Braden Scores Perfect A

It’s funny how baseball keeps producing stories with a Hollywood like quality. Dallas Braden a left handed pitcher for the Oakland A’s woke up on Sunday as a slightly obscure but entertaining young man who came to national prominence not for his pitching but his confrontation of Alex Rodriguez after the Yankee star ran across his mound in a recent game at the Oakland Coliseum. Braden went to bed last night as the first Athletic since ‘Catfish’ Hunter in 1968 to throw a perfect game.

Flashback to the A’s game with the Yankees the day that Braden chewed out A-Rod and the signs of something good are all over the game. In six illness ridden innings he held the sports best offense to two solo home runs and displayed all the competitiveness and toughness often shown by his opponent that day, Cy Young winner CC Sabathia. Against the Yankees he could only throw eighty one pitches and had to take an IV shot after the game to counter the sickness that had put him on an inning-to-inning basis. After that victory why would Braden be concerned about facing any team, especially an AL East power like the Rays who, by the way, wouldn’t run across the mound.

Few people outside of Stockton, California really knew who Dallas Braden was before this year; even those in Oakland seemed somewhat dismissive of him. After all he’s a 24th round draft pick, yes round 24 not 24th overall, from Texas Tech whose fastball struggles to reach 89 miles per hour. To the people of Stockton however he is the star of this team. If you doubt this watch the game footage and look at the shots of section 209, the Stockton area code. It was packed more than any other section of the Coliseum with people wanting to watch Braden, a native who has never left his roots behind. Even at the completion of his historic feat he was more concerned with representing his city than hugging team mates; it was a desperate fight through grinning guys in green to point at section 209.

One person from Stockton watching the game was more important than any other to the 26 year old pitcher. Peggy Lindsey is the lady who has looked after Braden since his mother, Jodie Atwood, died of Melanoma whilst Dallas was still a senior in High School. All the more fitting then that the nineteenth perfect game in major league history should happen on Mother’s Day. After the final groundout Braden pointed to the sky and shared an emotional embrace with his grandmothers in front of the Athletics dugout. It was an intensely personal moment in the middle of a world wide event that should remind everybody of the beautifully human element that only sports can genuinely deliver.

On a larger scale the Oakland Athletics finally have something to show for the Billy Beane rebuilding job as he the franchise tries to become competitive again. Of the players the GM has bought in to turn the A’s around Braden is not the one who should have thrown a perfect game. Having spent an uncharacteristic amount of money on Ben Sheets as a free agent and groomed Brett Anderson the last two years to be his ace the Athletics are beginning to look stacked on the mound, especially with Justin Duchscherer on the disabled list and closer Andrew Bailey there is suddenly an abundance of pitching talent in the Bay area that has the ability to make this franchise very, very good. Braden was not expected to be the brightest to burn but this could be the event that makes Oakland significant again.

There was one perfect game in 2009 and now we have one in 2010 and both were great events to see for almost everyone in baseball, except the Tampa Bay Rays. This was the third time in their history Tampa Bay has been no-hit and the second time in two seasons after Mark Buehrle did it in Chicago last year. Most surprising is that both the 2009 and 2010 Rays are and were outstanding offensive clubs, this is not the floundering Devil Rays of pre-2008, this is a new breed of elite hitters who rank third overall and second in the AL in runs scored. So why has it happened to this team twice in twelve months? Because Dallas Braden and Mark Beuhrle each possess a fastball that tops out in the high 80’s and work on guile and deception. Tampa Bay is conditioned on the power pitchers of the AL East, the Josh Beckett’s and CC Sabathia’s of this world who have an extra 10 mph on their heaters. Both Beuhrle and Braden struck out 6 batters, not the kind of number you’d expect from a no-hitter, but one that tells the story of the guy they faced. Because of the drop in speed the Rays were unable to adjust their approach for the single game and were swinging early at almost everything they saw, inducing more groundouts and leaving the perfecto as much in the defences hands as the pitchers. It is not surprising that the iconic final out of both games were grounders to shortstop for the simple 6-3 force.

Regardless of how Dallas Braden’s 2010 season turns out, and that might yet include a impromptu boxing match with A-Rod, he has firmly cemented himself a place in Oakland A’s history. He has done it with the kind of personality and character distinctly lacking on the big teams from the east that he repeatedly upsets. He is regarded as a unique individual in the organisation, displaying the intangibles not often displayed by major leaguers, especially ones in only their fourth major league season. He will undoubtedly continue ruffling the glamorous feathers of the other American League birds that land in his coup at the Coliseum this year and will be the abrasive kind of guy that television networks love. For Oakland he will simply be the blue collar guy playing green collar baseball, and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Building for Yesterday and Tomorrow

What began as a team built to win now has quickly become one built to win yesterday and tomorrow, just not today. While dinosaurs like Troy Glaus and Chipper Jones (yes a Chiposauraus) have ensured the middle of the line-up has exactly zero production something strange has been happening elsewhere; the Braves have got younger and better. Over the first 6 weeks of the season there have been four young men making debuts, to make that even better is the fact that 3 of those actually project to be long term members of the team. It is very difficult to have any discussion about the new breed of baby Braves without starting by talking about the Kid, Jason Heyward.

Nothing in my limited lexicon can explain the impact that the 20 year-old from Henry County has had not just on this team but on the city of Atlanta. Watching Opening Day at the usually cavernous Turner Field was an experience usually reserved for cities like New York and Boston, the Ted was filled by a loud crowd filled with hope and expectation. And Heyward delivered. Since his first major league swing demolished a Carlos Zambrano fastball J-Hey has kept delivering for a team that so far hasn't delivered. As well as his raw talent he has shown an incredible ability to adjust to the highest level of competition. In his last ten games he has improved his batting average from .234 to .291; he has also hit 4 homers in that same period. Without any doubt Heyward is the present and future of this Atlanta team desperately in search of an identity.

Heyward will need some help to fashion this new Braves ball era and there is plenty coming through the organisation. As has become the Braves trademark the majority of their young talent sits on the mound and not at the plate. The most talented of this year’s debutants is highly touted reliever Craig Kimbrel. The flame thrower out of Huntsville, Alabama has been described as many things, most impressively “the right handed Billy Wagner”. With a fastball that sits in the mid to upper 90’s he has the kind of stuff that gives hitters fits and has done so in his 1.1 innings so far this season. Beyond his ability Kimbrel has the attitude to be successful for many years at the major league level. Backed by his heater and despite his somewhat diminutive stature he has shown an ability to be aggressive to even the best hitters. Hopefully he can spend the 2010 season shadowing the veteran Virginian, Wagner, and learn how elite closers get to be elite.

Kimbrel was preceded in the Atlanta bullpen by 25-year-old rookie Jonny Venters who joined the Braves ‘pen as the final nail in Jo-Jo Reyes’ major league career, and quickly showed he was a much sharper nail. So far he has completed 11 innings in eight games and compiled a 1.69 ERA and looked every bit a big leaguer. Regardless of whether or not Kimbrel becomes a dominant closer he will be no use if the team can’t get him leads and that will increasingly become Venters job. He kind of came out of nowhere but has now become a central piece of the over burdened relief corps and been as quietly effective as anyone could have imagined.

The least heralded and least used of the debutants so far has been shortstop Brandon Hicks. A gold glove in waiting Hicks has never really adjusted to the wood bats of pro ball having hit just .179 at triple-A Gwinnett this year. Hicks is the least likely to succeed especially given the relative solidity of Yunel Escobar as the Braves long term short, but that doesn’t mean he should be counted out. There is always the possibility that Hicks is just one adjustment away from being a solid hitter but projects much better as a career pinch runner. Although we do keep playing Brooks Conrad so anything is possible.

When you add the likes of Heyward and Kimbrel to the young players who made their debuts last year we suddenly have a core of all-star potential players. Those from last year include Cy Young in waiting Tommy Hanson, who has already confirmed himself as the Braves staff ace, and future starter Kris Medlen. The two Californians have shown the ability to be true quality pitchers, despite Medlen working primarily as a reliever for his first two big league years. However with the over-priced Kenshin Kawakami’s contract finally ending at the end of the year the Braves will have a spot free in the rotation and, in my opinion, the team is better off inserting Medlen as the fifth starter and spending the KK money on a genuine hitter. The world has seen what Phil Hughes has achieved for the New York Yankees this year with the prior knowledge that he would be a starter and, even if he is not as talented, Medlen could be equally as effective with the correct preparation. While Tommy hasn’t been great this year he has still compiled a 2.83 ERA while struggling to find the consistency he displayed last year. Hanson is much more than simple statistics, there are times watching Hanson when he just over matches professional hitters, his curveball has an embarrassment inducing quality that only elite pitchers possess. My praise for Hanson and Medlen is without once mentioning that last year’s standout Jair Jurrjens is himself only 24 and has just as much chance as Hanson to win a Cy. The most successful years in the organisations history was behind three great pitchers, the question is are these three great?

It is also worth remembering two of the Braves best current players are both 26-years-old. Second Baseman Martin Prado and Catcher Brian McCann should be solid .300 hitters for at least the next five years or so. The good news for all Braves fans is that Atlanta seem to have loaded up for years of success in the near future, the bad news is it is not near enough for 2010, sorry Bobby.

The Usual Suspects?

The SEC is annually the strongest conference in college baseball and 2010 is proving to be no different. Just when there seemed to be some separation last week the waters became more muddied this past weekend with almost every series being a big one. With various RPI and polls there are only two irrelevant teams left in the conference in the two Bulldogs of Georgia and Mississippi State, who could have predicted those two schools would be the also ran’s? Most people seem to think that the SEC will get 9 schools to regional’s this year, that’s one more than will compete in the conference tournament at the end of the month. With Hoover so close I wanted to try and break down who will go and who might win.

Fourteen days ago the obvious choice was the LSU Tigers, the defending national champions who are loaded with Juniors and Seniors who have done all this before. Players like Matt Gaudet, Blake Dean and Micah Gibbs carried the team in hitting while the pitching staff, including top 5 draft prospect Anthony Ranaudo, were projecting to at least compete with Texas to be the best in the country. The last two weeks has seen that all unravel with the Bayou Bengals dropping seven in a row and being swept in two consecutive SEC series. The first to Ole Miss was seen more as a blip than a problem, all good teams lose series and Oxford is a very difficult place to go in any sport but being swept by Florida in Gainesville this weekend has really set the alarm bells ringing for Paul Manieri’s side. What has let the Tigers down is the pitching that they had so much faith in and especially their ace Ranaudo. After sitting the first month of the season with a stress reaction in his shoulder he was expected to come back and carry this team to their second consecutive national title, instead in his seven games back he has gone 2-2 with a 7.30 ERA. More worrying than that have been his performances in big games, first in one of the most hyped NCAA pitching match-ups in recent memory Ranaudo faced Ole Miss stud Drew Pomeranz on national television and got lit up lasting only 1.2 innings and giving up 9 runs on 9 hits. One week later trying to right the ship against the Gators he went only 2 innings giving up 4 runs on 6 hits. I honestly don’t think this team is good enough to win the SEC this year for the simple fact they have no clutch pitching behind Matty Ott (who himself got lit up Sunday) and Georgia has proven this year you don’t win much without pitching.

So if not LSU who? Friday I would have said without hesitation Arkansas was not only the best team in the conference but in the country. They were riding the hot hand pitcher on Fridays in Drew Smyly and have the most explosive offensive many of who have experience of the College World Series last year. Auburn, a really strong team themselves, made all those things look very difficult to justify this weekend. The Razorbacks headed home looking to bounce back after last weekend’s 2-1 series loss to Florida and promptly dropped two games again, even being out-slugged by a powerful Tiger team in the rubber match Sunday. I still think the Hogs are the strongest team in the SEC but they really need a good run down the stretch to get the crucial national seed. If they slip up the team most likely to take advantage are the Ole Miss Rebels who have been quietly taking care of business this year. In Drew Pomeranz they have a pitcher that Keith Law of ESPN thinks is a top 5 draft pick and are beginning to build consistency hitting the ball, their 10 game winning streak reflects this. The winner of this weekend’s series in Oxford could very well have the inside track to winning the SEC West and securing a national seed, but it has far more short-term implications. Friday night could decide who the best pitcher in the West is, Pomeranz or fellow Drew Smyly, and the rest of the weekend will be all about who swings the bats best. The winners of this series I predict will win the College World Series in Omaha, but not the SEC championship.

The two favourites right now have to be the leading teams in the East, those being Florida and the incredibly impressive Gamecocks of South Carolina. These two don’t have the super stud pitching possessed by teams in the West by they both have very solid rotations with USC posting the second best mark in the conference at 3.64 and Florida fourth best with a 4.06 ERA. What is key to the offenses is not their explosiveness, like the Razorbacks, but their timeliness and clutch hitting. With the combined pitching and timely hit the Eastern powers have put together SEC best records of 16-5 and 15-6 respectively, best of all they face each other in the final series of the regular season in Columbia, a series shaping up to be a three game play-off for the SEC regular season crown. If they continue to take care of business in the conference tournament it could be a dress rehearsal for the championship game at the end of the month.

Harper a lock?

With the NFL draft having just finished with all the surprises and drama a draft should provide, toying with the lives of young men is always more fun than it should be. Unfortunately the Major League Baseball draft doesn’t pack the same punch as its football brethren, but that doesn’t mean that people like me can’t be lone voices in the dark. This is not a mock draft, just a small disclaimer, it is more like a draft profile, hopefully I will know enough by June to provide a mock draft of sorts. With their annual first pick is the Washington Nationals having used it, and $15 million, on right hander Stephen Strasburg last year and so far it looks like a great pick. He is currently 2-0 with an 0.73 ERA at AA level, where he won’t be pitching for very long. So with that and other young pieces such as Ryan Zimmerman this year’s pick is huge for the Nats, given that they seem to be building something in DC. The consensus number one pick is Junior College hitting phenom Bryce Harper. His numbers are completely eye boggling and he has already been labelled the “LeBron James of baseball” by Sports Illustrated, in case you haven’t noticed LeBron is pretty good. The trouble with the catcher is that he is only 17, digest that for a second and think what you were doing as a 17-year-old. Looking at colleges, chasing girls/boys, rebelling against society, the things normal kids aged 17 do. Most don’t leave High School as a Junior to attend JuCo with the intention of getting a professional job at 17. Almost nobody does it to get a job in which you will likely become a multi-millionaire overnight, his numbers and profile would likely mean he would get a contract similar to Strasburg’s. That would give him to the Nats for four years meaning he would be 21 when his first contract expired, which would be about the same time he got his first call from the Yankees offering the big bucks. From what I’ve seen of Harper his confidence touches arrogance more often than not, a trait that Nationals really don’t need, and his age makes it impossible for him to act as a mature adult, especially when he’s been paid.

Despite the huge upside to Harper I’m of the belief that he should not go number one in June, not because of any talent flaws and only because of a couple of character flaws, but most of all because of the Nationals needs. Having picked up Strasburg last year they have a staff ace for the next fifteen years but don’t have much behind that. The NL East, more than any other division is a pitching division, just look at the teams that have been successful the last two decades. Obviously the Atlanta Braves are the prime example after the Glavine-Smoltz-Maddux era, but now we are seeing it with the Phillies and how important the Cliff Lee trade was last year in wrapping up the division and going to the World Series. The 2010 draft class doesn’t have any exceptional arms like last year’s number one pick, but it does possess two high quality college pitchers who could easily be quality second starters for the Nationals. Anthony Ranaudo of LSU and Drew Pomeranz at Ole Miss are separating themselves at the top of this year’s pitchers class, Ranaudo has only just returned from a shoulder injury and until Saturdays game with Ole Miss looked the pitcher everyone thought I don’t think are proven enough to be the number one pick. While I don’t think the Nats will pass on Harper it seems to make more sense to me for the Nationals to build a ten year rotation before building their offense. Regardless of who they take it will be a good draft for all teams in the top five this year as all five, Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Kansas City and Cleveland, will all be able to fill needs that will improve their teams.

Time Out

I will be taking a few weeks off from blogging until my thesis is wrapped up I can provide interesting opinions not formulated half way between sanity and sleep. Hopefully I will be able to write a wonderfully researched, interesting blog around April 30th. Until then Go Braves, Go Dawgs, Go Jackets and, just to shake it up, Go Hawks!

Dominant Deck and the Swarming Jackets

Welcome to the ever evolving world of my college baseball blog. So far I’ve dropped Georgia State from weekly mention despite the fact they have had a solid season. The University of Georgia is now making it very hard to make a weekly analysis possible, mainly because of the Southeastern Conferences crazed money grabbing ($85.95 annually to listen to the games?!). It’s difficult to make numbers exciting for either me or you but I will continue to try in a scaled down manner. Luckily for me the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets make following NCAA baseball fun and easy and have pushed themselves to the forefront of my baseball writing. (Disclaimer: I cannot stand the Yellow Jacket football team but everything has its floors.) Anyway on to the weekend review.

The aforementioned Yellow Jackets travelled up to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to face a very solid Tar Heel team who, going into the weekend, were ranked #19 in the country. Friday night set up and elite ACC pitching match-up between UNC’s Matt Harvey and Jacket ace Deck McGuire. The game became the pitching duel it was supposed to be and McGuire came out the winner. Last week’s loss at Maryland is quickly proving an aberration with Deck now at 4-1 with 1.17 ERA with 49 strikeouts in 46 innings. While LSU’s Anthony Ranaudo has only thrown seven innings so far this year McGuire is establishing himself as the number one draft prospect this year, any MLB team that gets McGuire will be lucky and will have an incredible pitcher who impresses me more every time I see or hear anything of him. While Friday was all about the guys on the mound Saturday and Sunday became a hitting showcase. Usually this would result in fickle old me bashing Brandon Cumpton and Jed Bradley in an unfair way, instead I’m going to ignore those two outings and just try and convey how incredible the Jacket line-up is this year. From Jeff Rowland at the top through to Brandon Thomas at the bottom there is average and power but it is the middle of the order that has most impressed so far. When you start with co-ACC player of the week Derek Dietrich batting second and hitting .363 on the year with 6 home runs it makes the 3-4-5 guys jobs so much easier. Those 3 have been Tony Plagman, Cole Leonida and Matt Skole and thos 3 have been awesome. Senior first-baseman has been .333 with 27 RBI’s and a team leading 9 homers and is playing as well as any other first-baseman in the country, especially with his .1000 fielding percentage. If Plagman is playing the prototypical first base role the Leonida is going above and beyond as a clean-up hitter, his team leading 33 RBI’s goes to prove that. Behind him Matt Skole has had an incredible break-out Sophomore year, better than anyone could have expected. When you look across the board and see his .393 average, 6 dingers and 25 RBI’s Skole is fast tracking himself to MVP status when you think he could be playing in Atlanta for two more years.

On Sunday the Yellow Jackets played really bad baseball for the first eight innings with pitching and hitting deserting the team. Then game the ninth inning and the real Georgia Tech. As soon as Derek Dietrich came out of his phone box the power surged through the line-up. With Tech scoring five runs in the top of the ninth it proved an awful lot about the Yellow Jackets and quieted a lot of the doubters. With the guts they showed Tech moved to 21-2 on the season and number 2 in the USA Today/ESPN coaches’ poll. Tonights game with Georgia State should be a humdinger with the two offences on the field. This kind of game makes Atlanta seem a lot further away than it actually is, and that’s still a long way.

News Flash

This blogger interrupts your week to bring you some shocking news: the University of Georgia baseball team is bad. Unfortunately Coach Perno has run out of excuses within the first month of the season. Going into this season the Dogs were relying on a lot of Freshmen and Sophomores to develop a an almost unimaginable rate, the projected infield is a perfect example. The plan was to have an infield of So Chase Davidson at first, So Levi Hyams at second, Fr Kyle Farmer at shortstop and So Colby May at third. The Diamond Dogs have played exactly ZERO games with those 4 in the team. Colby May is the only one to have played in all games and hasn’t exactly impressed hitting .221 with 3 home runs which is redeemed somewhat by his 17 RBI’s. The lack of consistency on the infield hasn’t helped the Dawg defence, currently fielding at .961 with 29 errors, not exactly how you win SEC games. While the offence is based on the production of the Sophomores and Freshmen the pitching was supposed to be able to rely on one Senior and one Junior in Jeff Walters and Justin Grimm, like most other areas of the team it hasn’t exactly worked out. Grimm is now 1-2 on the season with a 5.16 ERA this is positively outstanding in comparison to his Senior teammate Walters; 0-2 with a 9.58 ERA. Last week I wrote about how the Bulldogs played with guts in their game against Georgia Tech against Auburn at the weekend they showed none, especially on Friday and Sunday when they were completely shelled and didn’t look like they could do anything to stop it. They need to stop this scary slump before the weekend series with Mississippi State.

Despite another series win and now being ranked number 3 in the nation by USA Today the weekend series win over Maryland was still a little disappointing on account of Friday nights loss. As the guys on the Baseball America Top 25 podcast pointed out Tech should not be losing games to teams like Maryland, more to the point Deck McGuire should not lose to teams like Maryland. The sense of disappointment after a road series win highlights how far apart Tech and Georgia are at the moment. Another one of the reasons is that Tech is able to rely on the hitting of Juniors and Seniors like Cole Leonida, Derek Dieterich, Chase Burnette and Tony Plagman. That’s a strong middle order of guys all hitting over .300 and all with double figures in RBI’s which is championship calibre production. The Yellow Jackets have reached a level of play that could see them not being challenged until they visit Virginia on April 9th by which time they could believably be at 25 wins on the season. As well as team recognition two Jackets are now being recognised for their individual success, Junior pitcher Deck McGuire had been named on the initial watch list for the 2010 Pitcher of the Year award to be announced in July. Shortstop Derek Dietrich has also been nominated on the watch list for the Wallace Award for the nations best shortstop, Derek finished as a semi-finalist for the award last year. These two awards are just more evidence that this Tech team is built to succeed.

SEC Notes
The more I follow NCAA baseball the more I learn and the first weekend of SEC play taught me an awful lot. Here are just a few observations.
• Florida are quickly looking like an elite team, sweeping Mississippi State in Gainesville this week helped the Gators move to 16-3 on the season and behind an incredibly clutch line-up and solid pitching they seem to be the number one team in the nation.
• The Arkansas-LSU series this weekend provided some of the most gripping action of this young season and could easily be a dress rehearsal for the College World Series. LSU expects to have ace Anthony Ranaudo back at the weekend but even he may have been outdueled by Razorback senior Mike Bolsinger.
• The weekend series victories for Ole Miss and Alabama showed these two teams are for real and their series against Florida and Arkansas respectively will really give us an idea of where everyone stands in the SEC.