I'm not downing Maddux and wouldn't go back and trade him for bonds... Just saying bonds was one hell of a player and would've made us very, very good offensively.Originally Posted by CyYoung31
Fwiw, career WAR...
Maddux (23 years) -- 104.6
Bonds (22 years) -- 162.4
no wildcard then just had to win the LCS and go to the WS, every time you add a team you magnify the variables exponentially.
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"- Tom Waits
and he was a cheater and a clubhouse cancer during those massive number years too. I wouldn't have wanted those headaches surrounding the braves.
Maddux (23 years) -- 104.6
Bonds (22 years) -- 162.4
and about 50+ of those were due to roids. nobody in the history of baseball has a second career peak from 35-42 better than their 20 something years. But bonds, and the other roid guys, magically did.......
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"- Tom Waits
Still made 3 WS appearances after the rules changed till 99. And made the LCS every other year.
yes, but it's a random thing, winning one series is hard, winning another is also hard, winning 3 is very hard indeed. I'm not saying anyone can win, but all you have to do is win 3 series against good teams, and there are bad even awful teams that do that all the time.
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"- Tom Waits
I'd add for those debating Maddux vs Bonds that you should remember that both Smoltz and Glavine gave Maddux a lot of credit for them turning in a HOF career.
bravos4evr (07-05-2016), CyYoung31 (07-04-2016), The Chosen One (07-05-2016)
But, Bonds would have basically been overkill for a lineup that sported David Justice, Fred McGriff, Javy Lopez, Chipper Jones, Ryan Klesko, Marquis Grissom, and eventually Andruw Jones. Our pitching wouldn't have been nearly as good without Maddux (though still very good).
The Run would probably have seen us win more titles. However, I prefer what we had because everything would have felt tainted with Bonds.
The Chosen One (07-05-2016)
I swear I saw this same op on feelslike98
thank you weso1!
I'm not saying we for sure have more WS titles. I take more issue with the people saying the playoffs are a crap shoot. They may not be as stacked as the NBA, but in general the best built teams make it far in the playoffs. The Royals making it to back to back WS is more than a roll of the dice. Just like the Cards and Giants winning over half of the last like 10 WS titles also isn't flukey.
well it's flukey because the best teams in the regular seasons rarely meet in the playoffs and the best overall team doesn't win that much anymore. It IS a crapshoot, there IS NOT a "recipe for success" it's simply getting the situational hits, having the pitchers perform and having the breaks go your way. Humans tend to assign causality to things and think they aren't as random as they are because of repeat success. But if you flipped a quarter 100 times, in that stretch you might throw heads 15 times in a row, that doesn't make it "non-random"
Nate Silver did an in depth study of the history of the baseball playoffs to see if he could find something that connected winning teams that would be a recipe for success. The only thing he found that was above statistical noise was a "slight" edge to power pitching, but it was just barely over the noise level. Power hitting teams win, lose, good pitching teams win and lose, teams that had no power all year but magically hit homers in the playoffs win....etc The secret to winning the world series these days is win 3 series in a row against good teams.
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"- Tom Waits
CyYoung31 (07-06-2016)
Id do it the same way all over again. We had many postseason chances without Bonds, and between bad luck or bad crappy play, we simply underperformed.
Bonds was a jerk, and given how he chose to gain his success, I'm glad we kept Maddux, who was a class act.
bravesnumberone (07-06-2016), chop2chip (07-05-2016)
As was mentioned, acquiring Bonds and extending or signing him as FA would have meant no Maddux.
Although Avery's stituation was very unfortunate, Denny Neagle was the best possible "replacement" available for 2nd LH starter role at the time. Yes, they should have won in '96. Up 2-0 and pounding the piss out during Game 3 until....well, you know the rest.
If they had won that second Series championship, there most certainly would've been talk of dynasty. The Yankees might have scrambled after losing, and George might have sacked Torre. So, there's one potential alternate reality.
Supposedly, there was this "standing offer" that Schuerholz had made for Curt Schilling. After all this time, would love to know more about the offer/player potentially involved. Schilling had said that the lack of power pitching was the biggest reason for not having more Braves WS titles. He might have been right to some extent on this one.
Zero world championships.
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