Team Review: 1996 Atlanta Braves

1996 Atlanta Braves

Actual Record: 96-66, 1^st in NL East, lost in World Series

Notable Players: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff

The Braves of the 1990’s were a legitimate dynasty, manhandling the rest of the National League for most of the decade with an elite pitching staff and enough offense to win plenty of low scoring games.  The key parts stayed together for a long time and were clearly the reason for the success. However, the supporting casts were pretty good and this year’s version includes Denny Neagle as the #4 starter, Marquis Grissom as the center fielder (a year before ceding the role to Andruw Jones, he’s a rookie with 100 at bats), and Mark Wohlers as the closer du jour.  This is a really good team with no holes in their game.

Except they are boring as shit.  Does that count as a weakness? Now I love a well pitched game as much as the next guy (probably more, truthfully) but the thing about this team is that they aren’t a lot of fun to manage.  The starting pitching is awesome and goes four deep so with every game there is a pretty good chance that I won’t need to even think about a reliever until the 7^th or 8^th inning.  And the other major thing that contributes to the boredom is that the bench really sucks. As a manager it’s fun to play around with platoons and work in some double switches and defensive replacements, but this team has virtually no room for that.  I’ve gotten into the habit of benching Klesko against lefties and shifting Dye to left field and having Andruw play right, but it’s really not necessary.  And Rafael Belliard is a good defensive middle infielder for the late innings, but he’s really no better than Blauser and Lemke and far inferior with the bat. 

They could really use a pinch hitter.  Terry Pendleton (238/290/345) is usually the first bat off the bench (especially since he’s a switch hitter) and he’s not very good at all. And who is Dwight Smith? How did he get 154 at bats on a pennant winner?

Grissom is a great centerfielder. He’s got a 1 range factor and an e1 error rating.  He even has a pretty good arm (-2) for a centerfielder.  I think that Chipper’s rating of a 2 range and an e18 seems a bit generous, since he has never really been regarded as a great defender. 

Marquis Grissom is cute as a button.

As a kid I always really enjoyed Greg Maddux. Did anyone who love baseball not enjoy Maddux?  Two thoughts about him.  One, the Mad Dog nickname has got to be the least appropriate name in the history of sports. Whoever perpetuated that one should be killed. Or at least not make up any more nicknames.  Two, I was very excited when interleague play began because I would get a chance see Maddux pitch (I grew up going to Yankee games. As a kid the idea of going all the way to Shea was ludicrous to me).  I remember taking the train to the game by myself and sitting way upstairs at Yankee stadium and watching Maddux absolutely dominate the Yanks. In my brain the game was over in about twenty minutes and Maddux absolutely carved them up.  But like many shards of memory I’ve often wondered how well I remember the actual details. I want to say it was a one hitter, but that’s seems unlikely. Thanks to the nice folks over at Retrosheet, however, I can sift through the sands of time and check it out.  And there it is.  2-0 Braves over Yankees, Maddux vs. Doc Gooden.  Maddux through a complete game shutout, allowing three hits and striking out eight.  Time of game was 2:09.  That’s some ball game. 

Prediction: 1^st place in the Street Division.  This is the most pitching dominant division in the league, so the huge pitching advantage that the Braves have is somewhat dampened against their divisional foes (86 Astros and 92 Pirates).  The big competition here is going to be the 1986 Astros.  The Astros and the Braves are actually very similar teams but the Braves have the slightly better offense and defense.  The Astros are a much deeper team so a big injury could definitely derail the Braves here, but I think they have enough bullets to keep Houston at bay.  This is going to be a close one. 

Team Review: 1987 Oakands A's

1987 Oakland A’s

Real Life Record: 81-81, 3^rd in the AL West

Notable Players: Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Dave Stewart, Reggie Jackson, Dennis Eckersley

This is the inferior version of the A’s teams that went on to have a mini dynasty in the late 80’s/early 90’s.  The Bash Brothers were in place, but still sort of in their infancy.  It was Eck’s first year with the team and he had yet to transform into the moustached dynamo he would become.  It’s also McGwire’s rookie season, when he hit a rookie record 49 home runs.  1988 is when Canseco really broke out and dominated the league. He won the MVP, led the league in home runs and slugging.  He’s still a year away here. 

I think they were doing something illegal. Look at those bats!

They definitely have some power and I expect them to score a bunch of runs, but they are also probably going to give up a ton.  The starting pitching is a mess.  Dave Stewart won 20 games, but his ERA is close to 4. The #2 is C. Young, who unfortunately is Curt not Cy. The #3 and #4 are shaping up to be Steve Ontiveros and Gene Nelson.  Eck started a couple of games for them that season, but I’d like to have him in my pocket for some high leverage situations. They also have some decidedly below average defense all over the field. They have three guys who can play second, and they all have a 4 defense rating.  McGwire is a butcher at first and Tony Philips is a butcher at four positions. It’s really a team of Designated Hitters who are forced to play the field. The bullpen is decent but nothing extraordinary. They lack a real shutdown guy for when it gets dicey. 

The team has a total of 29 cards, but since I am only using 25 man rosters I had to cut four guys from the team.  Those unfortunates are Ron Cey, Mike Gallego, Moose Haas, and the legendary Walking Underwear (Joaquin Andujar). 

I really love that they have the old, broken down Reggie Jackson on this team.  It’s his last year in baseball and well, he pretty much sucked. But hey, it’s the AL. That’s what the DH is for. I’ve always been a fan of Reggie and I suspect that I will give him way more playing time than he deserves. The first time he struts up to the plate and swats a pinch hit home run will make this whole season worth it.  He actually is halfway decent against righties and platoons with Steve Henderson for a capable DH duo.  Or at least I’ve convinced myself that he is. 

The first baseball game I ever went to was the Yankees against these A’s. It may not been 1987 exactly, but it was this era and I went with my uncle and I remember that he was absolutely blown away by the size of Canseco. He wouldn’t stop talking about it, he just kept saying that his uniform looked painted on.  He really couldn’t get over it. My uncle’s reaction has stuck with me more than the actual size of the man.  In hindsight, it turns out my uncle had a great eye for things that are not as they should be. 

Alfredo Griffin is the short stop on this team and I recently read something that Bill James wrote about him.  He referenced that Griffin was the most aggressive baserunner he had ever seen.  Apparently he would try to take the extra base in just about any circumstances.  That’s good to know and I plan on keeping that in mind when playing with him.  His running rating is 1-14, which is good but not great.  So maybe he just seemed so aggressive because he was cutting it close?

Prediction: 3^rd place in the Rizzo division.  The other teams in this division have very solid pitching and should be able to contain the bats.  Don’t get me wrong, these yellow and green clad guys will have their moments and I wouldn’t be shocked if McGwire put up a monster year, but in the end I don’t think they can hang with the others.  I may be selling them short, but they recently got trounced by the Yankees in some preseason games I played and it left a bad taste in my mouth.