8: Carolina Lady made me write this

 

ALL MATERIAL IS COPYRIGHTED AND MAY NOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.

by Berigan

(Editor’s note: I did not! He ‘volunteered’!)

JONESBORO, GA – The kind lady from Carolina said I could write anything I wanted as long as it was on baseball, so the next 5,000 words will be an incredibly detailed explanation as to why Ted Simmons MUST be inducted into the Hall of Fame right now!

THIS JUST IN, I am told if I do continue on this topic, I will be banned for life and will have to post on the AJC’s Australian rules football blog, and see if anyone’s interested there about who will be the back-up catcher for the braves.

Since I am not the wordsmith that JJS, Scribe and Savannah guy are, and since Ted Simmons is verboten (even though he did have more hits, RBI’s and a higher batting average than either Johnny Bench or Gary Carter-sorry!), what else can I talk about in mid December???

Hows about Braves starting pitching for next year?

Some life may be left in this horse. It ain’t dead yet, let’s beat it! Very hard to read this staff, isn’t it? If this was 2001 and we had Smoltz, Glavine, Hudson, and Hampton, I’d say we would have the best staff in NL! But, it will be 2008 when they all stand on a mound again for the braves (not at one time though).

John Smoltz is still the man, but he will be 41 in May. How many power pitchers are there at his age who don’t have a deep and abiding belief in better living through chemistry??? Of course we all know Smoltz is a freak of nature, so it may not matter. Smoltz still gives up less than a hit per inning. His strikeout numbers have not dropped either, still about 1 per inning as well. His WHIP was 1.182 last year, and his BFP was only 853!!! I have no idea what these numbers mean, but all the smart folks mention them, so I will as well.

Tim Hudson. As long as he stays healthy, the one guy we most likely won’t have to worry about. Just 32, a full decade younger than Glavine. Thank God 2006 was just an aberration. I do wish he’d put on a few pounds though. He makes us overweight guys look bad.

Glavine will be 42 in March. We all know he’s a gamer, won the biggest game ever for the Braves in the 1995 WS. Even though Glavine had a few terrible playoff series before leaving the Braves, he was the Mets best pitcher in the 2006 playoffs, going 6 shutout innings against the Dodgers in round 1, and went 11 innings in 2 starts against the Cards in round 2 with only a 2.45 ERA. But, he also had 131 strikeouts in 198 innings in ’06 , only 89 strikeouts last year in 200 innings. Will that tend downward continue?

I like to waste time, so I dug deeper into his numbers last year. I know, the last few starts messed up his overall numbers, still check out these stats:

– opponents hit .269 against him before the all-star break, .297 after.
– pre All star ERA was 4.36, after 4.57.
– his ERA for day game starts(8 of them) was 7.62, yikes!!!
– how’s this for a weird stat: batters hitting 4th hit .378 off him, with a .480 OBP.

Just walk the clean-up guy next year Tom! And what happens if he swoons again next September and we are in the hunt for the playoffs? Will Bobby rest him, or keep running him out there no matter what? Silly question. To me, Tom is the biggest question mark next year, even over……Hampton.

I’m sure KC is projecting for 15 wins from Hampton, but who knows if he will pitch one inning for us? I don’t think he is much of a question mark, cuz you can’t expect much of anything from a guy who has missed so very much time. Hampton pitched only 69 innings in 2005, and none in 06 and 07. He only pitched 172 innings in 2004. So, even if he stays healthy, and is effective, he will be a huge drain on the bullpen, just like Chuck James was last year.

Hampton is paid a lot more than Chucky, so can we assume Chucky won’t be in the starting rotation next year?? Surely we wouldn’t go with 3 soft tossing lefties would we??? Perhaps the 3rd pitch James is working on this offseason is a 97 MPH heater!

How does one round out the starting rotation (figuring Chuck or Hampton will not be in the rotation opening day)?

Hey, if we left Chucky in, how about having 4 soft tossing lefties in a 6 man rotation!!!

Wait, that’s not fair to Jo-Jo, his fastball might at least crack, if not break a pane of glass. 😉 Last year, Jo-Jo had a 6.22 ERA. Uh-oh. But, he really did improve. For the month of July, his ERA was 8.20, August, 8.49, then things came together in September: a 3.10 ERA in 20 innings. Only 17 hits given up, meaning opposing hitters only hit .239 to end on a very good note.

Jair Jurrjens? Checking his stats for the brief time he was with the Tigers, 4.70 ERA, and only 13 strikeouts in 30 innings. But, only 24 hits allowed in those 30 innings. Not bad against hitters in the superior league (oh how it pains me to say that)!

Checking thebaseballcube.com, he had very good numbers in the minors, and he’s only 21!!! Those clips that were on the Braves website made him look like quite the stud, with a very good curve, and above average fastball. But since he is only 21, I guess he will have to season a bit with the Richmond team for awhile unless one of the 40-something’s hurts his back putting on his sock garters. Notice I did not pick on Hampton’s health, or lack thereof.

I really wish Jeff Bennett had been brought up sooner! I know I am not the only one that was impressed with what work we did get to see. He may be 27, but he was injured, and missed all of 2006. And just became a starter late last year for the first time since 2002.

I joked about a 6 man rotation earlier, but we know the Red Sox are at least considering it; getting the starts spaced out really helped Curt Shilling last year in the playoffs, as well as shutting him down for about a month.

And Smoltz likes the idea. It’s tricky, I know…but, who besides Hudson should be pitching more than 200 innings next year? Neither Smoltz nor Glavine really should pitch more than 90 pitches per game (stats I spared you from seeing back me up on this) IF Hampton is healthy enough to pitch, he can’t be going far into games either. Jair Jurrjens is only 21 (22 in January) and teams are learning to keep innings down on guys that young. Chuck hasn’t shown the ability yet to go past 5 innings either.

Hmmm. Is a 6 man rotation the answer or are we better off with 2-3 long relievers?? Chuck can go and pitch 4th, 5th, and 6th innings in games Hampton starts, Jeff Bennett can pitch the 5th and 6th innings in games Jair-Jair pitches in, Tyler Yates can do the same for Jo-Jo, and the 3 long guys can draw straws for who pitches the days Glavine, Smoltz or Hudson don’t have it!

There, is that clear as mud?? Ok, I have said more than enough, who do you guys and gals think should be our starting 5 or 6 come opening day??????

Berigan

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