Sports Stuff

Like I said I'll earlier I'll try and post something that isn't Hollister related every once in a while. I did say I would talk about the Braves and Mizzou on this site too. Since I'm sure I've upset my many many readers by posting so few sports topics I will give in to popular demand and post some stuff about sports. Also I have decided to scrap Today's Stuff because I don't feel like doing that every day anymore. If you want to find interesting stories go to the Drudge Report. Without further ado............

Mizzou TE Chase Coffman out 2 weeks

That sucks. Luckily he won't miss the opener against Illinois in St. Louis on August 30th. When I read that headline I almost broke down. With every day that passes I become more and more tense whenever I think about the upcoming college football season. Usually I'm calm and just looking forward to tailgating. Now I simultaneously giggle and hyperventilate when imagining what the season holds for Mizzou.

But back to Chase. This guy is a fucking hoss. He defines hoss. The man is gigantic. I once saw him at the Mizzou RecCenter playing in an intermural basketball league with a bunch of other football players. He isn't a great football player, he's a great athlete. I felt so bad for that poor law school team that had to guard him. Coffman literally dunked over a guy four different times. He's got ups. Check it out. Anyone who watches Mizzou football knows that although Coffman could bulldoze any defender dumb enough to get in his way, he prefers to leap over them. It is unbelievable how high this guy can jump.

He's nimble too. He has great balance and great hands. Oh and like I said before, he's a monster. His pre-game ritual is as follows:

• Eat a live pig
• Slay a vampire (he's a vampire slayer also, did I mention that?)
• Regurgitate half of the pig he ate to stay light so as not to hinder his leaping or speed
• Kidnap the opposing coach's youngest child and hold him/her for ransom
• Make love to eleven Golden Girls (Mizzou cheerleaders for those who don't know)
• Rails a line of powdered Gatorade
• Puts on pads and uniform

He is a beast.


SI's Preview of Mizzou Football

We're number 4 in the country? We have 10 of 11 starters returning on one of the Big 12's best defenses? Chase Daniel will once again compete for the Heisman? Jeremy Maclin is the offspring of the Flash and Carl Lewis? Oh Sports Illustrated you're too much. What's that you say? The Tigers will be competing for the national championship? Stop, really. You're making us blush.

Sweet Jesus I hope I didn't just jinx the season.

FoxSports Agrees with Sports Illustrated

This article just gives a short conference to conference rundown of who they think will be the champ of each conference and why, plus some other bull crap that I didn't read because Mizzou was not mentioned. Anyway it says we're the shit.


Now Onto Much Less Fun Things

I linked an article talking about how the Braves will honor Skip Caray and also who the Braves might be pursuing this offseason. That is all I could find about them online. Although even when they were a winning team it always seemed like they were over looked. No one ever did write much about them. Unfortunately that's because the dawn of sports blogging and online articles came about in the middle of the last Yankee dynasty/ The Sox-Yanks rivalry when the Sox were still cursed.

So in light of this I will give a run down of everything that I think went wrong for the Braves this year. If anyone remembers they were supposed to be a team contending for the NL East crown. Some foolish rapscallions even picked them to win the World Series.

1) No Leo Mazzone

He actually left the team after the 2005 season to be the Baltimore Orioles pitching coach. Brilliant career move asshole. Not so coincidentally this was the last year Atlanta won the division title. Obviously it seems stupid to site something that didn't even happen this year, but honestly it is still affecting the Atlanta Braves. Going to Baltimore really made a lot of people forget that this was the man whose pitching staffs finished 1st or 2nd in the NL in ERA every year for a decade. That is ridiculous. Part of the reason was the sick talent he had on the starting staff (Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz). But what about all those pitchers who massively overperformed for the Braves while the Cy Young Trio anchored the front of the rotation? This is the guy that made the likes of Steve Avery, Denny Neagle, John Burkett, along with a slew of other mediocre pitchers into All Stars. He even got Mike Hampton back on track.

Another overlooked factor is the bullpens he put together. They weren't amazing but they got the job done. Before John Smoltz moved to the 'pen Leo had to deal with a different closer every year. That worked fine for the Braves until he left. Now the Braves' staff (both starters and relievers) is plagued with injuries. A lot of the guys who are in there can't seem to find a groove. Mazzone knew how to help pitchers find and maximize their stuff. He also knew how much to work them over the course of a year. He kept guys healthy. Personally I think that pitching coach is the most important coach on the team (besides the manager obviously). If you don't believe me look at the 2008 St. Louis Cardinals. Look at that pitching staff. Where the hell would they be without Dave Duncan? Now that Mazzone's out of the biz everyone is hopping on the Dave Duncan bandwagon as "best pitching coach in baseball". They're right, he is. But Mazzone was even better. You can't replace a coach like that, and when someone of that caliber leaves the team feels it for a while.

2) Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson are having God-awful years

At the beginning of the year the Braves offense was loaded, supposedly. At the top of the order Yunel Escobar was coming off a rookie campaign that had him hitting well above .300. The middle was stacked as well with switch hitters Chipper Jones and Mark Teixeira hitting 3 and 4 respectively. Brian McCann was in the 5 spot. Rounding out the order was Mark Kotsay, a left field platoon, and the pitcher. Kelly Johnson was penciled in the 2 hole and Frenchy was batting 6th. On paper 1-6 looks pretty darn scary. Lets run through the lineup highlighting an interesting tidbit about each player.

1. Yunel Escobar- played 94 games in 2007, .326 AVG, .385 OBP
2. Kelly Johnson- .375 OBP in 2007, .457 SLG
3. Chipper Jones- future Hall of Famer, finished second in BA in the NL for 2007
4. Mark Teixeira- in 54 games with Atlanta in 2007 hit 17 HRs, and had 56 RBI, .404 OBP, .615 SLG, a .317 AVG
5. Brian McCann- had an off year in 2007, 18 HRs, 92 RBI, .320 OBP, .452 SLG, .270 AVG
6. Jeff Francoeur- somehow had a .338 OBP despite free swinging and a .293 AVG to go along with a .444 SLG
7. Mark Kotsay- coming off an injury year not a bad guy for the seven spot
8. Left Field- The Braves were again going to depend on a platoon for LF, obviously didn't expect big numbers from the 8 spot

We'll start with Kelly Johnson. Kelly's OBP dropped almost 40 points (.375 in 2007 to .339 in 2008). He is batting second in the order for a team that was going to be depending on offense and he stopped getting on base! Look who is hitting behind you man. If you want to help the team then get on base. This year he's been much more of a free swinger. He only has 42 walks so far this year, he definitely won't be reaching his total of 79 that he had last year. Also troubling is his 86 strikeouts. He has twice as many strikeouts as walks, not good. His batting average has dropped 7 points as well, that isn't a huge dip but it certainly isn't helping anything.

On top of all this, when he is getting a hit it usually isn't for extra bases. Not as much as last year anyway. When Johnson came up scouts generally said that Johnson had decent power, he would be a good doubles guy, maybe a 20 HR a year guy. This would be great production from a second baseman/2 hole guy. However his slugging percentage has dropped 56 points from last year to this one. The man is losing his stroke. From what I've seen of him and what his strike out and walk numbers tell me is that he has lost a lot of discipline at the plate. Not good Kelly. Just walk, the other guys will drive you in.

Speaking of crappy plate discipline.....Oh hey Jeff Francoeur! How've you been? Frenchy has literally lost his mind. The man is obsessed with being a 30-40 HR guy. He hit 29 in 2006. He could taste the glory that is power hitting. After posting a very good 2007 Francoeur decided he needed to improve. I thought to myself "Wow what a great ballplayer, always trying to get better. Good for him!" Then I found out he put on 17 lbs of muscle in the offseason training with the Clemson football team. Then I thought to myself "But Jeff, you don't play football, you play baseball....but I guess you know what you're doing because the Braves wouldn't let one of their stars screw up his game." Then I found out there is little the Braves can do to control the 8 year old boy that is Jeff Francoeur.

You see last year Frenchy learned from hitting coach Terry Pendleton that hitting the ball the other way makes you a better and more dangerous hitter. Oddly enough Francoeur listened. He raised his batting average 33 points from .260 to .293. Hell he even took a few extra walks. His OBP was an astounding (for him) .338. Sure he hit ten less HRs but who cares because he hit 16 more doubles than the season before. He was becoming a great hitter. Forgotten in all of this is that Frenchy is also one of the most clutch hitters in baseball. I couldn't find the stat but his batting average with 2 outs and and runners in scoring position has always been phenomenal.

However Jeff Francoeur needed more. Labels like good baseball player just weren't enough for him. He wanted those home runs back. So he headed to Clemson. When he got back to the bigs this year he was ready to swing for the fences. And swing he did....and miss he did. Frenchy had completely forgotten all that hit the ball the other way nonsense. His stats plummeted. His OBP, SLG, and AVG fell to the lowest they have ever been. All because he wanted to hit more home runs.

Personally I think the Brian McCann contract got to him. McCann was given a large contract last year that locked him up for something like 6 years. Also McCann had more HRs than Francoeur last year. The two are best friends and have been for some time. However Francoeur is very competitive and I think he felt a little inadequate. Frenchy had always been the star. But last season they had a role reversal of sorts. It wasn't just McCann getting the money. They kind of switched roles as hitters too. McCann had always been the doubles/gapper kind of guy. Francoeur was the power hitter. Now McCann was hitting more homers and Francoeur was the doubles guy hitting the ball the other way. He wanted to be the star again.

So now lets compare what was expected of the line up to what actually happened:

Pre-Season

1. Yunel Escobar- played 94 games in 2007, .326 AVG, .385 OBP
2. Kelly Johnson- .375 OBP in 2007, .457 SLG
3. Chipper Jones- future Hall of Famer, finished second in BA in the NL for 2007
4. Mark Teixeira- in 54 games with Atlanta in 2007 hit 17 HRs, and had 56 RBI, .404 OBP, .615 SLG, a .317 AVG
5. Brian McCann- had an off year in 2007, 18 HRs, 92 RBI, .320 OBP, .452 SLG, .270 AVG
6. Jeff Francoeur- somehow had a .338 OBP despite free swinging and a .293 AVG to go along with a .444 SLG
7. Mark Kotsay- coming off an injury year not a bad guy for the seven spot
8. Left Field- The Braves were again going to depend on a platoon for LF, obviously didn't expect big numbers from the 8 spot

Current

1. Yunel Escobar- BA (.278) SLG (.373), and OBP (.348) all dropped, but the OBP is still good and has a better ratio between strike outs and walks
   
2. Kelly Johnson- OBP (.339) and SLG (.421) have dropped, and he is striking out a lot more, he was removed from the two spot
   
3. Chipper Jones- hit .400 for a good part of the year, is currently hitting a paltry .370, has been hurt though
   
4. Mark Teixeira- before he was traded he hit 20 HRs and had 78 RBI
   
5. Brian McCann- having a great year .383 OBP, .560 SLG, and a .305 AVG, also has 44 BBs to 48 SO
   
6. Jeff Francoeur- .286 OBP, .347 SLG, .226 AVG, he also will be hitting far fewer doubles than last year and has only 9 HRs
   
7. Mark Kotsay- got hurt for part of the year, has batted all over the order including second, .335 OBP, .403 SLG, .288 AVG
   
8. Left Field- bleh

As you can see Johnson and Francoeur weren't the only people hurting the order. Chipper never hurt the order but they could have used him in more games for sure. Kotsay was a huge risk for the Braves and probably panned out just as they expected him to. At the beginning of the year the Braves expected to bring up hot center field prospect Jordan Schaeffer some time during the season but he was then suspended 50 games for using HGH. Tex had a good year with Atlanta, as did McCann. Escobar's numbers were down from the year before but the Braves didn't expect him to hit as well as he did last year. Regardless Escobar still put up good numbers. The two big holes are Johnson and Francoeur. Two guys the Braves really needed to step up, especially since they physically can play everyday unlike Chipper or McCann (since he is a catcher).

3) Injuries to the Pitching Staff

This kind of goes back to the Mazzone point but I want to get a little more in depth. 4 of the 5 projected starters for the Atlanta Braves at the beginning of the season have missed significant time this season. Here is the Braves original starting five:

1. John Smoltz
2. Tim Hudson
3. Tom Glavine
4. Mike Hampton
5. Jair Jurrjens

Smoltz is out for the year, maybe forever. Hudson is out for the year as of a few weeks ago. Glavine is finally back in the rotation after missing most of the year with his first trip ever to the DL. Mike Hampton is Mike Hampton. He finally returned to the Braves staff halfway through the season. He hasn't been great. Jurrjens has been the Braves' most consistent starter. He's a freakin rookie! He's 11-7 with a 3.18 ERA. Jorge Campillo has been an ample replacement, and Jo Jo Reyes is alright. But when a team loses four of its five starters for significant amounts of time there is no way they are going to win. Unless Dave Duncan is their pitching coach.

Along with this their projected closer Rafael Soriano has been on and off the DL all season. Two years ago he and Mike Gonzalez were supposed to have given the Braves the best bullpen in the NL. Atlanta's offseason priority should have been trying to keep Octavio Dotel. Yet again the Braves bullpen has been full of scrubs who can't hold leads. Nothing is more frustrating to watch than a shitty bullpen.


Well thats about all I can think of right now. In case anyone wants to nit pick what I wrote about the Braves let me say two things. 1) I did not put these reasons for the Braves poor season in any kind of order of importance. 2) The pitching staff situation hurt the Braves more than Francoeur and Johnson sucking, obviously, but there was just more to write about with Francoeur and Johnson. What more do I need to say about the staff than "4 of their 5 starters have been most of the year"?