Hitting The Cutoff Man

Although I've been wrapped up in baseball season for almost a month now, it never quite feels like baseball season until I actually get out to a game. Unfortunately, for the first time in my life I'm not living anywhere near a major league stadium, but on Saturday I made the roughly four-hour trek down to Atlanta for the Braves-Astros game.

Here are some thoughts from my first game of the season and my first experience at Turner Field, a 10-1 win by the Braves.

-- I've now been to 14 active MLB stadiums (and three defunct ones). Although Turner Field certainly wouldn't be at the top of my list -- that's reserved for Fenway, Wrigley, Dodger Stadium, Camden Yards and whatever they're calling the place the Giants play -- I thought it was a very pleasant place to watch a game. My only real complaints were the huge Cartoon Network attraction behind center field that made you wonder if you were at a baseball stadium or an amusement park and the annoying sound effects they played on foul balls into the stands. Oh, and that damn Tomahawk Chop. No offense to the Braves fans out there, but I hate that thing.

-- I still have 16 stadiums I haven't visited yet. Places at the top of my list: Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Kansas City.

-- The highlight of the game for me was Jason Heyward stroking a home run to left-center field. Just a thing of beauty. If you're a fan of the game, no matter what team you root for, you have to just love what this kid is doing. The fact that he is two years younger than me is really giving me some psychological problems, though.

In a related note, I was amazed at how many Heyward jerseys I saw at Turner Field. The guy was playing in his 23rd big league game, and already there were as many of his jerseys as there of Chipper Jones, a guy who's played in Atlanta for 15 years and been the face of the franchise.

-- They have slipped back under the radar since righting the ship after their 0-8 start, but good lord, the Astros are just a terrible baseball team. You can start with the fact that Pedro Feliz, a guy with a career .713 OPS was batting third for them (and yes, the No. 3 spot has been shown to not be as important as many believe, but is that really what Brad Mills was thinking?) They got six hits in the game, none for extra bases. They got thrown out stealing twice, including once when Michael Bourn only got halfway to second when Jeff Keppinger didn't swing the bat on a hit and run play. Their Nos. 3-6 hitters, none of whom are batting above .250, went a combined 1-for-12. They committed two errors in the fifth inning as Atlanta scored three to take a 5-1 lead. It was just one game, sure, but it was a truly ugly performance that certainly couldn't be considered an anomaly.

-- It was nice to see Tim Hudson pitching well, even if he didn't really have command early in the game. It's been kind of a bizarre road for Oakland's old "Big 3" of Hudson, Barry Zito and Mark Mulder. Mulder is done and has been for a while, but it appears Hudson and Zito might be back on the right track after a period of injuries and ineffectiveness.

-- Are we coming to the end of the line for Chipper Jones? He's said he'll retire at the end of this season if he doesn't improve on his 2009, and so far, he hasn't. The problem might be bad-luck fueled, and ZiPS still projects him to finish the year with a .377 wOBA, but it's clear the injuries and age have taken their toll. If this is Larry's final season, I think he's clearly done enough to get to Cooperstown as one of the best offensive third basemen and one of the best switch hitters of all time.

-- David Ross had a good game in this one, filling in at catcher for Brian McCann. He also manged to drive in a run without hitting a homer, which is a relatively rare feat for him. I've always sort of liked Ross since he played for the Dodgers early in his career and had a season in 2003 when he managed to hit 10 home runs with only 18 RBI. That tied him with Wayne Gross of the 1985 Orioles for fewest RBI in a season with 10 or more home runs, although Toronto's Randy Ruiz broke that record last season when he drove in 17 runs on 10 homers. Ross also had back-to-back seasons with Cincinnati in 2006-07 when he drove in a total of 91 runs while hitting 38 long balls.

For the record, Ross currently has 67 career home runs and 178 RBI. Nobody else with that many career homers has fewer than 200 RBI. It's sort of a bizarre record.

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2009: 86-76, 3rd in NL East, Pythagorean record of 91-71.
Key Additions: 1B Troy Glaus, LF Melky Cabrera, RPs Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito
Key Losses: SP Javier Vazquez, RP Rafael Soriano, 1B Adam LaRoche, 2B Kelly Johnson
2010 Projections: PECOTA – 86-76, 2nd in NL East (Wild Card), CHONE – 89-73, 1st in NL East, CAIRO – 84.5-77.5, 2nd in NL East

Pitching: 2009 – FIP of 3.66 (1st in MLB), 3.68 for starters, 3.62 for relievers
2010 – The Braves subtracted Javier Vazquez (traded) but added Tim Hudson (recovered from surgery) and figure to get a full season from youngster Tommy Hanson. Free agent signee Billy Wagner can still get it done as a closer, as long as he stays healthy.
Hitting: 2009 – wOBA of .326 (16th in MLB)
2010 – Getting rid of dead weight in Garret Anderson will help, but is Troy Glaus really the answer at first base? Help from uber-prospect Jason Heyward would provide a much-needed boost.
Fielding: 2009 – UZR of -18.8 (20th in MLB)
2010 – Melky Cabrera is a big upgrade over Anderson in left field. Glaus has played just 38 career innings at first, but moving there from third isn’t usually too strenuous an adjustment.

Reasons to Watch
1. Jason Heyward: As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, history is against a 21-year-old coming up and hitting like a superstar right away. Even most of the great ones struggle some when they’re that young. But for what it’s worth he’s been hot in Spring Training. It will be interesting to see what kind of an opportunity he gets early this season and what he’s able to do with it.
2. Chipper Jones: Could it really be his last season? Jones hasn’t backed off remarks he made after last season saying he would retire if he didn’t improve in 2010. It seems unlikely he would follow through on that, but make sure to appreciate “Larry” this year, just in case.
3. Eric Hinske: Anyone who is willing to spend $5,000 to do this to their own body is worth watching in my book.

Paint By Numbers: Reliver Peter Moylan was the only pitcher in either league last year to pitch more than 50 innings without surrendering a home run. A right-handed sidearmer from Australia, Moylan also put up the fourth-highest ground ball percentage. … Jair Jurrjens had a fantastic 2009, putting up a 2.60 ERA, about a run lower than his 2008 mark. But a .273 BABIP and 3.68 FIP, compared with .311 and 3.59 the previous season, suggest Jurrjens’ great step forward wasn’t as huge as it appeared. … On the other hand, hitters put up a .330 BABIP against Derek Lowe, the fifth-highest mark against any qualified pitcher and much higher than Lowe’s career mark. That luck figures to turn around somewhat.

Blog Jog: Capital Avenue Club explains why Chipper Jones is wrong and the Braves should leave Jason Heyward down on the farm, at least for a couple of weeks. ... CB Wilkins of Talking Chop files this report from Braves minor league camp. ... Atlanta Journal-Constitution beat writer David O’Brien says Tim Hudson was encouraged by his stuff in his last spring start. ... R.J. Anderson of FanGraphs muses on Atlanta’s dependence on injury-prone players and Bobby Cox’s final season as manager.

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Baseball players, particularly ones who have not yet played a Major League game, are often built up to mythic proportions.

It's often said that people fear the unknown, but baseball fans in particular also take the unknown, wrap it in hyperbole and set themselves up for disappointment. Speaking partly from personal experience, I can attest to the fact that fringe prospects can become franchise saviors in a fan's mind.

But what is going on right now with Braves 20-year-old outfield prospect Jason Heyward is something else entirely. Heyward was a first-round pick in 2007, and going into last season, Baseball America rated him the game's No. 5 prospect. Then the 6-foot-4, 220-pound lefty went out and hit .323/.408/.555 at three minor league levels.

Expected to compete for a big league roster spot in Spring Training, Heyward is denting cars in the parking lot of the Braves' facility with his mammoth batting practice shots and drawing comparisons to Hank Aaron.

And so, the myth gains steam.

But is the man equal to the myth, or even in the neighborhood? Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wonders if expectations are too high for the rookie, although he finds Heyward possesses an uncommon maturity that so far has left him unfazed by the attention he's getting.

Still, it's worth wondering, what is a reasonable expectation for Heyward this season?

FanGraphs lists two projections for Heyward, from Bill James and CHONE, and they vary pretty significantly. The James system sees a line of .303/.371/.465, compared with CHONE's much more conservative .258/.324/.416.

Of course, you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt, especially with a rookie whose amount of playing time has not yet been decided.

So I thought it might be informative to look at some other prospects who came up around the same age, and see what they were able to do at the plate as rookies.

Ken Griffey, Jr., 1989, 19 years old -- .264/.329/.420 in 455 AB

Alex Rodriguez, 1994, 19 years old -- .204/.241/.204 in 54 AB.
1995, 20 years old -- .232/.264/.408 in 142 AB.

Andruw Jones, 1996, 19 years old -- .217/.265/.443 in 106 AB
1997, 20 years old -- .231/.329/.416 in 399 AB

Justin Upton, 2007, 20 years old -- .221/.283/.364 in 140 AB

Albert Pujols, 2001, 21 years old -- .329/.403/.610 in 590 AB

That's just a sampling, but it gives you an idea of what Heyward is up against.

He could, as some seem to expect, be another rookie Pujols. It's more likely that he will spend some time in the minors this year and struggle a bit in The Show. That's just how it works -- most of the time.

Then again, there are exceptions, which is what feeds to mythology in the first place. And that's part of what makes baseball great.