Exponentiation!

Will: you should totally round up a group of 25000 braves fans out there at work and road trip to any games we play out there, so you can make up for the opposite happening in atlanta
me: lol
me: I've met 1 other braves fan
me: I've met 2 people who actually care about baseball
Will: well, does he know 24,998 others?
me: well, maybe
Will: okay, well say he knows ten fans
Will: and each of those ten guys knows ten guys
Will: and each of those hundred guys knows ten guys
Will: and each of those ten thousand guys knows ten guys
Will: you've got 100,000 people
Will: piece of cake
Will: and say each of those 100,000 guys know 10 guys, and each of those million guys know 10 guys, and each of those ten million guys know 10 guys, and each of those hundred million guys know 10 guys, and now you've converted the entirety of earth's population plus about four billion people that don't exist into braves fans
Will: which means we might be able to get more than 30,000 of them to go to turner field during the playoffs

Braves at the Break

Figure I'd drop in a quick baseball post. The Braves are off again today and will resume action Friday night against the seafaring marauders of Pittsburgh.

• Los Bravos are currently 2 back of the Metropolitans (something about writing at 1:16 AM makes one not want to use actual names, I guess). As a fun exercise I decided to see how far back they were at this point in every season after the strike. The results, frankly, aren't terribly interesting. From 1995 through 2000, not only were they in first at the All-Star Break, in many cases they were already running away with the division. In 1998, they were 12.5 up at the break an the lead never went below 11 games. They steamrolled through the Cubs in the NLDS only to run into the Kevin Brown, Ken Caminiti, Jim "F@#%^&@#%@#" Leyritz and the rest of the Padres in the NLCS.
  Back to my original point, outside of this year the Braves have found themselves out of first 4 times since 1994: 2001 (1 back), 2004 (1 back), 2005 (2.5 back), and 2006 (13(!) back). So there's not really a lot to go on there.
• Unsurprisingly, Chipper Jones has been having the best year at the plate for the Braves when he's in. He's sport a healthy 1.011 OPS and .329 batting averages. Among year-to-date qualifiers, this puts him at 4th best in baseball:
  Top 10 Hitters by OPS
  1. Barry Bonds (1.101, SF)
  2. Alex Rodriguez (1.078, NYY)
  3. Magglio Ordonez (1.050, DET)
  4. Chipper Jones (1.011, ATL)
  5. Carols Pena (1.004, TAM)
  6. Prince Fielder (.996, MIL)
  7. David Ortiz (.990, BOS)
  8. Chase Utley (.972, PHI)
  9. Gary Sheffield (.970, DET)
  10. Miguel Cabrera (.969, FLA)
• As most of you know, Andruw Jones is not having a good year in any sense of the word. At the break, he's hitting .211 with a .720 OPS, and that's with the help of a good 3-3 game against San Diego Sunday night. That said, since June 26 he's hit 4 homers and gone 14-48 at the plate (.292 average) with a .968 OPS. Hopefully this is a good sign he'll get out of his funk and not a temporary burst of confidence. True to his style, he's appeared in every game this year and I would guess the 4 days off will help him rest up.
• Speaking of things that needed 4 days of rest, let's talk about the bullpen. 6 relievers already have more than 30 appearances, with Tyler Yates leading the pack at 42, including 5 straight games before taking the day off Sunday. In terms of effectives, Peter Moylan probably leads the pack with Rafeal Soriano close behind. (Mike Gonzalez was having a great year before he got hurt, though.)
  However, Bob Wickman scares me. I read an article at the beginning of the year calling him one of the most overrated closers in baseball. Now I'm starting to believe it. Submitted for your approval, here's some stats from this year and last:
  With Cleveland: 15 saves, 28 IP, 13 ER, 17 K, 11 BB (1.54 K/BB, 1.429 WHIP)
  With Atlanta: 18 saves, 26 IP, 7 ER, 25 K, 2 BB (12.5 K/BB, 1 WHIP)
  2007: 16 saves, 30 IP, 16 ER, 25 K, 13 BB (1.92 K/BB, 1.633 WHIP)
  So in these 3 half seasons, his walk totals are particularly alarming for someone who should not be allowing a lot of baserunners. A low WHIP ((walks+hits)/innings pitched) is also really important for a closer, and 1.633 is not low. His strikeout totals are also alarmingly low for a closer. In fact, of the the Braves relievers with 30 or more appearances, only Chad Paronto has less strikeouts. All this only appears good in relation to our situation before we traded for Wickman last year.
  All in all, if he stops allowing baserunners and gets back to the form he had in the second half last year we should be fine. Otherwise, count me on the Rafael Soriano bandwagon.
• So far, in 2 innings pitched, Joey Divine has allowed exactly zero grand slams! Let's hope he keeps it up.
• Hudson and Smoltz have pitched pretty well this year. Smoltz's shoulder, therefore, is a huge cause for concern. If he has to sit a month to heal the damn thing that's fine by me. We'll need it more in August and September. We desperately need a 3rd/4th reliable starter, but the market for them is bone dry.
  
• We seem to have solved our productivity issues at first base and left field. Willie Harris leads the team in on-base percentage (.419) and Saltalamacchia is light years ahead of Scott Thorman. Salty's still learning the ropes defensively (2 errors in 10 games) but he's just so much better offensively that I don't really care.
• Someday, I might understand why Chris Woodward has a job. Maybe.

Anyway, I'm tired. As for my overall thoughts, I rate our chances as decent. I think a good goal is to be within 2 games come August 7, when we go to New York for a 3-game series with the Mets, one of 3 remaining series with them for the rest of the year.

College football note: The excellent Sunday Morning Quarterback has an well-reasoned preview of Georgia Tech. You really should check it out - I'm a GT fan and I doubt I could write that in-depth of a preview on Tech.

Live Commentating: Braves @ Padres

A5 and I will bring some hot, hot baseball action in honor of the last game before the All-Star break. Expect lots of mocking of Joe Morgan below. (If you like that sort of thing, we suggest you check out the excellent firejoemorgan.com.)

Oh, NFL Europe

Will: okay, so i know it's june, but i just saw the most confusing football play i've ever seen in my life
Will: so i'm flipping channels, and there's an nfl europe game going on where one team just scored to take the lead with 48 seconds left, so i say "what the hell, i'll watch"
Will: well, it's the kickoff, receiving team is down 3
Will: the ball gets kicked, lands near the goal line, the returner picks the ball up after a bounce about five yards deep in the end zone
Will: well, the returner jogs up close to the goal line, looking like he's about to take a knee for a touchback
Will: and then out of nowhere, he passes the ball to one of his teammates standing at the 25
Will: the announcers sounded surprised, but not really as confused as i was, so i was wondering if maybe there was some weird forward pass on kickoffs rule in the nfle or something
Will: well, the "wide receiver" gets dropped at about the 35, then i see there's a flag
Will: for an illegal forward pass
Will: (so i was suddenly far less worried about the nfle rules committee)
Will: with the penalty being a safety, because the forward pass occurred in the end zone
Will: thus clinching the game
Will: i then realized that it was, in fact, the dumbest play i've ever seen in my football-watching life

Georgia Tech - National Champions

The women's tennis team just finished beating UCLA 4-2 over in Athens. This marks the first ever NCAA sanctioned national title for any Georgia Tech sport, ever. (The NCAA doesn't crown a champion in major college football.)

Fun fact: I sat next to Kristi Miller in one of my history classes.

This team has been on the cusp of a title for a long time and they finally pulled through today. Maybe some other so-close-yet-so-far teams can break through now (like baseball and golf).

Let Us Never Speak of The Transitive Property in College Football Again

This puts the final nail in the coffin of the "transitive property of college football", which I've railed against in this space before.

Baseball, baseball, baseball!

Los Bravos enter today tired with the Mets for first in the NL East. I'll hit you with some notes:

• So how about that Jeff Francoeur? If you know me, I've made no secret of the fact over the past two seasons I thought he was very overrated - most people got excited after his first month in the majors. Through his first 25 games, he had 8 HR, was batting .400 and had a 1174 OPS. In his remaining 45 games in 2005, though, he hit .246, had 6 HR, 731 OPS and struck out 41 times.
  2006 wasn't very good for him, as this numbers continued on the same trend - 132 strikeouts, .260 average, 742 OPS. His home rate rate also dipped slightly - in 70 games in 2005 he hit 14, in 162 in 2006 he hit 29.
  2007 is a different story, though. Since he struck out 132 times and didn't draw very many walks (23) and thus had an abysmal OBP in 2005 (.293). This year, in 30 games he's drawn 11 walks, equaling the total he drew in 70 games his rookie year. He's also hitting for a higher average (.299), both of which improve his OBP to a pretty good .362 (21st in the league). He's got a 866 OPS, good 13th in the NL (one spot ahead of Andruw as a matter of fact, who I'll get to in a minute). Not bad. Subjectively, it seems like he's using the opposite field a lot more (as in, he's actually hitting over there) and in 2-strike counters is swinging smarter, not harder (though he still takes more cuts than I'd like).
  
• Kelly Johnson leads all MLB second basemen in on-base percentage, and is second in OPS (1021) only to B.J. Upton (1084). His .459 OBP also blows away anything Furcal managed to do (provided he keeps it up over the next 132 games, of course....).
  
• Only one third baseman has managed to hit more HR (10) and have a higher OPS (1070) than Chipper Jones - Alex Rodriguez (14/1210).
  Something that mildly upset me a while ago was the question of whether Chipper is in the Hall of Fame. I'd say easily - until A-Rod retires, he'll have been one of (if not the) best hitting third baseman of all time. If you look at the other 3B in the hall, this shouldn't be a hard decision.
  
• It's been harped on enough, but the back end of the starting rotation has been really terrible. Davies pitched a pretty mediocre game yesterday. Redman suddenly decided to have an ingrown toenail fixed last week - though those pretty painful (I know the hard way), so I'm willing to cut him a tiny bit of slack.
  
• Andruw Jones is not having the prototypical contract year so far. An 833 OPS is low for him, and while he's probably never going to be a .300 hitter, his .229 average is low (usually hits in the .260's). He's also struck out 33 times in 30 games, which is alarming to say the least. Subjectively, he looks lost at the plate and needs to trim down his swing - he's like the kid who tries to hit HRs all the time. (Like, say, Jeff Francoeur before this year.)
  
• Based on that, I wonder if the Braves would be better served by hitting Andruw 5th and moving McCann up to 4th - certainly wouldn't be the first time that Andruw has been moved down to regain his swing. (EDIT: Today's AJC "Blog" wonders the same thing.)
  
• Losing your closer to injury isn't as big of a deal when your set-up men are essentially back-up closers.

That's about it from me for now. Later.