When Band-Aid’s Only Do So Much
Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow. How did it come to this?
- Theoden, The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
We can officially bury one of the dynasties of the past twenty years in baseball.
The Atlanta Braves are now toast.
To again quote Theoden, how did it ever come to this?
The Atlanta Braves of the 90’s were built on the mantra of pitching, pitching, and pitching. When you have Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Greg Maddux pitching in front of you, that is a hard series for you to win. However, the Braves had other starters that pitched effectively to help out the Bravos as well, with pitchers such as Steve Avery, Denny Neagle (before prostitution), and Kevin Millwood being the most well known of the other 90’s Braves.
What this did cover up, however, was the fact that Millwood was essentially the last pitcher actually developed by the Braves.
Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz all provided the Braves with a security blanket. All were in their prime during their time with the Braves and all three were able to average 200 innings or close to that during the duration of their time with the Braves. And because the club was flush in cash thanks to Ted Turner, it was easier to keep that blanket together. However, after Millwood’s arrival, the Braves pipeline of young pitchers began to run dry. None of the other pitchers that seemed to come up could seem to even compare to Millwood. Odalis Perez, Jason Marquis, Bruce Chen and other pitchers all saw their time in the starting rotation of the Bravos, and time and time again, neither was really anything dominant, and in time, none was really even servicable as a fifth starter.
The issue didn’t become anywhere near as pronouced until the Big Three began to fracture apart. Smoltz would disappear after needing Tommy John Surgery around 2002, if I believe. That loss put the need for the Braves to now find another option for the fourth and fifth starters. Lesser pitchers, such as Horacio Ramirez, Paul Byrd, and others began to sprinkle into the rotation. Glavine’s depature in 2003 to New York would cost the Braves another of their dependable 200 inning options. Smotlz would return, but would have to become a reliever because he was unable to stand up to the pounding of 200 innings. THe Braves would also exile Millwood in 2002, when he unexpectedly accepted salary arbitration, resulting in the arrival of Johnny Estrada. Maddux accepted arbitration that same year, causing him to return and then depart Atlanta in 2004.
The loss of the Big Three was a devistating blow to Alanta, who now lost their long term starters for nearly a generation. The loss of Millwood as well resulted in the need to find other capable pitchers that would be able to help stave off the decay of the pitching staff. The result was the arrival of more mercinary pitchers, with Russ Ortiz taking over the role of staff ace and being followed by Paul Byrd, Jaret Wright, John Thomson, and other quick patches. The Braves continued to seek out workable options, bringing in Tim Hudson and looking around for any pitching that would fall into their laps.
The Braves seemed more and more to rely on Leo Mazzone continuing to keep the pitching staff afloat instead of actual talented, long term options for the rotation to become stable. And while Mazzone did his job extremely well for Atlanta, none of the Braves’ attempts to stave off the growing problem of a lack of pitching seemed to provide a long term fix. In a way, the team may have felt that as long as Mazzone remained a Brave, the option could simply be worked upon until something better came up.
Which makes the eventual depature of Mazzone to Baltimore all the more disasterous, in my opinion. Debate what you will about the usefulness of pitching coaches, but Mazzone was one of the best and was really one of the only things keeping the Braves’ staff from collapsing. With the depature of their long term coach, the Braves really were gambling on borrowed time, as the last cog that made the machine run as well as it had was gone.
In the end, the Braves simply weren’t able to continuing to put patches to keep the dam together, and the staff collapsed in 2007 and hasn’t rebounded since. The Braves have tried to conjure up the glory years in recent times by bringing back Glavine and having Smoltz pitch back in the rotation, but neither one really was anything close to their former selves once they returned to the Braves rotation. Add in the fact that Maddux is near the end and MIllwood is quietly flaming out in Texas and it marks an even sadder end to a era in the Braves.
Ultimately, what the Braves really need to do is rebuild their staff from the minor leagues on down. Their overall pitching depth isn’t impressive and the best arm the system has produced in years, Adam Wainwright, is currently a St. Louis Cardinals. Perhaps this can be fixed in the upcoming drafts for Atlanta, which is how they initially acquired Glavine. Perhaps shedding unnecessary salary in replacable players such as Kelly Johnson, Jeff Francouer and others could allow them to bring in a top young talent, as they did with Glavine.
Perhaps the rebuilding is already beginning. In 1987, the Braves traded Doyle Alexander to the Tigers for a young prospect from the area, one whom they had high hopes for, but ultimately deemed disposable.
That was John Smotlz.
In 2007, the Tigers, hoping to make a run at the World Series, traded two prospects that they deemed replacable to the Braves for Edgar Renteria.
So far, Jair Jurrgens is doing a pretty fair imitation of a Braves legend. We’ll see how well he can keep it up.