is going on with the Braves?! they better win these last two games if they wanna play in october!

see General Talk and the 5 page Atlanta Braves thread bro

hey dont feel bad they could be the Red Sux!

still not bad for a new manager i think. i lost track of them back in the summer :(

lost track?

they have blown a 9 game lead in 3 weeks and only have a 1 game lead with 2 games to go and are playing the Phillies in their final series of the year, with the chasing Cards playing the terrible astros


so yeah, its not going well.

Voodoo?

1/2 game lead last I saw

maybe you need to read a little better, it was a 1/2 game lead for maybe 1 hour last night till the cards lost as well :P

http://espn.go.com/...tandings/_/type/wild-card

yeah. What fordy said. September hasn't been a kind month for Braves fans. They went from being an awful scary looking team for someone to have to play in the NLDS to a team that will either probably limp in and get crushed or fall completely out of the playoffs.

Then again, don't lose all hope fordy. The '06 Cardinals limped into the post-season, nearly losing what should have been a strong lead in their division, got in with a mere 83 wins, and somehow got scorching hot and ended up beating the Padres in 4, the Mets in 7, and then kicking the snot out of the heavily favored Tigers.

Anything's possible. But I wouldn't count on that....

Well fordy when I read the newspaper this morning at 9am it said atlanta had a half game lead.

Seeing as I live in in the eastern timezone, when the st louis/houston game was finished it was too late to put the scores in for that game, thus making it a half game lead.

so like i said, 1/2 game last I saw... fluff

so....you tried to correct me with poor and laughably obtained information, and i throw it back in your face, and im the fluff?

good to know bro. im in the eastern timezone as well btw and i have the internet!

I didn't try to correct you, all I said was last I saw it was 1/2 game. If I was trying to correct you i would have said, no it's half a game! :P

doesnt matter anyways

its tied now, braves lost cards won, all comes down to tonight's games

well, hopefully atlanta wins.

I dun care if st louis wins or loses, I have faith atlanta can beat em in a tie breaker

Here we go, Sox are on ESPN Braves on ESPN2

its crunch time, lets see what we are made of.

go tigers :P

Right now it looks like the two teams are on a path towards a tie-break. Atlanta up 3-1 and St. Louis up 4-0.

in St Louis as well

ugh

Well, the good part about that for you is that St. Louis hasn't had a particularly strong home field advantage, and from the splits, it also looks like Atlanta has played pretty well on the road.

If it goes to a tie-break though, with it being in St. Louis and with the way both teams have been playing, you still have to favor St. Louis though.

Who would be up in the Braves rotation if the playoff happens tomorrow? Do you know?

Looks likely it'd be Lohse for the Cardinals, which is one of the better options for us (Thank God it's not Westbrook)

thats if the braves win

that damn DP ball that went off that fluffING JACKASS flufffluff Wilson's chest plated a run, 3-2

Cards were 10.5 games back on the 25th of August, and now there will probably be a 163rd game

insanity

And now it's 3-3. The question is: Had fordy's head exploded yet? Or will he wait to 'splode his own head for the possible go-ahead run?

;drsoawe;bnm';fnS;og aeng;o WN H;LRS;OAEURJH GJS:lGHZE;RlG T'PZNHDSGU;ORSJDT'wj r'g jWGIHAEIPJawgipnjmpjmaeipghaejnhasE"Ofrgv
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SWDGVRNIPswgrRGESRgv

that's either Hulk-like keyboard slamming or the remnants of fordy's head hitting the keyboard and conveniently hitting the "Submit Message" button.

If there's another post, we know he's still alive.

Or his head remnants are really rolling around that keyboard in an impressive fashion.

extra innings it is

I'll make an exception and watch the MLB regular season for this

fluff.

wow...I live in Atlanta but I'm not a braves fan...but I hurt for the whole city tonight. Ouch

feel like im about to cry......

I was about to rub salt in the wound for ya fordy by saying I thought you said the Rangers weren't going to make the playoffs and the Braves were the 2nd best team in the NL but I realize now is not the time...

were, were, were, were. kinda a key word there isnt it? a lot can happen in a month, like the braves taking one of the most epic fluffs ive ever seen. and losing our #1 and #2 pitchers and A-Gonz didnt help much.

thats why there is a 162 game season isnt there? Braves had a 10.5 game lead on the Cards on September 25th, and the braves played terrible ball and the cards played great ball. didnt help that i think 7 of our last 18 games were against the phillies and we lost all 7.


either way, i dont really give a fuch WHAT you want or will say, i still love my braves and cant wait till april. i can just about grantee that the braves have more divisional titles than wtfever your team is in the last 2 decades......

I'm a Cardinals fan, and while the Braves may have more division titles in recent history, how many World Series titles do they have in recent history? Only franchise better than the Cardinals at winning the World Series is those damn Yankees.

also, i still stand by the fact that we are the 2nd best team in the NL, we just had to play the best team a few more times than any other team. if the MLB had a NBA playoff type selection the braves would be a top seed.

Division Titles doesn't guarantee a world series appearance ford considering you guys last appearance was in 1996. Division Titles don't mean fluff if you can't make it to the World Series and I'll include my Rangers in the conversation. our title won't mean fluff if we don't make it to the World Series.

i dont remember ever mentioning world series titles.....

but whatever floats your boat guy. i dont give a fluff about the rangers and this thread doesnt give a fluff about them either. why dont you go fluff something else up?

oh, and our last appearance was in 1999, not 1996, lol idiot

Braves won 14 pennants in a row, 1991-2005, and of those 14 we had 5 WS appearances and 1 win.

your precious rangers have 1 appearance and no wins.

yay we won


the right to select first in the MLB draft.

Congrats it was 12 years ago, not 15 years ago that's SOO MUCH better. My point is that after a while, a team can't be satisfied with just winning division titles *your the one that brought up the braves have more division titles than anybody in recent history * you have to always improve to get to and win the world series.

Look at what the Phillies did after not making the World Series last year, they went and got Cliff Lee and Hunter Pence. The Rangers went out and got Adrian Beltre and Mike Napoli. In 2008, the Yankees got CC Sabathia, Nick Swisher, and Mark Teixeira. If the Brewers make it to the World Series it will be because they improved their pitching with Zack Greinke and Shawn Marcum.

Atlanta is a large market team, it needs to start acting like it.

your right, we dont have arguably the best pitching farm team in the majors, and we dont have the best rookie closer of all time, and we didnt go out and get michael bourn, and we dont have 3 RoY contenders, and last year's RoY runner up. damn, the braves are a stag-net team!

stop being stupid. the braves were the 2nd best team in the NL until september when a combination if schedule and injuries ended their season. it happens, and there is always next year. your point is pretty tarded. we lost in the playoffs last year to the champions

winning a division IS a big deal because it secures a playoff berth no matter what, and winning 14 in a row is a MASSIVE deal because its never been done before and probably never will be done again.

taking a wildcard team from last year, losing a first ballot HoF manager and almost making it back the following year is an impressive feat imo and i have no shame about this year. stop using your unfounded and embarrassing hatred for me, its clouding your judgment and making you look stupid. its flattering, but it really is making you look dumb.

First, Michael Bourn will not win you a world Series, he's just a nice complementary piece.

Second, while having the best pitching prospects in baseball is great, you have no idea if they will ever pan out. For every one Tom Glavine out there, there are 100's of Brien Taylor's and Mark Prior's. The Rangers have a young stud in Martin Perez but I would trade him in a heart beat if it meant getting somebody like a Roy Halladay or a Cliff Lee.

Third, just because I can't stand your guts doesn't mean it's clouding my judgement on the Braves. I think the Braves are a good team but they are a lot like the LA Angels to me, a borderline playoff team. They need to stop acting like a 100 million dollar payroll is going to kill them and get more production out of that lineup unfortunely that looks like that will have to wait until 2013. Probably wouldn't kill them to just cut their losses on Nate McLouth and Derek Lowe either.

ok ok ok enough arguing about what the braves were and lets get back to the basis of this thread and how it's fordy's fault my team fluffed themselves outta the playoffs *throws a rock at micheal martinez for robbing chipper*

Meaningless edit, but in fordy's post he said 10.5 games on Sept. 25. He's correctly said in the past August 25th. Clearly it would be impossible for the Cardinals to gain 10.5 games in 4 days.

The Braves are a team that has a lot of up and coming players, but I do think after the Braves and Phillies, there's not much of a challenge in the other teams. I know record wise Washington may have finished better than most of the other Central teams, but I'd be much more afraid of having to play 3 games against either the Reds or Pirates at this point than I would the Nationals, much less the crumbling Mets or Marlins.

The Cardinals got the wildcard even though they lost Adam Wainwright for the season during spring training. It took a 3 game sweep of Atlanta and winning 3 of 4 against Philadelphia during September to do it.

And I was glad when the Cardinals refused to trade Shelby Miller to get Roy Oswalt. Unlike some teams, which can buy championships, we need to be wise with our money, and having a pre-arbitration Miller for a few years is better than getting a 10M+ a year Oswalt on the downslope of his career. Just because we don't go out and spend tons and tons of money doesn't mean we don't put out a competitive team every single year.

Getting Michael Bourn isn't that impressive, anymore than the Cardinals can brag about how we went out and got Edwin Jackson. Neither guy is on the same level as a Hunter Pence or CC Sabathia. Like Mars said, Bourn is a complementary piece, not a centerpiece.

The Braves won 89 games. They are a good team. But they weren't good enough. They have lots of young players, especially young starting pitchers. They'll be a threat again next year.

But it wasn't a combination of schedule and injuries that ended their season. It was them not winning games that they should have won.

It's always easier to come up with ideas on how good a team is when you've got everyone through an entire season.

The Braves clearly have rebuilt a very strong rotation. Considering who was available, the only rotations that I'd easily take over Atlanta's in 2011 would be Philly and San Fran (Maybe St. Louis with a healthy Wainwright, but sans Wainwright, this is easily Atlanta).

They clearly never had the bats they needed though to really be a threat for the World Series. Once the rotation was compromised by injuries late, this pretty much hamstrung Atlanta, as they can't really win consistently in high scoring games.

Their top RBI and HR guy was their 2nd baseman. Now Uggla is a very potent run-producer for a 2nd baseman, but after Uggla, the production drops off faster as well. The only guys that have solid production offensively are Uggla, Chipper, McCann, and to some degree Freeman (good production, but that's expected from a 1B).

Meanwhile, for positional players, there were 4 players on the Cardinals that had a higher WAR (Wins Above Replacement) than Brian McCann, the top WAR guy for Atlanta--Pujols, Berkman, Holliday and Molina, and they have two other guys in Freese and Craig that put up almost as high of a WAR (a counting stat) in under 100 games as Uggla did in 161.

Uggla, McCann, Freeman and Chipper aren't the problems, but they just lack the offensive production and depth elsewhere that is needed. Assuming Heyward bounces back next year, his bat will help a lot in fixing this problem. An .850 OPS year from him probably makes Atlanta an average lineup instead of below-average by himself. Same with Prado. If he put up the OPS he did the previous two years, then you've got an above average lineup with a wicked rotation.

Atlanta either needs to upgrade in a crucial position (SS or CF seem like the best options from looking at the roster--tough positions to get a significant upgrade though...) or they need to add some depth in case injuries/poor production in a crucial position or two hit them again next year.

Like Mars said, increasing the payroll might be in order, but I would say that I applaud Atlanta for being patient and letting their young players develop before they went all-in on some free agent that is probably on the decline. A $100M payroll wouldn't have helped Atlanta in 2010, and clearly it was unnecessary until the injuries revealed a lack of depth in 2011, but I would imagine, if spent wisely and not just out of desperation, one more big piece of a couple of complementary pieces for the Braves would put them in position to win more than 89 games next year.

Tigers are looking good to me. better team then the 2006 run to the WS as well.

I think if the Tigers advance past the Yankees in the ALDS, they have a really good chance of getting the World Series if they play us. The Tigers always seem to have the Rangers number, especially at Comerica.

indians always had detroits number this year in cleveland... till september rolled in


but don't worry cleveland will stink it up again next year because they'd rather keep hafner as dh than persuade thome to stick around

I think with them having Thome play 3rd base for one pitch during the last game of the season at Progressive Field that they have already decided he isn't coming back.