The Launching Pad

The Challenge

2005-03-24T23:34:00.000-06:00

Aaron Gleeman presented this challenge over at his blog: put your iTunes on shuffle and list the first 40 songs that come up, regardless of how bad they might be. Here's mine:

Artist - Song
1. Listen - Collective Soul
2. Queen of the Highway - The Doors
3. Roll With It - Oasis
4. All My Loving - The Beatles
5. The Gnome - Pink Floyd
6. Alien Orifice - Frank Zappa
7. She's A Fox - Jimi Hendrix
8. Screw Face - Bob Marley & the Wailers
9. Further On Up the Road - Eric Clapton
10. Wasting My Time - White Stripes
11. Slip Slidin' Away - Paul Simon
12. Santeria - Sublime
13. Toys - Herbie Hancock
14. Actual Proof - Herbie Hancock
15. Sweet Thang - Jimi Hendrix
16. Big Boss Man - Grateful Dead
17. Walking on the Moon - The Police
18. Quiet - John Mayer
19. Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
20. Young Lust - Pink Floyd
21. Rastaman Chant - Bob Marley & the Wailers
22. Friend is a Four-Letter Word - Cake
23. Downtown Assassins - Snoop Dogg
24. What Is and What Should Never Be - Led Zeppelin
25. 2000 Light Years From Home - Rolling Stones
26. Bwana Dik - Frank Zappa
27. Elvis Imitators - Jimmy Buffett
28. Worried Life Blues - Eric Clapton
29. KRS-One - Sublime
30. From a Buick 6 - Bob Dylan
31. Life Is Real - Mos Def
32. Turn Me On - Norah Jones
33. Five to One - The Doors
34. Ticket to Ride - The Beatles
35. Absolutely Zero - Jason Mraz
36. Down to the Waterline - Dire Straits
37. The Great Filling Station Holdup - Jimmy Buffett
38. Power of Love - Gary Wright
39. Love is Alive - Gary Wright
40. Life is a Carnival - The Band

My initial reaction is that I don't seem to have that much variety considering that I have over 6200 songs in my library. Only two hip-hop songs? Kind of weird considering how much I listen to. Likewise with the jazz. Another thing that jumps out at me is how obscure some of it is, which I guess shows how much I listen to entire albums, not just the singles. Anyway, I'm hoping to have that Marcus Giles post up tomorrow sometime, but whether or not that really happens remains to be seen...

Looking Ahead, Part II: Adam LaRoche

2005-03-16T19:36:00.000-06:00

I think I'll attribute the one-month gap between postings to mounting schoolwork and other various, time-consuming activities (knowing full well that me being lazy as rip doesn't help much). In order to catch up, I'm going to try to utilize this break from school to knock out the rest of my pre-season prediction for the Bravos. That said, let us begin the rest of our whirlwind journey to the regular season with our young first-sacker, Adam LaRoche.

Adam LaRoche - First Base
Age: 25
ML Experience: 1 season
2004 Line: .278/.333/.488; AB - 324; OPS - 821; BB - 27; SO - 78

I think that these words sum up LaRoche best:

"And then he just raked. He just hit the ball all over the park."

Those sentiments from Cardinals 1B Albert Pujols on LaRoche in college. He goes on to say that he thinks LaRoche is going to have a "good year" (you can find the rest of the article here). What's more, it just so happens that I agree with good ol' Albie (don't call him that to his face) on the issue. After the All-Star break, in fact, LaRoche did rake, posting .302/.368/.576 with 10 homers in 172 ABs. I'd absolutely love it if he could extend that production over a full season, but I really don't think that it's in the realm of possibility, since most of that boost can be attributed to LaRoche getting outrageously hot during September and October (.347/.390/.680!!). However, that kind of offense obviously denotes his enormous potential as a young player, and, at the very least, should tell Bobby that LaRoche does not need to be platooned. The two big weaknesses I remember hearing about him at the beginning of the season were a) his ability to turn on the inside fastball and b) his ability to consistently hit lefties. As for the former, if the inside fastball was his "commonly known" weakness, don't you think pitchers would have thrown that at him during the second half? Exactly. Concerning his ability to hit lefties, I would once again point at a stat line: .286/.375/.571 against LH in that same second half (only 14 AB, though, take it for what it's worth). I think the kid has earned a chance for us to see what he can do against lefties in a consistent role. Additionally, I seem to remember reading somewhere that he learned to hit from his father in a batting cage at his home. His dad is former Yankee left-hander and "LaLob" thrower Dave LaRoche. Ergo, I'd say that he'd be able to adapt to those left-handed breaking balls much more easily than most people seem to give him credit for. Moving LaRoche to this everday role would have the added benefit of keeping Julio on the bench for the pinch-hitting role he's adopted so well. In addition, from what I've seen, Adam just looks like a better defensive option at first base. That's not to say that Julio is a liability, but Adam, I think, is much better. UZR ratings for 2004 aren't around yet (at least, I can't find them), but LaRoche just edges out Julio in Range Factor per 9 (both of them coming out just above the league average). Tangotiger's Fan Scouting Report bears this out, with Adam rating much higher than Franco in all categories except throwing accuracy, which I wouldn't consider as important at first base as it is at other positions. In short, LaRoche deserves the everday starting spot at first base. I think he'll put up something like .290/.360/.430, which is obviously a very rough projection (too bad I'm far too cheap to subscribe to Baseball Prospectus and get some PECOTA numbers and far too lazy to go get Marcel from Tangotiger). Those obviously aren't the usual power numbers expected from a first baseman, but I'll still take it. Next up, Marcus Giles (hopefully tomorrow).

Looking Ahead, Part I: Johnny Estrada

2005-02-11T15:10:00.000-06:00

Well, after my somewhat abortive attempt to start this thing up this past weekend, I'm just now getting around to putting some thoughts to paper (or text box, I guess). This series is going to look at the prospective Braves starters for the upcoming year and what kind of production we can expect from them. First to the chopping block: Johnny Estrada, star of CHiPs (ahh, late 70's television...thank you Nick-at-Nite).

Johnny Estrada - Catcher
Age: 29
ML Experience: 1 full season (3 partial seasons)
2004 Line: .314/.378/.450; AB – 462; OPS – 828; BB – 39; SO - 66

Estrada’s 2004 made John Schuerholz look like a genius, plain and simple. Way back when, during that infamous 2002 off-season where we saw Greg Maddux accept arbitration, forcing us to allow Glavine to defect to the Mets and trade for Russ Ortiz (both of which make me shudder, the latter more so than the former), JS had to cut payroll and offload Millwood (then a fairly promising starter) on the unsuspecting Phils. Estrada had seen some limited time with the Phillies prior to the trade and hadn’t really impressed all that much, posting a mediocre .228/.273/.359 in 298 ABs in 2001 and an even worse .118/.211/.176 in 17 ABs in 2002 (yes, I am aware that 17 ABs doesn’t really mean much, but still, that’s abysmal). Needless to say, the Phillies didn’t see any reason to keep an apparently below-average, slap-hitting backup catcher around, especially since Mike Lieberthal already had the starting job wrapped up quite nicely, thank you very much. So they “foisted” him off on JS, who had his hands tied with payroll issues. Lucky for us our GM is, shall we say, a bit more perceptive than most other baseball execs give him credit for (seriously, when will people learn not to trust any pitchers that JS offers to trade? Damian Moss, Kevin Millwood, Adam Wainwright…the list is endless; Milwaukee and Oakland better start observing Capellan and Meyer very closely, is all I’m saying). Estrada, prior to his initial cup of coffee in Philly, had put up some pretty decent numbers down on the farm. Observe.

Looking at those minor league stats, it seems as if Estrada suffered from a run of bad luck when he was called up for the Phillies. He’s obviously a better hitter than the guy they saw in 2001-02. He displayed the ability from very early on to hit for average, which is essentially what we saw in Atlanta last year, combined with doubles power (36). When all is said and done, I think I’ll take that from our catcher. He apparently knows how to put the ball in play with runners in scoring position, but we should definitely expect a drop-off from last season’s astronomical .338/.415/.525. I think he’ll be pretty solid this year, but not an All-Star. He’s 29 years old and, at this stage, is essentially keeping Brian McCann’s spot warm (he’s expected in 2006). Numbers-wise, I think we can realistically expect a decent average, figure .285+. As a result of that, his OBP ought to slip a little bit too. In fact, I think the second-half Estrada put up should be a fairly apt indicator for 2005: .290/.372/.410. That’s it for this installment; next up: Adam LaRoche.

Getting Started

2005-02-05T13:21:00.000-06:00

I've noticed over the past year-and-a-half or so that our unheralded Braves Nation (if the Red Sox can have a "Nation" tag, why can't we?) is sorely under-represented in the baseball blogging community. Aside from the stand-outs at Bravesbeat.com, in fact, it seems as though quality Braves sites are virtually non-existent. I don't pretend to be the best writer in the world, nor do I presume that my efforts here will be of higher caliber than other blogs (although I am hoping for some semblance of quality), but I do feel as though this great dynasty of ours (not to mention our equally great fan base) deserves more in terms of online discourse. With that in mind, I'm setting out to strengthen the voice of the Braves alternate media community. Please feel free to comment on my attempts at this (but, I beg you, please keep the comments civil); any feedback would be greatly appreciated. So, let the blogging begin...and Go Braves!!