The average length for starting pitchers across all of MLB is 5.1 innings season-to-date in 2026. (That number has been declining steadily every year and I won’t be surprised to see it dip below 5.0). Braves have to construct a roster to deal with reality. That includes having optionable pitchers that are ready to come up and get outs. It would be great to go back to the mid-90’s and have Braves starters average 7.0 innings, but that’s not how the game is played today. Pitching depth is what matters in 2026. The issue in game 106 was less about SP length and more about knowing whether the top 3-4 guys with options in the minors can get major league hitters out.
Tom is spot on. Spoiled. The more the league attempts to help the clubs with pitching the more spoiled the clubs become. Historically, SP's pitched more innings. For instance, Cy Young pitched in 906 games over 22-years with a 2.63 lifetime ERA, 7,300 IP'd and 749 Complete GAMES! The issue is that the hitting has outpaced the average pitching. So, the league gives you an extra pitcher: 26-man roster now, when it has been 25-man FOREVER. The league made bringing a man up or sending him down MUCH easier to assist pitching. And, you get an EXTRA MAN for double headers (which todays players don't have to "play two" unless for a rainout). Ernie Banks' fav saying was, "Let's play two!", whereas players and managers today say, "We won't play on the 4th of July."
So, who will be the first team to say, "We're only going to put SP's out there who will pace themselves. Like it used to be." No one. You wouldn't be competitive. You MUST find players who are willing to blow out their elbows. You MUST have a GM who works with other GMs (wink, wink) to ensure the RP scam continues to "work".
But it doesn't. Now, managers give up when a score is tied 3-3 in order to ENSURE leverage arms are ready for the next day, week, month: winning be damned. Yet people continue to pour thru the turnstills, feeding this obsessive behaviour that would not have been tolerated 30-years ago.
What is so astounding about the bullpen situation is that tomorrow is already a known rainout. This pen has just survived back-to-back extra-inning games, the starters seem to be going short almost every night, and everyone knows the relievers are getting tomorrow off.
Yet Walt’s approach tonight was basically: If we are tied or losing, we’re going with Thomas.
Wow.
Are we really at the point where we have to sacrifice an entire game—and possibly a reliever’s arm—because nobody else is available? Thomas was being asked to give them three innings and throw something close to 90 pitches, even though he will probably be sent down tomorrow.
Maybe two days off will reset everything. Maybe Sale goes deep on Wednesday, only two relievers have to work behind him, and the bullpen finally catches its breath. But will even that be enough? Or has this situation moved beyond anything that can be fixed through the usual whack-a-mole cycle of DFA’ing one reliever and replacing him with another?
Look at what has already happened this week. You had the Mederos three-inning stretch because no one else was available. Then came the Hernández three-inning heroic performance. Now Thomas is being asked to absorb three innings because the bullpen is completely depleted.
And it all connects. The starters have consistently failed to provide length. The relievers who were supposed to be starters had to work out of the bullpen earlier in the season. That placed even more pressure on the supposedly stable bullpen arms, and now those arms appear to be wearing down too.
Think about the original “tree of trust”:
Iggy. Suárez. Lee. Fuentes. Dodd. And now whoever replaces Kinley.
How many of those pitchers does anyone genuinely trust right now? Fuentes and Dodd might actually be the Braves’ two most dependable relievers at the moment.
That is how bad this has become.
And the cruel irony is that the relievers who were supposed to stabilize the bullpen appear to have been worn down by all the work they had to absorb earlier in the season. This is no longer one struggling pitcher or one bad inning. It is an entire pitching staff collapsing under the weight of starters who cannot provide length and a bullpen that has been asked to cover the difference night after night.
After the guys fought back to a 3-3 tie after five, this was a winnable game. This one has to be laid squarely at the feet of AA. Weiss can only use the players he's given and when the SP's, other than Sale, can't give more than five innings, the pen is mercilessly over taxed, and when the only option is someone like Thomas it goes back to last winter with AA being too foolish and too frugal to sign another SP and RP. Instead he brings back Aaron Bummer (not sure which was more painful to watch: Bummer's last inning as a Brave or Thomas' two innings tonight). I pray that AA has the balls to really make some bold moves this week.
Bummer was under contract already no?? I am sick so I spent a little time on this.
I don’t think this can be laid “squarely at AA’s feet,” because two of the central premises here are factually wrong.
First, AA did not bring Aaron Bummer back as a free agent last winter. The Braves acquired Bummer in a trade in 2023 and reworked his contract in November 2024, guaranteeing him through 2026. Criticize AA for that 2024 guarantee—it aged terribly—but Bummer was already under contract when this past offseason began.
Second, AA was not too frugal to sign bullpen help. He gave Robert Suárez three years and $45 million, brought Iglesias back for $16 million and added Kinley for another $4.25 million. Suárez had a 0.56 ERA before his forearm injury. That is not a GM refusing to spend on the bullpen. That is an expensive bullpen plan getting destroyed by injury, attrition and overuse.
There is a fair starting-pitching criticism. Nick Martinez at $13 million, Foster Griffin at $5.5 million and Michael Soroka at $7.5 million were affordable successes who would have helped tremendously. AA would unquestionably love to have one of them now.
But look at most of the other starters in that price range. Bassitt has a 5.27 ERA and is on the 60-day IL. Merrill Kelly is around 4.86. Littell is at 5.17. Mikolas is at 5.65. Houser is around 4.86 and has been moved into long relief. Eflin made one start before Tommy John surgery. Verlander made one start before going on the 60-day IL. It was not an offseason filled with guaranteed rotation solutions that Atlanta simply refused to buy.
The odds of a free agent pool working out in the winter of 25/26 worked out to be 3 signing were good against 17 poop signings.
Meanwhile, Pérez is around 3.49, López 3.64, Holmes 3.79 and Elder 3.96. No one gives a poop about era, yes. The real problem is not that all of them have pitched terribly. The problem is that they have not consistently provided enough innings. That is a legitimate roster-construction criticism: AA should have acquired more durable innings insurance.
But then add the injuries to Strider, Schwellenbach, Smith-Shawver, Waldrep and Wentz, along with Suárez and Jiménez in the bullpen. Where exactly are we supposed to “lay” all of that? One more starter would have helped, but no rational roster is designed to lose that many rotation options simultaneously without the bullpen eventually paying for it.
What happened with Thomas tonight was depressing. The Braves fought back to 3–3, yet they essentially had to designate one disposable pitcher to absorb whatever followed. Hernández had already given them three emergency innings and was DFA’d. Thomas became the next sacrificial arm, even with a rainout coming tomorrow. The bullpen may look populated on the roster, but several of those pitchers are really starters or swingmen who cannot work every other night, while the trusted relievers have been ridden so hard that they are either unavailable or no longer trustworthy.
Criticize AA for failing to buy more innings. Criticize the Bummer guarantee from November 2024. Question Weiss for putting Thomas into a tied game. Those are all fair(ish).
But “AA was too frugal, brought Bummer back instead of signing pitching, and therefore this loss belongs squarely to him” is simply not an accurate description of how this bullpen disaster developed. At some point, five compromised starters and multiple important relievers become more than something conveniently laid at one person’s feet. They become the reality the club is desperately—and unsuccessfully—trying to survive.
I think it is a 57 game sprint to the finish line, fingers crossed we find some starters who can start form a trade or from the minors.
Thanks for the analysis of available SPs in the past off-season. The odds of getting an effective SP through FA was 15%. Braves fans need to deal with reality. Trading for an SP at the trade deadline carries extremely high risk as well.
Quite a dissertation. I respect the research and thought you put into it, and I respect your unequivocal denunciation of my views. I agree that the injuries to Schwellenbach and Strider were events that AA couldn't have predicted, although I think he has always been too easily overly optimistic about pitchers recovering from arm injuries (e.g. Waldrep, Lopez, Schwellwnbach, Strider). Instead of my criticizing him for not signing more pitchers last winter, I should have said that with the first hint of injury to Schwellenbach and Strider this Spring he should have made more effective attempts to shore up the staff other than simply turning to the DFA market.
Regarding Weiss using Thomas tonight, I disagree with you. It was 'a wing and a prayer' sort of decision, yes, but Weiss was trying to save the tired arms of his best RP's and hope that what AA had provided him (Thomas) could give a respectable inning or two. It was a total disaster which was not Weiss' fault.
I admit I am not a big AA fan, initially stemming from the Freeman/Swanson decision . His job is tough, balancing financial constraints, scouting reports, injury potential, minor league development, etc. Like the game of baseball itself, there is probably more luck involved in determining a GM's success than we like to admit.
The next week will go a long ways to shaping my current impression of AA. If he is able to obtain a top level SP and a 'good' RP I will applaud his efforts and accept what the remainder of the season brings .
I will point out that, in AA's defense, the first reports that Schwellenbach and Waldrep wouldn't be available to open the season came after pitchers and catchers had already reported and the available options at that point weren't great. By the time those guys went down, the remaining pool was dreadfully poor. Here's who signed after Schwelly (Feb 8th) went down
Chris Bassitt, Erick Fedde, Chris Paddack, Jose Quintana, Tomoyuki Sugano, Aaron Civale, Miles Mikolas, Griffin Canning, Zack Littell, Patrick Corbin, Lucas Giolito.
Bruce, you're also right in that this all stems back to not finding another frontline starter after adding Chris Sale, combined with the bad luck of most of our pitching injuries being concentrated in the TOP of the rotation (Schwelly, Strider, Waldrep, AJSS) and not the bottom with guys like Elder, Holmes, etc
Glad we are all Braves fans. Luv AA or hate AA. It seems no matter what a GM or Coach does someone is going to hate them or love them. I'm glad we are all get a chance to love the team however we want.
I was not banging on your beliefs regarding AA. I have a friend who still talks about Freeman, every other day. He was banging on AA 2 years before free agency to not let him sign somewhere else which was of course laughable. No way on this earth Freeman was going to play for another team. He has literally spoken about this for 10,000 hours of my life. He is obsessed with Dans and Fried and Freeman. It seems it will never end. Maybe some of my tiredness of that conversation has leaked into this one. I was responding about AA signing Bummer in the off season and being cheap in regards to a starter or pen help. One of AA's Achilles heel is spending on the pen. The Braves miss JJ so so so much. As far as Dans being let go--I understand he may be worth 27 million and all those years. In baseball terms it is not a Devers type deal or anything. To me Dans at 27 for that amount of years does not fit the Braves team at the time of the contract, Maybe I am wrong. Freddie to me was a pissing contest with the Freddie's agent (and every free agent and player in the future negotiating with the Braves) and we all lost except Freeman. Freddie being close to his grand ma etc is a wonderful thing for him. Fried is 210 for 7 and hurt so much I am okay not signing him to that, although I think he will pitch the whole contract and not miss multiple years for arm issues, just nagging stuff like he was shut down for two months here and then 3 weeks there......2 out of every 3 seasons.
Fingers crossed for the trade deadline this week. I am with you. So glad you are a Braves fan. Maybe AA goes all in and this is the year they push in the chips for a big (or 2 or 3) moves......I hope we all get to enjoy the team everyday until the saddest thing happens...winter and all the lock out nonsense. It would be the better choice to not look at the baseball news till the spring and just let them posture on both sides and not follow it, but I am sure I will read every article and be a moran and care about what billionaire and what millionaire are doing with the game we all love.
We devoted Braves' fans have deep seated feelings and opinions - as it should be. It's embarrassing to admit, but at the age of 80y/o I still have trouble sleeping after a gut wrenching loss.
The Freeman/Swanson decision upset me so much because we had two stars coming of a WS season who wanted desperately to re-sign with Atlanta. I realize Freeman's issue was complex with, what sounds like, failed communication between AA, Freeman, and his agent. I think AA lost his patience, could not swallow his pride, and, knowing he could get Olsen, thought, "I don't have to put up with this" and smugly moved to sign Olsen (who, I agree, has been terrific - but not the same as having Freddie). Had AA been a little more patient and called Freddie himself at the last minute, I bet Freddie would have cleared the air with his agent and he would have eventually signed. Conjecture on my part, admittedly.
Swanson was willing to sign with the Braves for LESS than he was offered elsewhere. He has not been an offensive power house with the Cubs but he has remained a far more solid SS than what the Braves have tried to field and he was a fan favorite in Atlanta.
Basically, with the decision to not re-sign these two franchise cornerstones, AA showed no respect or understanding for the intangibles in building a team. This week will clarify a great deal, for me.
"Had AA been a little more patient and called Freddie himself at the last minute." The teams were coming out of a lock out or whatever and had 13 days till Spring training and it was crazy/yes. I appreciate AA and I am not a hater of AA: however, if he had called Freddie and spoken to him. If AA had done that then okay cool, it happened. Players walk, things can get crazy with a hundred and fifty million on the line okay sure. But if only if AA had made that call.....things would be much better in my life I tell you. And probably for so many more fans. I would love to get all of those hours wasted going over what happened to Freddie and why. Man do I wish Aa had made that call for me, for everyone.
I can ache after a tough loss, but iItry to remember there are only 57 games left. I try to enjoy the wins and the losses, cause soon they will happen without me. Be well.
On the Freddie thing - As I've been told, GMs and other team employees aren't allowed to call free agents directly. They can't even mention free agents in the media by name. An owner, which we don't officially have one (McGuirk is the controlling person but he's also an employee of the Braves) can call, but a team official is required to call the agent.
I think that's why Freddie fired his agent - he likely felt there was some sort of omission or misrepresentation there and/or the communication was mishandled somewhat
I thought it was more painful watching our $20 million dollar shortstop pretending to be a major leaguer. PS - I thought that Lindsay was going to name Thomas and Mateo coplayers of the game for “saving the bullpen.”
I thought it was more painful watching our $20 million-dollar shortstop pretending to be a major leaguer. PS - I thought that Lindsay was going to name Thomas and Mateo coplayers of the game for “saving the bullpen.”
I am not a Thomas hater. I wish him well. He made it to the bigs so good for him. He made 17,500 something dollars the 4 days he was up--since there is a rain day today--he might get another day of mlb service time money to make it over 20 this week. Well over what I have made during the same time frame. Good for him. But when you looked out and saw him on the mound in NYC in a tie game....he melted. He knew he had as much business as me up there in that situation. I hope he can laugh about it with his grand kids as part of his amazing journey. It is a memory for sure.
The average length for starting pitchers across all of MLB is 5.1 innings season-to-date in 2026. (That number has been declining steadily every year and I won’t be surprised to see it dip below 5.0). Braves have to construct a roster to deal with reality. That includes having optionable pitchers that are ready to come up and get outs. It would be great to go back to the mid-90’s and have Braves starters average 7.0 innings, but that’s not how the game is played today. Pitching depth is what matters in 2026. The issue in game 106 was less about SP length and more about knowing whether the top 3-4 guys with options in the minors can get major league hitters out.
Tom is spot on. Spoiled. The more the league attempts to help the clubs with pitching the more spoiled the clubs become. Historically, SP's pitched more innings. For instance, Cy Young pitched in 906 games over 22-years with a 2.63 lifetime ERA, 7,300 IP'd and 749 Complete GAMES! The issue is that the hitting has outpaced the average pitching. So, the league gives you an extra pitcher: 26-man roster now, when it has been 25-man FOREVER. The league made bringing a man up or sending him down MUCH easier to assist pitching. And, you get an EXTRA MAN for double headers (which todays players don't have to "play two" unless for a rainout). Ernie Banks' fav saying was, "Let's play two!", whereas players and managers today say, "We won't play on the 4th of July."
So, who will be the first team to say, "We're only going to put SP's out there who will pace themselves. Like it used to be." No one. You wouldn't be competitive. You MUST find players who are willing to blow out their elbows. You MUST have a GM who works with other GMs (wink, wink) to ensure the RP scam continues to "work".
But it doesn't. Now, managers give up when a score is tied 3-3 in order to ENSURE leverage arms are ready for the next day, week, month: winning be damned. Yet people continue to pour thru the turnstills, feeding this obsessive behaviour that would not have been tolerated 30-years ago.
Are the Braves having to over-use their bull-pen? I’m not so sure. Dylan Lee leads the relievers with 47.2 IP. That ranks him 30th in the league.
What is so astounding about the bullpen situation is that tomorrow is already a known rainout. This pen has just survived back-to-back extra-inning games, the starters seem to be going short almost every night, and everyone knows the relievers are getting tomorrow off.
Yet Walt’s approach tonight was basically: If we are tied or losing, we’re going with Thomas.
Wow.
Are we really at the point where we have to sacrifice an entire game—and possibly a reliever’s arm—because nobody else is available? Thomas was being asked to give them three innings and throw something close to 90 pitches, even though he will probably be sent down tomorrow.
Maybe two days off will reset everything. Maybe Sale goes deep on Wednesday, only two relievers have to work behind him, and the bullpen finally catches its breath. But will even that be enough? Or has this situation moved beyond anything that can be fixed through the usual whack-a-mole cycle of DFA’ing one reliever and replacing him with another?
Look at what has already happened this week. You had the Mederos three-inning stretch because no one else was available. Then came the Hernández three-inning heroic performance. Now Thomas is being asked to absorb three innings because the bullpen is completely depleted.
And it all connects. The starters have consistently failed to provide length. The relievers who were supposed to be starters had to work out of the bullpen earlier in the season. That placed even more pressure on the supposedly stable bullpen arms, and now those arms appear to be wearing down too.
Think about the original “tree of trust”:
Iggy. Suárez. Lee. Fuentes. Dodd. And now whoever replaces Kinley.
How many of those pitchers does anyone genuinely trust right now? Fuentes and Dodd might actually be the Braves’ two most dependable relievers at the moment.
That is how bad this has become.
And the cruel irony is that the relievers who were supposed to stabilize the bullpen appear to have been worn down by all the work they had to absorb earlier in the season. This is no longer one struggling pitcher or one bad inning. It is an entire pitching staff collapsing under the weight of starters who cannot provide length and a bullpen that has been asked to cover the difference night after night.
After the guys fought back to a 3-3 tie after five, this was a winnable game. This one has to be laid squarely at the feet of AA. Weiss can only use the players he's given and when the SP's, other than Sale, can't give more than five innings, the pen is mercilessly over taxed, and when the only option is someone like Thomas it goes back to last winter with AA being too foolish and too frugal to sign another SP and RP. Instead he brings back Aaron Bummer (not sure which was more painful to watch: Bummer's last inning as a Brave or Thomas' two innings tonight). I pray that AA has the balls to really make some bold moves this week.
Bummer was under contract already no?? I am sick so I spent a little time on this.
I don’t think this can be laid “squarely at AA’s feet,” because two of the central premises here are factually wrong.
First, AA did not bring Aaron Bummer back as a free agent last winter. The Braves acquired Bummer in a trade in 2023 and reworked his contract in November 2024, guaranteeing him through 2026. Criticize AA for that 2024 guarantee—it aged terribly—but Bummer was already under contract when this past offseason began.
Second, AA was not too frugal to sign bullpen help. He gave Robert Suárez three years and $45 million, brought Iglesias back for $16 million and added Kinley for another $4.25 million. Suárez had a 0.56 ERA before his forearm injury. That is not a GM refusing to spend on the bullpen. That is an expensive bullpen plan getting destroyed by injury, attrition and overuse.
There is a fair starting-pitching criticism. Nick Martinez at $13 million, Foster Griffin at $5.5 million and Michael Soroka at $7.5 million were affordable successes who would have helped tremendously. AA would unquestionably love to have one of them now.
But look at most of the other starters in that price range. Bassitt has a 5.27 ERA and is on the 60-day IL. Merrill Kelly is around 4.86. Littell is at 5.17. Mikolas is at 5.65. Houser is around 4.86 and has been moved into long relief. Eflin made one start before Tommy John surgery. Verlander made one start before going on the 60-day IL. It was not an offseason filled with guaranteed rotation solutions that Atlanta simply refused to buy.
The odds of a free agent pool working out in the winter of 25/26 worked out to be 3 signing were good against 17 poop signings.
Meanwhile, Pérez is around 3.49, López 3.64, Holmes 3.79 and Elder 3.96. No one gives a poop about era, yes. The real problem is not that all of them have pitched terribly. The problem is that they have not consistently provided enough innings. That is a legitimate roster-construction criticism: AA should have acquired more durable innings insurance.
But then add the injuries to Strider, Schwellenbach, Smith-Shawver, Waldrep and Wentz, along with Suárez and Jiménez in the bullpen. Where exactly are we supposed to “lay” all of that? One more starter would have helped, but no rational roster is designed to lose that many rotation options simultaneously without the bullpen eventually paying for it.
What happened with Thomas tonight was depressing. The Braves fought back to 3–3, yet they essentially had to designate one disposable pitcher to absorb whatever followed. Hernández had already given them three emergency innings and was DFA’d. Thomas became the next sacrificial arm, even with a rainout coming tomorrow. The bullpen may look populated on the roster, but several of those pitchers are really starters or swingmen who cannot work every other night, while the trusted relievers have been ridden so hard that they are either unavailable or no longer trustworthy.
Criticize AA for failing to buy more innings. Criticize the Bummer guarantee from November 2024. Question Weiss for putting Thomas into a tied game. Those are all fair(ish).
But “AA was too frugal, brought Bummer back instead of signing pitching, and therefore this loss belongs squarely to him” is simply not an accurate description of how this bullpen disaster developed. At some point, five compromised starters and multiple important relievers become more than something conveniently laid at one person’s feet. They become the reality the club is desperately—and unsuccessfully—trying to survive.
I think it is a 57 game sprint to the finish line, fingers crossed we find some starters who can start form a trade or from the minors.
Thanks for the analysis of available SPs in the past off-season. The odds of getting an effective SP through FA was 15%. Braves fans need to deal with reality. Trading for an SP at the trade deadline carries extremely high risk as well.
Quite a dissertation. I respect the research and thought you put into it, and I respect your unequivocal denunciation of my views. I agree that the injuries to Schwellenbach and Strider were events that AA couldn't have predicted, although I think he has always been too easily overly optimistic about pitchers recovering from arm injuries (e.g. Waldrep, Lopez, Schwellwnbach, Strider). Instead of my criticizing him for not signing more pitchers last winter, I should have said that with the first hint of injury to Schwellenbach and Strider this Spring he should have made more effective attempts to shore up the staff other than simply turning to the DFA market.
Regarding Weiss using Thomas tonight, I disagree with you. It was 'a wing and a prayer' sort of decision, yes, but Weiss was trying to save the tired arms of his best RP's and hope that what AA had provided him (Thomas) could give a respectable inning or two. It was a total disaster which was not Weiss' fault.
I admit I am not a big AA fan, initially stemming from the Freeman/Swanson decision . His job is tough, balancing financial constraints, scouting reports, injury potential, minor league development, etc. Like the game of baseball itself, there is probably more luck involved in determining a GM's success than we like to admit.
The next week will go a long ways to shaping my current impression of AA. If he is able to obtain a top level SP and a 'good' RP I will applaud his efforts and accept what the remainder of the season brings .
I will point out that, in AA's defense, the first reports that Schwellenbach and Waldrep wouldn't be available to open the season came after pitchers and catchers had already reported and the available options at that point weren't great. By the time those guys went down, the remaining pool was dreadfully poor. Here's who signed after Schwelly (Feb 8th) went down
Chris Bassitt, Erick Fedde, Chris Paddack, Jose Quintana, Tomoyuki Sugano, Aaron Civale, Miles Mikolas, Griffin Canning, Zack Littell, Patrick Corbin, Lucas Giolito.
Bruce, you're also right in that this all stems back to not finding another frontline starter after adding Chris Sale, combined with the bad luck of most of our pitching injuries being concentrated in the TOP of the rotation (Schwelly, Strider, Waldrep, AJSS) and not the bottom with guys like Elder, Holmes, etc
Glad we are all Braves fans. Luv AA or hate AA. It seems no matter what a GM or Coach does someone is going to hate them or love them. I'm glad we are all get a chance to love the team however we want.
I was not banging on your beliefs regarding AA. I have a friend who still talks about Freeman, every other day. He was banging on AA 2 years before free agency to not let him sign somewhere else which was of course laughable. No way on this earth Freeman was going to play for another team. He has literally spoken about this for 10,000 hours of my life. He is obsessed with Dans and Fried and Freeman. It seems it will never end. Maybe some of my tiredness of that conversation has leaked into this one. I was responding about AA signing Bummer in the off season and being cheap in regards to a starter or pen help. One of AA's Achilles heel is spending on the pen. The Braves miss JJ so so so much. As far as Dans being let go--I understand he may be worth 27 million and all those years. In baseball terms it is not a Devers type deal or anything. To me Dans at 27 for that amount of years does not fit the Braves team at the time of the contract, Maybe I am wrong. Freddie to me was a pissing contest with the Freddie's agent (and every free agent and player in the future negotiating with the Braves) and we all lost except Freeman. Freddie being close to his grand ma etc is a wonderful thing for him. Fried is 210 for 7 and hurt so much I am okay not signing him to that, although I think he will pitch the whole contract and not miss multiple years for arm issues, just nagging stuff like he was shut down for two months here and then 3 weeks there......2 out of every 3 seasons.
Fingers crossed for the trade deadline this week. I am with you. So glad you are a Braves fan. Maybe AA goes all in and this is the year they push in the chips for a big (or 2 or 3) moves......I hope we all get to enjoy the team everyday until the saddest thing happens...winter and all the lock out nonsense. It would be the better choice to not look at the baseball news till the spring and just let them posture on both sides and not follow it, but I am sure I will read every article and be a moran and care about what billionaire and what millionaire are doing with the game we all love.
We devoted Braves' fans have deep seated feelings and opinions - as it should be. It's embarrassing to admit, but at the age of 80y/o I still have trouble sleeping after a gut wrenching loss.
The Freeman/Swanson decision upset me so much because we had two stars coming of a WS season who wanted desperately to re-sign with Atlanta. I realize Freeman's issue was complex with, what sounds like, failed communication between AA, Freeman, and his agent. I think AA lost his patience, could not swallow his pride, and, knowing he could get Olsen, thought, "I don't have to put up with this" and smugly moved to sign Olsen (who, I agree, has been terrific - but not the same as having Freddie). Had AA been a little more patient and called Freddie himself at the last minute, I bet Freddie would have cleared the air with his agent and he would have eventually signed. Conjecture on my part, admittedly.
Swanson was willing to sign with the Braves for LESS than he was offered elsewhere. He has not been an offensive power house with the Cubs but he has remained a far more solid SS than what the Braves have tried to field and he was a fan favorite in Atlanta.
Basically, with the decision to not re-sign these two franchise cornerstones, AA showed no respect or understanding for the intangibles in building a team. This week will clarify a great deal, for me.
"Had AA been a little more patient and called Freddie himself at the last minute." The teams were coming out of a lock out or whatever and had 13 days till Spring training and it was crazy/yes. I appreciate AA and I am not a hater of AA: however, if he had called Freddie and spoken to him. If AA had done that then okay cool, it happened. Players walk, things can get crazy with a hundred and fifty million on the line okay sure. But if only if AA had made that call.....things would be much better in my life I tell you. And probably for so many more fans. I would love to get all of those hours wasted going over what happened to Freddie and why. Man do I wish Aa had made that call for me, for everyone.
I can ache after a tough loss, but iItry to remember there are only 57 games left. I try to enjoy the wins and the losses, cause soon they will happen without me. Be well.
On the Freddie thing - As I've been told, GMs and other team employees aren't allowed to call free agents directly. They can't even mention free agents in the media by name. An owner, which we don't officially have one (McGuirk is the controlling person but he's also an employee of the Braves) can call, but a team official is required to call the agent.
I think that's why Freddie fired his agent - he likely felt there was some sort of omission or misrepresentation there and/or the communication was mishandled somewhat
Just to clear that up.
I thought it was more painful watching our $20 million dollar shortstop pretending to be a major leaguer. PS - I thought that Lindsay was going to name Thomas and Mateo coplayers of the game for “saving the bullpen.”
I thought it was more painful watching our $20 million-dollar shortstop pretending to be a major leaguer. PS - I thought that Lindsay was going to name Thomas and Mateo coplayers of the game for “saving the bullpen.”
I thought about it, honestly, but decided to stick with somebody who actually did something good in the game versus whatever that was that Thomas did
I am not a Thomas hater. I wish him well. He made it to the bigs so good for him. He made 17,500 something dollars the 4 days he was up--since there is a rain day today--he might get another day of mlb service time money to make it over 20 this week. Well over what I have made during the same time frame. Good for him. But when you looked out and saw him on the mound in NYC in a tie game....he melted. He knew he had as much business as me up there in that situation. I hope he can laugh about it with his grand kids as part of his amazing journey. It is a memory for sure.