Sounds like the current Braves, with fielding issues everywhere and severe problems when it comes to swinging in the clutch.

So the current Braves sound like the 1988 Braves, whose manager got fired because the team displayed characteristics as described above, Terence thinks the current Braves exhibit the same characteristics, but the current manager should not take the blame because the 1988 team had better players? My head is spinning.

The manager does not choose the players, but he chooses who plays, and I am also going to assume Bobby Cox has a little say in personnel decisions. Stop comparing the two teams to show Bobby Cox is doing a good job.

“Then you bring a young guy in behind him. I know the Braves have that kid they got from the Tigers [Jair Jurrjens], and he’s a good one. But if you want a young guy like that to be your leader, well, in the long haul, it’s hard.”

If I am not wrong the Braves had a couple young kids in leadership positions in the early 90s and that seemed to work out fine. I tell what is even dumber than this comment and that is the idea the team need more old pitchers, because that is probably the worst idea ever...if that is what Chuck Tanner is getting at. I like typing "Chuck Tanner."

The same goes for the short haul.

I have no idea what this means. I just know Terence "One R" Moore and Chuck Tanner seem to think it is not Bobby Cox's fault, but have not yet told me why it is not his fault. I know managers don't do that much but Greg Norton was hitting cleanup for a while this year and so were Omar Infante. Someone has to take the fall for this. No word yet on whose fault it is but I am available if anyone would like for me to venture a guess. Ok here goes,

Frank Wren, the General Manager, and Bobby Cox.