I Wanted The Braves To Sign Andruw Jones…

…Because he would’ve been really cheap, and I thought he might really turn it around this season.

It’s still really early in the season, and with Jones not playing every day he’s only had 27 at bats, but the numbers so far are impressive: a .370 BA, .778 SLG., and 1.292 OPS.

After his hot start, he may end up having a terrible season (and in fact, his average fell from .435 to .370 after an 0-4 performance last night), but his first 2-3 weeks sure would’ve helped a predictably anemic Atlanta offensive lineup.

Golden

Major League Baseball’s Gold Gloves, awarded to the best defensive players at each position, were given out this week.

Several of the awards came as no surprise—Greg Maddux set a record by winning his 17th, and Andruw Jones won his 10th in a row—but I was shocked to discover that Atlanta’s Jeff Francoeur was among the recipients.

Francoeur has what is very possibly the best throwing arm in the league, and that certainly helped his defensive reputation, but I never really thought of his glove work as being any better than a little below slightly above average.

Maybe it just goes to show that when you watch guys play game after game after game, you don’t fully appreciate how good they are.

Or maybe it just shows that Gold Gloves don’t always mean a whole lot.

It’s The Most Wonderful Time…

Okay, so maybe the MLB playoffs aren’t quite the high point of the year—I would still put Christmas and March Madness ahead of them—but it is still a fun time if you are a baseball fan.

Thanks to ending up tied after 162 games, the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres are playing a one game tie-breaker as I type to determine who gets the eighth and final playoff spot. Pretty exciting stuff.


Of course, the excitement would be a lot greater for me if my team—the Atlanta Braves—had bothered to make the playoffs this year. Instead, the Braves underachieved for the majority of the year, finished third in the National League East, and are watching the playoffs from home for the second consecutive year. It’s pretty hard to take.

Okay, I realize I’m spoiled, but you have to realize the position I’m in. From the summer I turned 8 to the summer I turned 22, the Braves made it to the playoffs every single year (except for the strike-shortened season of 1994, when there were no playoffs at all). It’s just hard to adjust.

So here’s the deal. In order to avoid a third consecutive post-season-less season, I have a three step plan for guaranteed success in 2008:

1. Resign Andruw Jones. I know Andruw had one of the worst seasons ever imagined in 2007, but at the end of the day, even at his worst, he hit 25+ home runs, had 90+ RBI and played unparalleled defense in center field. And there’s no way he won’t do better next year. I’m not saying we should break the bank to resign him, but he’s already publicly said he would sign a deal in the 5-year, $15 million per year deal. At 30 years old, for a guy who plays everyday in a skill position, he’s easily worth that.
2. Sign Tom Glavine to a one year deal. Glavine’s not a Cy Young Award winner any more, but he would be great as a number three or number four starter. Combined with Tim Hudson and John Smoltz, a (hopefully) healthy Mike Hampton and Chuck James as the number five starter, that would give the Braves arguably the best rotation in baseball (I realize that in order to accomplish steps 1 and 2, we might have to trade Renteria. I hate giving him up, but under those circumstances, I say do it).
   
3. Get rid of the AA-caliber players that we have hanging out in the dugout. Chris Woodward and Pete Orr, I’m looking at you. I mean, it amuses me that Woodward looks like Billy Bob Thornton’s down-on-his-luck brother, and I like that Orr wears his socks high, but these guys really have no business playing in the Major Leagues. Put Scott Thorman in that category while you’re at it. I realize the guy is out of options: maybe we can trade him for some new fungo bats or something.

Follow my advice (and assuming Chipper can stay healthy for his usual 130 games), and I think we end up with 105 wins next year.

And a much happier October for yours truly.

Why Do I Put Myself Through This?

So one of the interesting things about being at camp (by the way, I had a very good, if very tiring week) is that while I’m there, I’m pretty much out of touch with civilization.

Since camp is in late June, that means that I basically go for an entire week without hearing an Atlanta Braves update, which always makes me extremely nervous.

I got to see a newspaper early in the week and discovered that Atlanta beat up on the BoSox 9-4, but hadn’t heard anything since. Then I got home yesterday, and apparently, over the last five days, everything has fallen apart. Consider the following:

• The Braves have lost five games in a row.
• Over that five game span, they’ve been outscored 27-1; that’s right, they’ve scored 1 run in five games.
• We’ve now fallen to third place in the NL East, behind the Mets and the Phillies.
• Andruw Jones’ batting average has fallen below .200, and his on-base percentage is below .300 (this explains his facial expression in the picture above: Andruw is somewhat bemused because while he can remember a time when Major League pitches weren’t so absolutely baffling to him, he certainly has no clue how to handle them now).
• Bobby Cox got thrown out of another game to tie the all-time record for most ejections.
  
• John Smoltz and Chipper Jones, Atlanta’s longest tenured veterans and the collective bedrock of the team, are both somewhat injured and are apparently feuding with each other.

Things are bad. Atlanta is still only 4.5 games out of first place, but if they don’t make some adjustments soon, I’m afraid they’ll find themselves in serious trouble.

Still, it could be worse—we could still be trotting Mark Redmond out to the mound every five days.

FIVE Strikeouts? In ONE Game?

Andruw Jones is going to be a free agent at the end of the season. The good news is that he is doing everything possible to drive down his market price.

Through today’s game, Andruw was hitting .212 in 43 games and had been dropped from his usual clean-up spot in the lineup to sixth.

The above picture of Andruw Jones was from last season. How can I tell? Well, mainly because he’s hitting the ball. That’s something he hasn’t done as much this year. After today, Jones had 51 strikeouts in 43 games, which puts him at an average of nearly 1.2 strikeouts per game, and on pace to amass a whopping 187 during the course of the season (both career worst figures). He struck out a staggering five times in today’s game alone.

I dunno, with such a pronounced inability to make contact when he swings, maybe he should be called “Fan-druw.”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m actually a big Andruw Jones fan and always have been.

He has been the greatest defensive outfielder of his generation by far, and even though the 9-time Gold Glover Winner has lost a step over the years, he is still clearly the best outfielder in the game today and (barring injury) will likely break the career record for putouts currently held by Willie Mays.

And as frustrating as he can be at the plate with his wild swings and insistence on trying to pull every pitch he sees, every season he’ll go on a 3-week tear where he turns into Babe Ruth and salvages his season.

Really, when you think about it, it’s hard to argue against a guy who hits 35-40 home runs and drives in 110 runs a year (Andruw’s averages over the past seven season) and is primarily known as a defensive player.

Hopefully, at the end of the year, the Braves will be able to come up with the cash to sign Andruw to another long-term contract.

I’m just hoping that his early season impotence will make him a little bit more affordable.