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One BIG problem: the bench!

Right now, we're rolling with a FOUR MAN BENCH. For one, this is a huge mistake, since it pretty much guarantees that if someone has a nagging injury and someone else gets a day off, our bench if magically cut in half, and Bobby can't PLAY THE MATCHUPS like he looooooooves doing. Secondly, look at the 4 guys: Miller, Norton, Gotay & Infante. 2 of them are hitting in the .260 range. Not horrible. One of them is in the .150 range. Blegh. 1 is BELOW that. YARGH. Another thing. Guess how many dingers these guys have? As many as I do! Guess how many XBH? FOUR, an average of one every 30 AB. By contract, even the slumping Mark Teixeira and Jeff Francoeur getting one every 10 AB. Sure 3 of the 4 are posting decent walk rates. But all thats saying is "we don't trust you to drive in a run, we trust you to be driven in". This is why I think a player like Borchard on the bench could help. He can drive in runs. He's "a big cocksucker that can hit the ball out the ballpark" (TM Earl Weaver). We don't need any more of these little punch & judy slap hitters. Thats why it was such a shame to replace Prado with Infante: The difference seems menial, but there was still a difference there. One of those guys needs to be DFAed when Prado comes back. I'm getting dizzy now.

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Well, yeah. That’s what happens when you carry two LOOGYs, two long men, and a guy who pitches twice a week. And then mismanage your eight man bullpen to hell.

by 17843 on May 29, 2008 11:19 AM EDT   0 recs

you mean SUPPOSED long men. Bennett’s gone 2 or more innings 7 times, and 3 of those were starts. Buddy’s done it once.

And as for our supposed LOOGYs? Ohman’s faced more than one batter in FIFTEEN of his appearances (including an inexplicable 2 inning outing), and Ring’s done it 5 times, and has allowed a run in all but one of them.

BOBBY COX, MANAGING ICON!!!!

by bigjoe on May 29, 2008 11:26 AM EDT to parent up   0 recs

ugh...again with Borchard?

You know I was going to take you serious, until you mentioned Joe Borchard. He’s a AAAA player, and has no business at the Major League level. Second of all, he’s on the disabled list in Richmond right now.

by RainDelay on May 29, 2008 1:05 PM EDT   0 recs

he can’t do much worse than norton right now.

by bigjoe on May 29, 2008 1:28 PM EDT to parent up   0 recs

Seems like...

You’re one of the few with a whole lot of actual baseball sense around here. Most ppl here that I see are of the gloom and doom variety, I was wondering if you’d ever tried braves-nation?

by bravesfan91 on May 29, 2008 8:53 PM EDT to parent up   0 recs

I normally argee with you...

...but I love the bench this year, especially compared to last year. I’d love to have a guy like Darrel Ward or Tony Clark to jack bombs, but we don’t. And if Gotay and Norton are going to continue to get on base at over .400 I have no problem with those two.

With that being said, having 8 guys in the pen might be one too many.

by Smoltz's Beard on May 29, 2008 2:14 PM EDT   0 recs

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