Yesterday, I looked at the fantastic failure of Sean Newcomb: the starter. Today, I want to go back to how Newcomb came to the Braves and why, despite the anger, the trade that brought him to Atlanta is way too criticized. Of course, as you may remember, the Braves entered a rebuild after the 2014 season and started to shed off most of their young nucleus of talent (Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, and Craig Kimbrel).…
Sean Newcomb is heading to the minors. Well, if there were a minors, he would be headed there. Instead, he’s off to Narnia (a.k.a. the alternate training site for the Braves) after a horrendous outing against the Phillies Monday evening. It could be the final game he ever starts for the team that once traded the uber-popular Andrelton Simmons for him. Newk’s return to the roster is a lot less murky than fellow dismissed rotation…
When the Atlanta Braves announced just a couple of days before Christmas in 2016 that Ender Inciarte had signed a five-year contract extension, there were a lot of attaboys handed out to John Coppolella and his crew. Inciarte, who the Braves acquired in the ridiculous Shelby Miller trade the previous winter, was coming off a 2.9 fWAR season that included a .319 wOBA and some absolutely amazing defensive stats that led to his first Gold…
In this continuing series, I sim the 2020 season with Out of the Park 21 while playing as the Braves general manager. I meant to live-report the Sunday Game of the Week, but forgot to. Hey, I’m allowed to make mistakes. ——————– Well, a 3-1 start isn’t the worst thing by any means. We continue our NL West road trip by heading over to San Diego for a three-game set with the Padres. San Diego…
This is an ongoing look at running the Braves in OOTP 21. I play the GM. My plan is to do one-week updates each time I post. For the most part, I’ll sim each game with small recaps until the Sunday Game of the Week, which I’ll give a live-recap in which I watch and write about the game as it happens. Today, though, I’m only going to do the opening series so I can…
So, this is not an original idea. I’ve seen others doing it – most notably Eno Sarris at The Athletic. The basic premise is this – I’m taking over the Braves in OOTP 21. I won’t mention OOTP when I write these entries because I want this perspective to take place in the OOTP universe. Basically, we’re pretending here. Hey, it’s a pandemic and I need to keep myself busy. I might bring in some…
(I used to do this series back in the earlier days of this of the blog and have decided to bring it back. The basics are simple: I started following the Braves in 1991. In the nearly 30 years since, a lot of players have come through and wore a Braves uniform. Using a random number generator, I find a year from that sample and, after running the generator again, find a player to profile.)…