Atlanta Braves Mid-Season Blogger Confidence
by gondeee on Jul 12, 2011 1:03 PM EDT
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PrintSo we're not going to do the Atlanta Braves Fan Confidence Poll anymore. I mean, who really cares what you people think. We bloggers are the ones with the real power!
Was that too harsh of an intro? Either way, we're stepping away from confidence voting for the time being and we're going to try something new. I've asked each blogger here at Talking Chop to give me their confidence level in the form of a number and a statement. All of this is collected below for your reading enjoyment:
| Blogger |
La Confiance |
| Scott Coleman |
This club has 54 wins at the All-Star Break, has suffered from injuries all season long, and had multiple players slumping badly in the first half, but you'd never know it judging by the Braves blogospehere. We'll be fine. I'm at a 9 for the week, which is triple the number of pitches Alex Gonzalez is seeing per-game. |
| Danny Hong (royhobbs) |
A lot of people saw the Braves drop 2/3 to the Phillies to close out the first half of the season. I saw Tommy Hanson and Brandon Beachy match Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee pitch for pitch, and more or less result in a draw. The Phils exploding on the likes of Derek Lowe, Scott Proctor and Cory Gearrin means little to me, and is akin to the scene in Bad Santa where an intoxicated Billy Bob Thornton is beating up children. Still confident in this team's fortune to the tune of an 8. |
| Jack Moore (moorebraves) |
The Braves are rolling. On a scale of one to as many runs as the Phillies scored against our worst possible pitching lineup on Sunday, the organization scores an eleven. Sure that last game was ugly, but Dan Uggla looks like he's starting to get hitz, and the looming return of a fella named Prado boost my confidence. The Braves have been doing the little things necessary to win ball games, and in the long run little things=big things. |
| Tony Almeyda |
Even with Martin Prado on the mend and Alex Gonzalez's suckage batting second, the Braves still managed to put together an impressive week. I have no doubt the team's fortunes will improve once Prado returns, but for the life of me, I can't understand why Scott Proctor is still on this team; he's been absolutely horrible this week. Despite Proctor's extreme fail, my confidence in this team is a 9. |
| Bennett Hipp (SCrebel10) |
Even after dropping the series against the Phillies right before the all-star break, the Braves find themselves sitting 3.5 games back in the N.L. East. Winning the division is still easily in sight, but Atlanta also finds themselves 5 games up in the wildcard and is in good shape for a playoff run. My confidence rating for the week is a 9, which is the same number of walks "lead-off hitter" Jordan Schafer has drawn since May 30th. |
| Jacob Peterson |
Some things, like the continued presence of both Scott Proctor and Julio Lugo on the roster, are inexplicable. Others, though, just make sense. In baseball, pitching wins ballgames. The Braves have great pitching; ergo, they win lots of ballgames. That simple formula outweighs all the daily frustrations, poor performances, and Fredisasters. 8/10 |
| CB Wilkins |
I'd never heard of the Colorado Rockies, at least not the baseball team, before this week. After the drubbing the Braves game them, I doubt I'll ever have cause to hear of them again. Losing two out of three to the Phillies stung, but honestly they only lost one out of two, as clearly most of the team took off early for the All-Star break, leaving in their place stunt doubles, who, while they might have looked the part, certainly weren't Major League caliber baseball players. 8/10 |
| Matt Foreman (yondaime4) |
I'd sooner have Dale Muprhy manning CF than Jordan Schafer and the same goes for A-Gon at SS. Proctor is somehow getting paid to sabotage the team and still we are two games better than last season at this point and half the team can't hit. Add in a couple of tattooed relievers in the second half and maybe clone Jeff Blauser and we are good to go. 70 (on the 20-80 scale) |
| Martin Gandy (gondeee) |
If Scott Proctor affects my confidence in this team, then I have problems. Clearly, I have problems. Mark my confidence as a 6, though it should be a 3, or the number of team-leading bullpen losses by Proctor. |
We're going to try and do this each week, so tell us what you think, and if you're so inclined give us your two cents in the comments.
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Comments
Fantastic piece
Looking forward to this if you do it weekly.
What we really need to know
is the records of the people writing the previews/recaps at the break… We need to optimize our writer lineup so we have the best going against the best teams, and possibly platoon some of the weaker writers…
If Gondeee can't make these obvious changes, he needs to be fired
I like this better than the fan confidence polls. Voters were so heavily influenced by what happened the night before, and the people who voted 0’s, 1’s, and 2’s are idiots.
Love it.
FCP was fine, but the contributing factors were too open to interpretation to be valid.
If we can land [Stephen Drew], I will give FW a bj.
~justincredubil02
The poll I think ran its course.
Love the new ‘blogger confidence’, and its good to read what yous guys feels. I don’t know how I feel about this team occasionally.
This still suffers the same problem as the reader confidence poll in that what it is measuring is kind of nebulous (plus it also suffers from small sample size). My idea would be to simply have a “How likely do you think it is that the Braves will make the playoffs?” poll for readers.
I also like that idea
I really like this feature, it was a great idea. A little more uniformity in what the writers are actually grading the team on and it’d be perfect!
1950 NCAA Co-National Champions
i really like this new segment...
i think it is funny that everyone on earth can see scott proctor is not an MLB caliber pitcher anymore except for the Atlanta brass…
"My everything, or nothing. My everything, or nothing. WE gonna fight, til we can't fight no more. We gonna lie down, and bleed a while. Gonna get up, and fight again." -Tashard Choice
by SouthernPanther on Jul 12, 2011 1:28 PM EDT reply actions
What a relief
It was getting exhausting having to form an opinion of my own every week. It’s so much nicer to be told how to feel.
by epatl on Jul 12, 2011 1:32 PM EDT reply actions 8 recs
ooh goody!
You shouldn’t sip liquor.
-justincredubil02
no, Jack Daniel is whiskey.
-ChopMaster
"Welcome to the show, Brandon Beachy. I think you’re going to stay a while."
Hey man, we’re here to help.
"It's not about me, it's about the team." - Martin Prado
Twitter: @scottcoleman55
by Scott Coleman on Jul 12, 2011 2:58 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
love it
keep ’em coming… but in the future maybe combine the two and throw up a graphic of fan voting at the top?
i like it
I hope it doesn’t turn into something like the ncaa coaches polls. You start to get tired of writing them so you have friends, little brothers, mothers fill them out.
by splatoutofluck on Jul 12, 2011 1:44 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
It's a very interesting dichotomy...
Our bloggers are averaging about an 8 out of 10 (it would be 8.5 if no for Gondee, haha) on the confidence scale. YET, the language is so interestingly pessimistic! We’re all aware of the Scott Proctor meltdowns, Alex Gonzalez plate patience (or lack of), Jordan Schafer’s OBP struggles, and of course…the critiques of Fredi against a “perfect-or-bust” scale. So in the spirit of my favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption…
I hope in the 2nd half, we see the continued improvements of Dan Uggla and Jason Heyward to at least their career numbers. I hope Martin Prado hits and gets on base as our leadoff or 2 hole hitter (last year’s BA and OBP would be great). I hope our starting pitching continues to dominate the NL (and Lowe especially getting back to be that IP hoss). I hope our bullpen continues their dominance they’ve showed for all except the final 3 innings this season. I hope we add a stud RH reliever to replace Scott Proctor who can spread out or bullpen workload a little bit more equitably. I hope we don’t short-sightedly mortgage any future prospects for the fool’s gold of an expensive corner OF or slight upgrade of our CF situation (not naming names). I hope we find the answer in a reliable super utility player who can get several of our key players some rest in the 2nd half and hopefully prepare for a playoff run. I respect our objectivity in pointing out flaws as well as celebrating successes, and I hope we never stop expecting nothing but great things from our team.
I hope…
I noticed that as well. For me, the pessimism always revolves around the “what ifs.” What if Proctor could hold a game? What if Uggla didn’t have a poor first half? What if Schafer could get on base like a true lead-off hitter? What if Prado was at the top of our lineup all year? What if Wholers didn’t hang a slider to Leyritz?
by aaaaandTheBravesWin on Jul 12, 2011 2:04 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
This
“What if Wholers didn’t hang a slider to Leyritz?” I have woken up from many a nightmare that way
by Webby18 on Jul 12, 2011 2:16 PM EDT up reply actions 6 recs
9 year old me just started crying again….
by get swoll yunel on Jul 12, 2011 5:20 PM EDT up reply actions
“What if Proctor could hold a game” should be “What if Proctor was DFA’d like he should have been long ago or never signed in the first place.” Don’t blame the man for what he is, blame the people trying to force a square peg into a circle.
Well...
If the circle is big enough, anything will go in it.
Shark in the water.
by AvoidTheDolphin on Jul 12, 2011 3:24 PM EDT up reply actions
What if Kent Hrbek didn’t pull Gant off of the base? What is Lonnie Smith wasn’t a bonehead? What if Eric Gregg was consistent? What if Sheffield wasn’t hit in the arm?
While we’re coming up with bad memories, how about a few more?
Those "what ifs" could go in the opposite direction as well, unfortunately
We lament the things we expected to be good but did not turn out so (Uggla going struggla, J-Hey sophomore slump, Lowe detiorating, etc.). But we’re failing to count our blessings for the things we didn’t expect to be good (or at least not as good) that turned out real well (Jurrgens’ great numbers, solid contributions from Beachy, Kimbrel and Venters’ unhittableness, Freeman’s emerging play). I’m not saying everything has to even out (nobody ever said luck comes out to a net 0 even over the course of a whole season), but I think we do ignore blessings in order to make room for complaining.
1950 NCAA Co-National Champions
On your list of what ifs for the better...
what if a AAAA journeyman like Martin prado was said to be doesn’t become one of the better, more versatile hitters in the NL?
http://sportsandgrits.blogspot.com/
by Mr. Sanchez on Jul 13, 2011 11:29 AM EDT up reply actions
Schedule look-ahead for the 2nd Hlaf
Braves have 70 games left on the schedule, 35 home 35 away.
- 22 games are against the Marlins, Cubs, and Dodgers
- 12 games against the Nationals (who always play us tough, but still. Gotta take care of business in the division)
- The farthest the Braves have to travel after July 21 is NYC
Current winning percentage is .586. If the braves win 40 out of the final 70 (.571), the closest wild card team would have to play .642 baseball the rest of the way to pull even. Not even the Phillies have won that often to this point.
Wild card a minimum looks very solid. Baseball playoffs are a crapshoot, so just getting in is the key.
I’d sooner have Dale Muprhy manning CF than Jordan Schafer and the same goes for A-Gon at SS.
I could see Murphy hitting for Gonzo, but you don’t like his D?
Chicks dig the long ball.
At age fifty-five, I don’t much care for his D either. };0)
I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us. ~Walt Whitman
Why not add in a few member opinions every week? I would love to sit down and prepare a few thoughts once in a while
At the age of six I wanted to be a chef. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. My ambition has been steadily growing ever since. -Salvador Dali
by Kushagi on Jul 12, 2011 4:04 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
I think we know now who was skewing the FCP numbers with their low votes – really, Gondee? A 6?
My dad taught me how to make meat for sloppy joes and my mom let me turn over hot dogs on the grill.
by ChopMaster on Jun 25, 2011 7:25 PM CDT
by justincredubil02 on Jul 12, 2011 4:09 PM EDT reply actions
I don’t know, I can see where Gondee is coming from though. Despite the on-field success of the team, the few questionable management choices does shake one’s confidence of the team going forward. Now that Proctor’s ERA is as bad as his FIP would indicate, hopefully his responsibility gets faded out and/or he gets replaced by someone better (C-Mart?). While I do question some of the team’s 25 men roster decision, I do have enough faith in FO to think that if we do make a trade to improve the team, we won’t get fleeced.
by LEastCoastBears on Jul 12, 2011 4:33 PM EDT up reply actions
Yes.
One could easily add Fredi’s managerial decisions right in there with "despite Struggla, Prado and Chipper’s injuries, and a black hole in CF, this team continues to win ball games. Personally, all of that pales in comparison to how the Braves are winning in spite of their manager…and I wonder how long that can continue.
I fully expect that the sheer brightness of the supernova that is Proctor’s suckage to become so obvious that someone kicks him off the 25. Either that, or said supernova consumes his meat body, leaving Fredi and FW no choice but to replace him.
Fredi and Proctor are the main reasons why my fan confidence has been lagging behind the FCP mean.
I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us. ~Walt Whitman
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