In honor of the end of a brutally long season, we'll focus on Atlanta.
The good news:
- The Braves took 1 of 3 from the Astros. That may not sound that great, but not getting swept was a damn fine accomplishment for this team.
- Mike Hampton finished the season with another pretty-not-all-that-bad performance, meaning he'll likely earn a $40 million contract from somebody in the offseason (the Dodgers seem like a good fit) while the Braves hoard their pennies waiting for Steve Carlton to become available.
- Chipper won the batting title, and it wasn't completely because he had about nine at bats in September thanks to rare nagging injuries that limited him to pinch-hitting duty.
- Kelly Johnson closed out with two more hits on Sunday, putting a nice finishing touch on a torrid, meaningless September.
- And, let's see, oh yeah: Corky Miller managed to keep his average below .090 for the entire season.
- Atlanta lost 90 games for the first time since 1990. Ahh, the good ol' days.
- Despite his .364 average and .470 on-base percentage, both tops in the NL, small pieces of Chipper's 36-year-old body continue to simply fall off at random times. Maybe it's time to test that guy for leprosy. He played in only 128 games and amassed just 439 at bats between hamstring/quad/shoulder/foot/ankle/knee injuries. Geez, just think how bad it would have been had he not redidicated himself to offseason fitness.
- The aforementioned Johnson, despite his late flurry, still hit a mere .287 with a team-high 113 strikeouts. That's not a terrible number for a No. 3 hitter with 25-30 bombs. Unfortunately, Kelly hit a Glenn Hubbard-like 12 home runs, and it's going to take a lot more than that for me to forget that dropped pop up with two outs in the ninth against the Phillies that set the Braves down the road to Nationals land.
- Jeff Francoeur never figured it out, and it says a lot about this sorry team that he nonetheless led the Braves in games played (155) and at bats (599). Frenchy used all that playing time to hit a whopping 11 home runs and post a .294 on-base percentage that makes Andruw Jones look like Wade Boggs. That was the second worst OBP in the National League, and though I guess you could see positives in him raising his average to .239 after months spent in the two-teens and actually not leading the team in strikeouts (thanks to Mr. Johnson), he still had 111 whiffs and posted by far the worst strikeout-to-walk ratio on the squad compliments of a mere 39 free passes. His .359 slugging percentage was also far and away the worst among Braves regulars and sixth-worst in the NL. In fact, you can make a strong case that there was no less-productive hitter in baseball last year - a disturbing development for someone in his fourth full season. I'm starting to realize that Frenchy deserves a post unto himself. Let's move on.
- After a strong start, Atlanta's pitching melted like a Pakistani politician facing down the Great Satan in his pants at the chance to hug Sarah Palin, and nothing illustrates that better than Hampton emerging as the ace with a 4.85 ERA that earned him rave reviews. No team was more devastated by injuries than Atlanta, so I don't put much stock in that. However, the continuing horror show that is Chuck James/Jo Jo Reyes/Charlie Morton is a sobering look at this team's future (not to mention its farm system). Supposedly Atlanta's three best prospects, they went a combined 9-24 with ERAs ranging from 5.81 to 9.10. I know much is made of the fact that Smoltz/Glavine/Avery struggled in '89 and '90 right before they got great, but I'll be flabbergasted if one of these guys turns out to be anything more than Kyle Davies. Not because of their stuff, but because they all seem to have a raging, incurable case of vaginaitis. As in, I see no evidenced that there are a pair of balls total between them. Yeah, I said it. I'm bitter.
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