The Destruction of the Atlanta Braves

What have the mass media done to Braves fans? This is going to be ugly so hide the kids.

Can you believe that it's 2011 and the Braves payroll is just $89 million this year? It just boggles the mind. The Braves payroll has basically been frozen at this level for ten years, while they have played in brand new, beautiful Turner Field. If Ted owned the Braves their payroll would be at least $200 million.

And they could afford that.

That's the reason for this ugly post. Through mass media brainwashing from the local yocal press in Atlanta to the national baseball media, Braves fans have had their brains scrubbed like the Manchurian Candidate.

But this movie is dirty, it's from the backwoods of Deliverance notoriety. Braves fans have been made to strip, bend over and squeal!

Squeeeeal!

These good old boys actually think Atlanta is something called a “mid market team” to quote a Braves fan at MLBTradeRumors.

According to A.C. Nielsen, the folks who get paid big bucks to track markets and rate them for broadcast advertisers, Atlanta is the 8^th largest market in the country right behind Boston and ahead of Washington D.C., which just signed Jayson Werth away from the Phillies.

And it just gets uglier the more you look at these statistics.

A.C. Nielsen market rank, TV Homes in millions.

2010-11		2011
Rank	DMA Name	TV Homes
1	New York	7515330
2	Los Angeles	5666900
3	Chicago	3502610
4	Philadelphia	3015820
5	Dallas-Ft. Worth	2594630
6	San Francisco-Oak-San Jose	2523520
7	Boston (Manchester)	2460290
8	Atlanta	2407080
9	Washington, DC (Hagrstwn)	2389710
10	Houston	2177220
11	Detroit	1883840
12	Phoenix (Prescott)	1881310
13	Seattle-Tacoma	1874750
14	Tampa-St. Pete (Sarasota)	1795200
15	Minneapolis-St. Paul	1753780
16	Miami-Ft. Lauderdale	1580580
17	Denver	1572740
18	Cleveland-Akron (Canton)	1526200
19	Orlando-Daytona Beach	1453120
20	Sacramnto-Stkton-Modesto	1409400
21	St. Louis	1258580
22	Portland, OR	1197780
23	Charlotte	1166180
24	Pittsburgh	1160820
25	Raleigh-Durham (Fayetvlle)	1131310
26	Baltimore	1108360
27	Indianapolis	1106420
28	San Diego	1089010
29	Nashville	1039430
30	Hartford & New Haven	1018770
31	Kansas City	974820
32	Salt Lake City	953950
33	Cincinnati	923830
34	Columbus	915950
35	Milwaukee	901100

St. Louis has a payroll $20 million more than the Braves, yet St. Louis is just the 21^st largest market in the country and about half the size of Atlanta.

Can you handle anymore ugliness? I hope so.

Milwaukee's payroll is just a few million dollars shy of the Braves and Milwaukee is the smallest market in the game.

How small is Milwaukee in comparison? Atlanta is more than two and one half times bigger than Milwaukee. That's probably why the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta after the 1965 season.

This is some serious abuse that Braves fans have undergone over the last decade, and there is no sign of the abuse subsiding. The entire baseball media continues to operate under the big lie that Atlanta is some kind of tiny market buried under Chipper Jones contract.

It was once much different.

Way back when Greg Maddux was a star product of the Cubs farm system and about to become a free agent. The Cubs would not pay him the big bucks and Greg Maddux hit the market.

The Yankees did not sign Greg Maddux. The Braves did. And the Braves signed Maddux to what was then the biggest contract for a pitcher in MLB history.

In fact, when you look at what the Phillies have done the past few years in acquiring Halladay, Oswalt and Lee and paying them the big bucks, it very much resembles what the Braves once did to become the dominate force in the N.L. East.

The Braves developed Tom Glavine through their farm system, the Phillies did likewise with Cole Hamels.

Braves fans need to stop hating on Phillies fans and the owners of the Phillies. They have nothing to do with the Braves puny payroll. Liberty Media and John C. Malone are responsible for the Braves embarrassing backwardness. Braves fans need to organize a large Tomahawk Chop protest against Liberty Media and John C. Malone.

We Are the Evil Empire 3.0

EMBRACE IT
SQUEEZE IT
FEEL IT

LOVE IT

Remember when William Giles, Dave $$$ Montgomery and Ed Wade called Philadelphia a "small market"? Remember when Curt Schilling was traded for a sack of crap? Remember when Scott Rolen refused to sign after the "small market" comments and Schilling's exit?


John S. Middleton is worth $4 billion in cash.


And there is another $6 billion minimum behind him in the owners group. No owners group in MLB is as rich, and the Phillies are sold out! 


We are the new Yankees,the new "Storied Team".^^^WINNING!

The Jayson Werth Vacuum

Everyone loves the Phillies 2011 rotation -everyone who doesn't have to face it- but the lineup is a completely different story. Anyone who watched the Phillies a lot last year knew the Phillies needed another big right-hand(RH) bat. Instead, Dave $$$ Montgomery pushed Jayson Werth into the arms of Scott Boras, who then made Mr. Werth rich beyond his wildest dreams (guess who is representing about to be a free agent Ryan Madson?).

Now we find out that for the third year in a row Chase Utley is looking at a lot of D.L. Time. And with a painful injury like the patella tendon how good is Utley going to be when he is in the game? This is important as Utley has hit left-hand (LH) pitching much better than right-handers the past two years.

The pink elephant in the room of this discussion is of course Ryan Howard, who sports a Pujols like career OPS of 1.038 against RH pitchers, and a Polanco like .766 against LH pitchers.

So what is the solution? A trade! The Phillies need at least one big RH bat.

So who might be available and who should the Phillies go after?

David Wright.

The Wilpons are in the middle of a major league meltdown in New York. We've known for years that they were incompetent and probably nuts too (see Jackie “The Dodger” Robinson memorial in center field at Citi Field). Now we know that they were hooked up to Bernie Madoff. They are being sued for a billion dollars and probably should have been indicted for fraud by the Feds (FBI is too busy chasing big time crooks for uploading DVD screeners and mp3 files).

Rumors in New York have the Wilpons ready to do a full sell off of talent and go into a full rebuild mode. Probably not a bad idea since that team is at present unfixable without taking the payroll to $180 million next year and then making it climb from there. Since the Mets spending on the draft is as tight as Dave $$$ Montgomery, but with far less success, their farm system is in poor shape. That means they can't trade for the talent they would need to form the team into a contender. There is little to no chance for them to do so purely through the free agent market.

So what does David Wright have to offer the Phils? How about a career 1.041 OPS against LH pitching?

That made you whistle didn't it?

Wright is signed for three more seasons counting 2011. He's 28 years old this season.

And what of Polanco? Well, he plays 2B, and Utley frequently does not. Polanco can also play LF. He can pinch hit. What he can't do is produce a 1.041 OPS against LH pitching. The past two seasons Polanco's OPS against lefties is .668 (2010) and .738 (2009).

What might it take to get Wright? A lot. Figure either Domonic Brown or Jonathan Singleton plus two of the Phils best pitching prospects -whoever that may be at the time of the trade- and possibly taking a contract off the Mets hands like K-Rod and his father-in-law.

A 1.041 OPS against LH pitching from the 3B position is not cheap!

Option number two.

Matt Kemp.

Not a Philly kind of guy. Recent column about him from Jerry Crasnick makes him out not to be a baseball guy either. This is good as well as bad. He won't cost nearly as much as David Wright. He's also more likely to be available before the trade deadline.

One big reason Kemp could be available is he had a real bad year in 2010, yet his OPS against lefties was .809. The year before it was a David Wright like 1.045.

Kemp can pretty well play any outfield position. He could basically replace Jayson Werth. The Phillies snatched both Werth and Victorino from the Dodgers, it may be time to go for the third grab.

Here's a deal where Matt Rizzotti could come into play. The Dodgers are not real high on James Loney anymore either. His salary has increased a great deal, his power has not.

Rizzotti, one of the Phils A-ball “toolsy” outfielders, a good pitching prospect and a 2^nd rate arm. In other words the Phils would still be alive for a David Wright trade either during this season or this winter.

Option three.

Evan Longoria.

This one isn't going to happen this season. As many know Longoria is signed to probably the sweetest contract in baseball. Longoria knows that better than you or anyone else save for the owners of the Tampa Rays.

And Evan Longoria is not happy about this situation, and a situation it is. Longoria has already made his first public noises about his contract (asking for some fat ($) years to be added on), and that follows a dugout fight with B. J. Upton last year on TV.

Let's look at this contract to see just how bad it is.

Evan Longoria will be paid two million dollars this year. Next year he gets a boost to $4.5 million. So this year and next season together Longoria will get about as much as Polanco gets this year. Then the following year Longoria gets Polanco's salary. Yeah, less than $13 million for the next three years of Longoria.

So you're saying, “but he got security signing that deal”.

Did he? We just went through the security. If Longoria suddenly became a permanently D.L. located player that Tampa wanted to unload we just covered all but $4.5 million of the guaranteed portion of his contract, what he has been paid already over the past two seasons and the $3 million buyout.

Now let's look at what Tampa gets.

Assuming Longoria continues to be the the #1 stud at 3B in all of MLB, Tampa has three options on him for 2014, 15 and 16 for $7.5m, $11m and -finally!- $11.5 million. Three option years for what A-Rod gets paid this year. For eight years of Longoria Tampa has to pay him what A-Rod gets in one and half seasons playing for the Yankees.

Would you play that out?

Longoria was 22 years old when he was talked into signing this deal by an agent who must surely have a fat bank account in the Cayman Islands courtesy of Tampa Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, who got filthy rich at Goldman Sachs.

Longoria's contract has to be the worst ever signed by a player. Just look at the $30 million that a certifiable nut like Milton Bradley received from the Cubs. Longoria's contract is a disgrace, a throwback to the pre-free agent days when players were treated like slaves while the owners made all the money.

The clock is ticking on this one and it won't tick longer than the Winter meetings this year. If Longoria went into Stuart Sternberg's box at the ballpark with a baseball bat and knocked him off his chair, grabbed Stuart Sternberg by the collar, showed him the barrel of the bat and yelled “Are you going to renegotiate my contract, yes or no!” he couldn't lose. Jail time would be minimal, embarrassment for Stuart Sternberg would be huge when taken to trial, and no team would boycott Longoria.

Price to make the trade happen? Brown, Singleton and Sebastian Valle. And the two best pitching prospects. Basically the farm.

The best 3B in baseball won't come cheap.

UPDATE: April 7, 2011

Evan Longoria has gone on the D.L. with an "oblique strain". This is one to watch. Sometimes this type of injury can incapacitate a player for months. The amount of time on the D.L. is often related to how happy or unhappy that player is with his current team.     

Option four.

Hunter Pence.

The question with Pence really is: Does he solve the problem? Pence's OPS against LH pitching last year was .820. For his career it's .842. He'll be 28 years old in 2011.

If you think the answer is yes, well, Ed Wade is the GM, Brett Wallace looks like a 1B failure, and Wade loves “Major League ready” players in a trade. So Matt Rizzotti, one of the good pitching prospects and another pitcher in the second tier of prospects would do it. Heck, Wade might take less than that.

But does that solve the problem?