Some Braves Thoughts As We Approach The End Of The First Month

I wanted to get some of my thoughts about the team down on "paper" while they're still fresh in my head. When any team goes through bad stretches like the Braves are going through, there are many people who will call for someone's head. They want a sacrificial lamb to fire and blame all their ills on. I've heard things like Frank Wren is the problem, or Terry Pendleton is the problem, but I'm not so sure.

Frank Wren put together a good team. I liked the makeup of this team before the season, and I really can't argue too much with his decisions. I actually agree with many of the decisions the team has made like signing Troy Glaus, promoting Jason Heyward, and many of the other decisions the team has made. I agreed with them at the time and I still have hope that they'll work out.

That said, I'm not a big fan of Melky Cabrera or Nate McLouth. My opinion of McLouth since we got him is that he is vastly overrated, on both offense and defense. He reminds me of those players who can be stars in small markets on non-contending teams like the Pirates, but wither under the pressure of contending on a team like the Braves. Maybe that's unfair to Nate, and hopefully he proves me wrong, but he's not a star player. He reminds me a lot of Marcus Giles, with his swing, his physique, and his career peak and decline.

I said of Melky when we acquired him, "great, we just re-acquired Jeff Francoeur, only worse." It's easy to stand by those words when he's only hitting a buck-89, but he's actually shown more patience than I expected, though all of his other offensive skills are currently absent.

I'd love to criticize the lack of power on this team, which is particularly troubling. As bad as the batting averages have been, we have five guys slugging at or under .300. That is probably a function of the overall batting slump, but on a team that far too often sits back and waits for the 3-run homerun, nothing close to that is getting hit. Along those lines, we have to start manufacturing more runs by running more. I don't know why Bobby Cox all of a sudden stopped giving his baserunners the green light. He used to run a lot back in the 90's. Of course we had better base stealers then, but we have some pretty smart basestealers now, and we need to use them.

Assuming guys like McLouth, Cabrera, Heyward, and Matt Diaz get on base, I'd like to see them take off in this series against the Astros. The Houston catcher, J.R. Towles, is only 1-for-8 in throwing out basestealers this year, and was only 1-for-11 last year. We need to force the issue and put some pressure on the opposing pitcher and the opposing defense, and using some of our team speed would be a good way to do that. Hopefully Bobby is thinking he needs to do some things to score runs too.

Back to my original point about firing someone. I don't think it should be Wren. I did call for Terry Pendleton to get the axe last year when the team wasn't hitting, but they turned it around and TP looked good because of it. Pacgnosis posted a nice piece  on why TP is not to blame for the Braves poor hitting, and I'm inclined to agree, but that's not necessarily why a team fires someone. Firing a hitting coach when the team is not hitting, especially one who is thought of as highly by the players and fans as TP, is not about getting someone in here who can teach hitting better. It's more about sending a message to the team; the old Bull Durham axiom, "scare 'em."

Surely Bobby Cox has already given this team his version of the lollygag speech, but if we still aren't hitting, and we can't replace the players, then a shakeup for shakeups sake is a worthy move, and firing Terry Pendleton could help turn things around. Baseball history is riddled with managerial and coaching changes in the middle of seasons that worked (and many that didn't work). It's a gamble, but when you can't add or subtract players, dismissing a coach is an easy statement to make.

Maybe it's too early to do anything. The danger in that statement is "when do we start making changes." When is it too early, or more importantly, when will it be too late. Look, we're only five games out of first, and only six games under .500. The team has had bad months before and bounced back. Sometime just flipping a calendar page to a new month gives players a chance to start over and leave all the ills of a poor month behind them.