the first post of october (baseball)


from february 11, 2010:

"do note that not one of my storylines worries about the braves chances at winning the division. i would love it if it happened. but the braves didn't add roy halladay to an already stacked team. the phillies did. it's wild card or bust, in my mind, when setting a realistic goal for the season."

so, the braves made the playoffs...as the wild card.

wow!

i mean that exclamation with the utmost sincerity. i resisted the temptation to post sunday because i would have been caught up in all the euphoria of the last game of the season, the last inning of the season when billy wagner looked like an absolute killer after showing his mortal side in the eighth, and how the braves, backs against the wall one last time in a season where that had become a recurring theme, gutted it out and held on for a win in their "most important game of the season". in baseball, though, moreso than any other sport, perspective is dreadfully important. one game or one series only becomes "important" based on the outcome of the previous game or series. the same logic can be applied to any sport, of course, but not in the same meta way that a 162 game regular season requires. given a few days now to ponder the strange course of the season, here is what i remember as the highlights.

 - opening day and the "THIS STADIUM IS UPSIDE DOWN!" call after jason "julio" heyward stepped up to the plate for his first major league at-bat and destroyed a ball into the right field bullpen. we'll get back to heyward in a second, but this moment had a more impactful lifespan than any other during the last five years.

- troy glaus being his usual terrible self in april only to explode and carry the braves through may and part of june, playing well enough to be the national league player of the month in may.

- heyward hurting his thumb, cox not allowing him to heal and heyward missing the all-star game.

- brooks conrad's monster walk-off grand slam to complete the bottom of the ninth, down by seven rally over the reds that propelled the braves into their best stretch of baseball they played all season.

- beginning of august, chipper gets hurt. i lobby for heyward being moved to the three hole. bobby cox does not listen.

- my timmy's string of dominance in late july and most of august that propelled him into the cy young conversation. he lost it a little bit in september, but made two HUGE starts during the last week of the season, won both, including the final game, and was the braves most dependable starter all year.

- derek lowe going insane during the month of september. 5-0, era under 1.25, commanding the confidence of this braves fan that he is totally going to beat tim lincecum in the opening game of the divisionals tomorrow night.

- martin prado and omar infante, period. last year, these guys "weren't good enough to play everyday". how about this season as one big "fuck you" to the detractors. infante finished third in the batting race, made the all-star team. prado was the braves offensive mvp this year, finished in the top ten in the batting race and made the all-star team. i was more heartbroken when prado went down for the year in the next-to-last week of the season than i was when chipper shredded his knee. that, in and of itself, tells me how emotionally attached i had become to prado. love that guy.

- mccann. mccann's the offensive lineman of the braves. you don't hear much about him. he just goes about his business being the best offensive catcher in the league and winning all-star game mvp's and hitting walk off home runs and braves fans, including me, just take him for granted.

- jonny venters being nasty and unhittable for the first five months of the season. billy wagner extending the same type of dominance through the end of the year.

- jason heyward will get his own post when the regular season awards start rolling out, but he should be the rookie of the year. end of story.

that's it. that's the scrapbook i have in my head for the braves, version 2010. this past sunday's game was incredible, but only because the previous 161 games had set it up to be so. the miracle win that i witnessed way back in april was every bit as important. the nine game losing streak that left the braves bandwagon searching for a driver was every bit as important. losing six of nine to the terrible nats and pirates down the stretch was just as important. the braves' sweeps of the mets and the marlins during the last 15 games of the year were every bit as important.

91-71. TWENTY games above .500. the sixth best record in all of baseball. in the meta-narrative that is any mlb team's season, the braves accounted for themselves quite well.

however the braves end up faring in the playoffs, in my opinion, the season has been a massive success.

while we are talking about it, though, the braves are going to beat the giants. tomorrow night and in the series.

we'll talk about the phillies if that prediction holds true.

roll braves.

being julio heyward
(part ten)
((fare thee well, bobby cox))


152 games.

that's how long the 2010 version of the atlanta braves were in the mix for the division. all things being equal, had you offered me that number before the season opened along with the deal that the club would still hold the slimmest of leads in the race for the wild card with 10 games to play, i would have jumped at it. given that deal and that deal alone, this is how i would have told you it happened.

jason heyward was worth the hype.

he has been. before he hurt his thumb in the second month of the season, he was going to run away with the nl rookie of the year trophy. then he hurt himself with one of his always cringe-inducing headfirst slides. cringe-inducing not because it looks bad. quite the contrary, it looks elegant and graceful, just like everything he does on the baseball field. cringe-inducing because there are ten digits that are exposed for all sorts of bad things to happen to them when sliding head-first into a base, all ten of the utmost importance if you are going to swing a bat and make contact with a baseball. he hurt his thumb. bobby cox kept trotting him out, because "i love seeing the kid play". his numbers dropped. he finally went on the dl and after cox's incompetence cost him STARTING in the all-start game as a rookie, (ugh) he came back. he got healthy. his average jumped 50 points, and he regained his form from april and early may. then chipper got hurt. braves nation (including myself) cast their lonely eyes to the twenty year old to lead them. on certain days, he has. he still gets on base a ton. but, to be as patient as he is, throw a breaking ball to him with two strikes that starts at his knees and ends up in the dirt, he is going to strike out 9 times out of 10. he's been good. probably rookie of the year good. but he hasn't been able to carry the team by himself.

hudson, lowe, jurrjens, hanson and kawakami would be the best starting five in the national league.

they'd have to be, right? the braves were never going to score a ton of runs. not like the phillies. and yet, only hudson has been really good this year. lowe is what we thought he was. jurrjens has been radically inconsistent. hanson should have 15 wins, but, when bad, he has been really bad. kawakami was the worst starting pitcher the braves have trotted out for more than 10 starts in 20 years. people call him "kamikaze" for god's sake.

chipper stayed healthy.

he did for a while. and then, of course, he didn't. on a great, jeter-esque jump throw against the astros, chipper's old knees couldn't hold him, and he shredded one of them, lost for the season.

those would be have been my three factors necessary for the above deal to manifest into reality, but only one played out. so, what happened?

martin prado and omar infante happened. both all-stars, both hitting over .300, both integral to the braves offensive success when they've had it. they've both been miscast as leadoff hitters, but the braves were presented no other choice when nate mcclouth forgot how to play baseball.

mccann's been mccann. i love mccann.

johnny venters happened. he's finally hit a rookie wall, but, wow, for several months he was unhittable. same with billy wagner. those two have been off the chain.

with the exception of one month and half by troy glaus and one grand slam by derek lee, first base has been a disaster.

the escobar/gonzalez combo at short has been up and down.

heyward is the only constant in outfield. platoon's sometimes "work", but they never thrive. how could they? baseball is a game where you will "fail" 65-75 times out of a 100 at-bats anyway. combine that fact with not getting consistent plate appearances, and you have a platoon. the ole "if you have two quarterbacks, you don't really have one." philosophy can be applied to the braves outfield, minus heyward. if you have four or five outfielders, you don't really have two.

and then there is bobby cox. the "players manager". the winner of all those straight division titles and a world series to boot. the guy that gets thrown out of games a lot.

i admit to being a "what have you done for me lately" sports fan, and here is what i will remember of cox in his last season. not being quick enough to let heyward get healthy. and this week's phillies series.

charlie manuel placed so much importance on this series, he rearranged his rotation to make sure his 1, 2 and 3 starters would face the braves. in doing so, he announced this series makes our regular season a success or a disappointment.

did cox find a way for hudson to pitch last friday against the mets so that he could pitch today against the phillies? nope. could he have rearranged things to get lowe a start too? of course. but he didn't. so, the braves went to war in the two biggest games of their season with a rookie making his first major league start on monday and a rookie making his seventh (i think) start last night. both were seriously outclassed. the braves lost both. thanks, bobby.

and now, the wild card that cox has said over and over and over again that he despises is "our" braves carrot on the stick.

i love the wild card. it allows me a small glimmer of hope that the braves may still wiggle into the playoffs after conceding the division last night. i can't wait to hear cox backtrack over the next few days and give us soundbites like "we just want to be in the dance" and riff on previous wild card winners' success. it will be soaked in irony and it will be beautiful.

here's hoping the braves have a little something left in the tank...,

in spite of their manager.

being julio heyward
(part nine)


well, this is disappointing and really kind of fascinating all at the same time. the thumb's been hurt since may. bobby cox keeps running him out there because "i love seeing him play". his numbers are dreadful in the month of june because, as heyward has said himself, he can't keep his thumb on his bat. through it all, though, he made such a mammoth impact on the world of major league baseball in april and may that he's going to be voted into the all-star starting line-up by the fans...

...and he's not going to play. why? because cox and the braves have mishandled another injury just like they mishandled jordan's last year. and now, his stint on the DL is going to rub right up against the all-star break. and yet, he is so freaking mature, even though he would be eligible to play, he's putting his team first and saying he isn't going to "rehab" in an all-star game at-bat or two.

bobby cox, i wish i had the words..., and i do, but i've gotta go work. i dislike you so much.

but i love jason heyward.

being julio heyward
(part eight)
((because this is almost too good to be true))



listen. i am guilty of putting the athletes that i love up on very high and very unrealistic pedestals. i know this. we all have our heroes. most of mine just so happen to bounce, catch or hit a ball. it's not because i want to be them (even though i would, just for a day). it's not because of how great they are or how great they have been in the past. "what happened, happened." in my world, it's all about how great you can be. how great do you want to be. the process. the journey.

every so often, there are those that trip into my world to whom much has been given. very much. very early. julio. jordan. and now "julio". how they handle their pressure provides for me a vicarious experience that i will never be able to duplicate. their own professional and personal stories i will intertwine into my own because i choose to. they are bound to disappoint me because of my own aforementioned (and mismanaged) expectations. i will celebrate their victories like they are my own, because i choose to share it with them. i invest my time into them. they don't owe me anything. they don't know me and never will. and that is how it should be.

they are ghosts. they are myths. they are the stories that i will tell to myself in my dreams. they and their very "trivial" athletic exercises will be a part of my finding a deeper meaning in something, somewhere, because i choose to look for it in them, in their reactions, in their successes and most especially in their failures. because we are all failures. not in the "we are fallen" kind of failures. we are just defined by how we fail. it's that simple.

make no mistake. jason heyward will fail, in baseball and in life. in my story, though, he's becoming a recurring character. one HACAM will travel with for some time.

you have 5 minutes and 45 seconds i bet. you don't have a favorite player? don't care about baseball? watch this. you will.



(thanks to mark mc. for the tip. i don't know how i missed it.)

being julio heyward
(part seven)
((chapter two))
(((because this is important)))


check out atlanta's box score from last night. and then check out where "julio" is sitting. it's not permanent. yet. i am sure chipper will be hitting third when he comes back from whatever injury he's currently suffering from. but, it took him 32 games, people. 32 games of being the most productive hitter on his team filled with all-stars and veterans. it took him 32 games, and bobby cox made the first smart baseball decision he's made in three seasons and batted heyward where we, as braves fans, will most likely find him for the next ten or so years.

oh, yeah. of course he had two hits, scored three runs and stole a base.


Atlanta AB R H RBI BB SO LOB AVG


McLouth, CF 4 1 1 1 1 0 0 .172

Prado, 2B 6 1 2 0 0 2 3 .316

Heyward, RF 4 3 2 1 2 0 1 .300

McCann, C 4 3 2 1 0 0 3 .241

b-Ross, D, PH-C 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 .222

Glaus, 1B 5 1 2 3 0 0 4 .268

Hinske, LF 2 0 2 3 2 0 0 .314

O'Flaherty, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000

Moylan, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000

a-Diaz, M, PH 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .169

Saito, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000

Venters, P 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000

Infante, SS 5 0 1 1 0 0 3 .270

Conrad, 3B 4 2 2 1 1 1 3 .211

Hudson, T, P 3 0 1 0 0 0 1 .200

Cabrera, Me, LF 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 .200

Totals 41 11 16 11 6 4 22 .237

being julio heyward
(part six)
((ask and you shall receive))


i won't waste too much time on julio here today, because he collected all of one hit against the phillies in three games. that his one hit sent me and ken and the rest of the folks that had not given up on the braves tuesday night into a bloody frenzy is not to be discounted. i just hate that the momentum couldn't carry over into a series win or a better effort against halladay and/or moyer.

such is the life of a rookie i guess, even one that will one day be immortal.

i did come across this quip from a deadspin commenter and it made me laugh. i'll let it close chapter april of the julio heyward series and look forward to more irrational nonsense come may.

the commented upon post was comparing heyward to other african-american stars, hence the griffey jr. reference.

"Ken Griffey, Jr has the sweetest swing -- it looks effortless. Heyward's swing looks like a methed-up Hells Angel busting some heads in a bar fight. He didn't hit the home run, he bashed its little skull in."

being julio heyward
(part five)
((seeing jesus in person))


through 12 games, he leads his team in rbi and homers (and strikeouts..d'oh!!! that's ok. every superman has his kryptonite.). second in walks and hits and total bases. for one game, on opening day, he ushered in a home crowd and atmosphere and buzz that transcended over and through what was already a special day in the life of any baseball fan. sunday, with the bases loaded, two outs and his team down one run, he sent a 97 mph fast ball the opposite way for his first walkoff hit. he's being talked about in the same sentences as mel ott and ted williams for his accomplishments through twelve games at such an early age. he's already been compared to hank aaron, willie mays, willie stargell and albert pujols. the greatest of the great.

he's TWENTY years old.

and he just doesn't seem to care about any of it. at all.

he looks relaxed. contrasted to my boy and would-be phenom last year, jordan schafer, he's not fidgety at the plate. he takes pitches. he's patient. everything a rookie is not supposed to be in his first two weeks of his career.

tonight, i will see him in person. from twenty rows above the field. as i told my brother, ken, who will be accompanying me to the game, we'll be close enough to heckle the phillies and bask in the glow of the next second-coming.

i cannot wait to see and catch up with ken.

and i cannot wait to see and observe "julio" up close. in his element. to be able to watch him and see how he carries himself when the cameras aren't focused in on his at-bat. how does he stretch? how does he walk? how does he warm-up? is his bp as mythical as everything that i've read?

will he do something crazy for me tonight that makes me jump up and down and act all stupid and childlike and giddy as i am wont to do when these "silly games" take me into my own "thin place"???

i hope so.

thin places can be hard to find sometimes. work, distractions, work, more distractions, church, distractions, work, distractions, the "work" of family and even more distractions take away vital time from us finding union with whatever in this life we connect to on higher and deeper personal and spiritual levels. i feel lucky that i can find such places, for better or worse...to your approval or not, in sports.

tonight, i am headed to turner field to see a brother than i haven't seen in way too long to watch a team that i love to hate and a player that i (and many others) have identified as special.

here's hoping i don't blow a tire on i-20.

being julio heyward
(part four)


for one day, at least, the fairy tale is still very much intact.

"AND THIS STADIUM IS UPSIDE DOWN!!!"

that was one of the many calls of jason heyward's first major-league at bat after he had stroked the home run that may end up defining the dawn of the new era.

over 53 thousand fans were in attendance at turner field yesterday and the reports read that the vast majority of them were chanting heyward's name as he walked into the batters box for his first at-bat.

think about that for a second. you are twenty years old. you are a top-level professional in the same organization that harvested one of the top two african-american baseball players ever. you take the ceremonial first pitch from that guy, hammerin' hank aaron. the moment drips with symbolism. the proverbial torch is already passed. and you haven't even played in your first real game yet!!! 53 thousand fans are in the stands on a perfect april afternoon. many of those thousands are only in the park because they've heard the buzz surrounding you. remember when i talked about transcendence a couple weeks ago? well, thousands of people taking off of work or school and paying money to come and watch you play baseball merely because they heard you might be the second coming of somebody their fathers used to pay to see play counts as "exhibit A".

you hear your name being chanted by 50 thousand fans but you are able to not listen to them. you are able to focus. you take a couple pitches to gauge velocity and get your timing. and with your first freaking swing, you make yourself the story of opening day.

your team wins. you knocked in four runs. you got the post-game interview. the shaving cream in the locker room. truckloads of news fans. you may have just awakened half a city's worth of fairweather braves followers. with one swing of a baseball bat.

for one day, the fairy tale is still very much intact.

i'll say.

being julio heyward
(part three)


"I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. 'Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball - now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake? It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball."

-bull durham

opening day.

you only get one chance to make a first impression.

go get 'em, julio.

being julio heyward
(part two)


from si.com and tom verducci's top ten things to watch in the 2010 baseball season...

"1. Jason Heyward

The Braves' right fielder created the most spring training buzz since Albert Pujols tore up Cardinals camp in 2001. Which would you rather have when it comes to the NL Rookie of the Year Award: Heyward or the field? I'm not taking the field, not even a field that includes Strasburg and Chapman. Heyward seems like a lock for 20 home runs. Not so impressed by that number? The dude is 20 years old. Only 13 players have ever hit 20 homers at or before their age 20 season, and that includes only two 20/20 Club members in the past 31 years: a couple of guys named Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez. Forget the Fred McGriff comparisons; Heyward is far more athletic. Forget the Willie McCovey comparisons; McCovey was only a .270 career hitter. Forget the Willie Stargell comparisons; Stargell never walked even 90 times. Just let Heyward be who he will be, and enjoy a very unique player."

monday can't get here soon enough.

being julio heyward
(part one)


http://atlanta.braves.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100326&content_id=8952474&vkey=news_atl&fext=.jsp&c_id=atl

make the team?

check.

start opening day?

check.

to be continued.

the next big thing?


about a month ago, i teased a forthcoming series of posts that would feature the potential future face of atlanta braves baseball, a young player by the name of jason (julio...it's not his real nickname, but it will be mine) heyward.

what i didn't realize at the time, though, was that i was already behind the curve. unlike with julio version 1.0, i wasn't one of the first on the bandwagon. about a week after mentioning julio heyward on HACAM, both ESPN and SI released their respective "top prospects in the game" list. who was number one on both? heyward. bobby cox has said that the sound the ball makes off of heyward's bat sounds a lot like it did off the bat of a pretty good player in his own right, one mr. hank aaron. my brother, ken, and i were e-mailing back and forth about heyward yesterday and he told me the atlanta media had dubbed him a wicked hybrid of ryan howard and willie mays.

suffice it to say, i will not be shedding any light on some diamond in the rough when it comes to julio heyward. the cat is already out of the bag. up until his last game on the 20th, he had reached base in his first 9 spring games. even with an 0-fer on saturday, he's batting .387 through ten games with an OPS of over 1.100. no one has come out and said he's locked up the starting job in right just yet (in much the same way my boy jordan schafer was left to wonder last spring if he had nailed down centerfield 'til the week of opening day), but the depth chart on the braves website leaves us a not-so-subtle hint that he's in control of his own destiny at this point.

so, what does this all mean?

well, really, nothing yet. as "baseball people" are quick to remind everyone that will listen, spring training doesn't mean anything. those same baseball people will try and tell you sometime mid-summer that games in april and may don't mean nearly as much as they do in august and september. as i have noted here a couple times before, that is the most retarded thing any "baseball person" will ever say in their whole baseball life.

nevertheless, making the team or starting on opening day does not change the world. we have to look no further back than opening night, 2009. schafer pounded a home run in his first at-bat of the season. the braves pound the would-be national league pennant winners. all was merry and bright for exactly two more days. having started the season 2-0 and up 8 runs with three innings to play for a season-opening sweep, schafer hurts himself and the braves bullpen gives up the game. bobby cox kept sending schafer out hurt, effectively ending his season before it even began. he mangled the bullpen more often than not. the braves brought up tommy hanson a month too late. they had a pretty good season, but still finished a few games out of the wild card.

i say all that to say this. jason heyward could be the next dale murphy or he could be the next hank aaron or the next chipper jones or the next whatever great brave you want to name or the combination of all of them, and bobby cox could still find a way to screw it up.

but one of the things that we, and by "we" i mean "i", will follow this baseball season is this. what if julio heyward can somehow manage to change the culture of the braves in the same way that julio jones changed the culture of alabama football just by signing his letter of intent?

when julio made it onto youtube by beating first-team all-sec safety rashad johnson deep in one of his first practices, he announced without having to say a word (not that he could since saban won't let freshmen speak to the media) that something had turned for the positive.

in the same way, what if all these stories of heyward's mythical batting practice sessions translate to the field during the first month of the season? sure, mccann's great. tommy hanson could be great. chipper was great. but none of them are transcendent. none of them bring the casual fan out to the ballpark to see what all the fuss is about.

what if heyward did that? what if he raked for the first couple of weeks and casual atlanta fans starting coming out to the ballpark again? what if, for the first time in a decade, the casual fans added to the already there diehards created a real life homefield advantage. and what if that homefield advantage led to four or five more wins for the braves this season.

all other things being equal to last year (and even adding my darling timmy back into the mix), what if this was enough to get the braves back into the playoffs?

what if the braves matched up with the dodgers, cards or phillies in the playoffs and had a first three of hanson, jurrjens and hudson, maybe mixing in a little lowe in a seven game series??? holy shit. i'd take that against halladay, hamels and whomever. every day of the week, i would!

you see what i mean? what if the heyward effect could last longer than the schafer effect. bobby cox broke jordan and the schafer effect lasted three days. what if julio heyward could prove everybody right and change the course of franchise's fate?

no pressure, right?

but, you know what? there was never any more pressure put on any one athlete that i've ever followed closely than a young man named julio jones. the batshit crazy thing about his hype and his pressure is that he lived up to every bit of it. and thanks to him and saban, alabama went from also-ran to champ in two years.

it can be done.

i believe in jason (julio) heyward.

do you?

johnny damon to the braves?


say it ain't so.

i guess it's baseball season now, huh? at least, we are getting close.

in time, you will start seeing this site taking a break from all the alabama hoopla and focus in on the braves. the primary reasons? there are four storylines that i will be following as a braves fairweather fan this year, and none of them have anything to do with melky cabrera. three of them have to do with "youth" and "the future" and "potential" and the same kind of hullabaloo that i gave you with 2008 bama recruiting class.

oh, shit. i can already see this is going to be annoying as hell.

maybe. but here is the thing. why is national signing day so wonderful for every school in the country? because no matter what anyone says, you can sculpt an argument around your school's recruiting class being the best and/or most efficient/effective in the history of college football and no one can truly disprove your claim. on signing day, it's ALL about potential. not one of the high school seniors has ever played a down in college, but you can take his grainy, youtube, high school highlight video and extrapolate it into a theory of why you are looking at the next herschel walker. people might tell you that you are wrong. people might say you are stupid. people might accuse you of indulging in too much of the crack rock, but what do they know? they haven't seen anything on the field that would disprove your "herschel walker theory", so you can sit on your couch satisfied with the thought that tomorrow will bring greater things as a result of this year's signing day haul. all that being said, i sincerely hope auburn's top five class ends up ringing in a new and improved era for their team. a college football season that marches towards an iron bowl with significant meaning for both teams is a better and more enjoyable college football season, in my opinion. auburn being good incites more faux "hate". auburn being good will bring more satisfaction when alabama kicks that ass. national signing day is great because it is ALL about potential.

same with spring training. you can think that the royals will suck in 2010. you can think the pirates may never win another game. and you may think that the red sox should be really good with their starting rotation that includes three potential number one guys. you can think a whole lot, but you can't prove shit, because every team is resting comfortably at 0-0.

i say that to say this. heading into spring training, i think there are four stories that will stir my salsa heading into april. i rank their importance, bottom to top.

4) the redemption of jordan schafer - i documented here on HACAM that i believe bobby cox ruined schafer last year. he was hurt early. still forced to trot out and work through his major league growing pains on the biggest stage and couldn't get his body and mind right after the first week of the season. i hate bobby cox for this, and i will always hate bobby cox for this. schafer may not be called up until september, but i will track him every step of the way and hope that he makes nate mcclouth expendable sooner rather than later.

3) is tommy hanson a number one starter? - he won't start opening day, but that's not the point. he scratched the surface of his potential after the braves waited too long to call him up last year. he'll be pitching, consistently, against the other team's second or third or maybe fourth best pitcher every time he takes the mound. he, in theory, should win those games, win eighteen all told and set himself up as the future of the braves rotation for years. we will see if that happens.

2) the return of my love - tim hudson will be back and pitching on opening day. stay safe, my dear. let me know if you need anything. ANYTHING.

1) is jason heyward julio jones? - we'll will get more into this soon. for those of you that follow this blog, though, and have any interest in the braves, you know what i am talking about here. more to come on the existential importance of jason heyward.

do note that not one of my storylines worries about the braves chances at winning the division. i would love it if it happened. but the braves didn't add roy halladay to an already stacked team. the phillies did. it's wild card or bust, in my mind, when setting a realistic goal for the season.

pitchers and catchers report soon.

roll braves.