I think this is a thing where what looks good on paper not translating to real life. You have no idea how demoralizing it is for players to lose games on purpose. It's like injecting poison in the club house. I don't think you can underestimate the difference finishing strong has on the players. We want them going into the off-season believing we can compete next year. Well some of us.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
I don't know what your idea of finishing strong is but the the Braves won 10 games in September last year.
"Donald Trump will serve a second term as president of the United States.
It’s over."
Little Thethe Nov 19, 2020.
You're just going to anger and deflate your players by doing that. Again, that works in MLB The Show, but I'm not sure it works in real life. There was nothing to suggest the team we roll out there game after game was anything but the kind of team you roll out there when you want to lose, especially the bullpen.
But we were doing that with guys like Simmons, Pedro Ciriaco, Michael Bourn, Pierzynski, Maybin, Olivera, Swisher, and Castro. Freeman hardly even played the last week of the season.
I do think there's a difference this year, in that guys like Inciarte (hopefully), Swanson, Kemp, Freeman, Peterson, probably Garcia, etc. will be around at least next year and probably for a while. I think it helps them to build some positive chemistry and start to win together. I don't think it's a giant boost or that these guys will all play above their heads simply because we won some games down the stretch. But I think it's better in that sense than losing all the games and finishing the year miserable.
Laughingstock? I think everyone in baseball is smart enough to see what the Braves are doing. A couple of bad years does not make a laughingstock because it is part of a plan. Not a lot of laughing going on, and there still won't be when we are winning again. What is happening right now just plants the idea in the heads of the players that the rebuild is working and better days are ahead. That attitude will pay dividends in future years.
BedellBrave (09-23-2016)
Also who is on this team that was on last years team at the end of the year.
JT. Jace. FF. Adonis. Neck. Whisler. Folty. Viz. withrow.
I mean there is not a lot of pieces that were carried over. Not like it will be this year.
Ventura's Stolen Bases
Reds, Diamondbacks and Rays lose. Hmmmm
**** everything. Look, I love watching this team be actually competent at this whole playing baseball thing, but it's going to be a serious gut punch when we end up picking 7th.
The one source of happiness I'd get from it would be the joy of watching both the Diamondbacks and Padres finish worse than us given all the win-now deals they made with us over the past 2 years.
GovClintonTyree (09-23-2016)
Nah, I don't think so. You think, "if that suckbag weren't sucking it up in the seventh, we'd have won this game." But don't tell the press that.
Btw, I vaguely know what MLB The Show is, but have never played it. The basis of the idea was watching us do it for a couple months, as Viz and others were spotty and losing us games we should've won.
such a damn shame.
Look I'm not just trying to piss and moan, but I think the organization is pissing this away. There are ways to 'rest' and 'limit' your better/hotter players.
It's OK to try and punt a couple games to ensure a top-3 pick.
Snitker is managing to keep his managerial job, not what is best for this organization. For example, Ruiz was brought up a week ago and hasn't had a single at bat. This was a perfect time to give him a few starts to see how he fared and give him a taste of the bigs, yet he rots on the bench while Adonis continues to play. Why keep running Teheran out there and risk injury, shut him down. But no. Let some young guys get experience in high leverage/save opportunities, but no we keep using JJ. These wins could end up costing us as many as 4 to 5 slots lower in the draft, and for what?
Pick #1 - Unless we lose our last 8 and the Twins win their last 8 (ain't happening), this pick is gone.
Pick #2 - Reds now control this pick. Chances of us getting it are now slightly below 50-50.
Pick #3 - With 8 games remaining, we can now only do 1 game better than the D'Backs, or they get this pick.
Picks #4 and #5 - We can only do 2 games better than either the Padres or Rays, or either or both would get these two picks.
Pick #6 - We can only do 3 games better than the A's, or they get this pick.
It's even still possible to drop all the way down to the 10th pick, though even if we win out that probably won't happen. But picking anywhere from #2 to #7 is now very possible. That would be a big blow and a real shame to the future of this team if we end up losing all those very valuable draft positions here at the end of this lost season.
Last edited by skillet; 09-24-2016 at 01:41 AM.
WaitingFor2017 (09-24-2016)