Nothing against you N/C/U/ .. but a tout is a tout....i never listen/read or pay attention to them......i work alot of hours trying to make this my living and if i screw up i only want myself to blame..no one else.
thanks though..appreciate the post.
passing on atl/phil matchup tonight....
one scenario:
By subtracting Rocker from the bullpen, and adding righthanders Karsay and Reed, the Braves are down to a single lefty (Mike Remlinger) among their six relievers.
Until another lefthander arrives, Cox is counting on Karsay and Kerry Ligtenberg to get out lefthanded hitters. Karsay has limited lefties to a .217 average, while Ligtenberg has held them to a .222 average.
Jose Cabrera (.250) and even Remlinger (.308) haven't been nearly as effective against lefthanded hitters. Considering his numbers, Reed will be used almost exclusively against righthanded hitters. Lefties have torched him for a .529 average; righties have batted just .149 against him.
Karsay is expected to replace Rocker in the closer's role, but Remlinger said he'd like an opportunity to close some games.
Remlinger had only three career saves before last season, but when he and Ligtenberg shared the role during Rocker's suspension and subsequent demotion, he finished with 12 saves in 16 opportunities.
Perhaps Remlinger is better suited for a setup role. He blew a save in Saturday's 9-3 win over the Mets, allowing a game-tying home run to Desi Relaford in the ninth inning, and is 0-for-3 in save opportunities this season.
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cox had this description for karsay....
Out of his 31 appearances for Cleveland this season, 14 were for more than one inning. He converted his one save chance, while putting up a 1.25 ERA with 44 strikeouts and eight walks in 43 1/3 innings.
The reliever with the mid-90s fastball, a curveball and a split-finger fastball will be called on as the Braves' primary closer and to set up.
"He'll set up every now and then, and he'll close when he can," manager Bobby Cox said. "It's great that way --- do both."
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and then there was this piece on the departure of rocker...
Post-Rocker Syndrome loosens up Braves
Mark Bradley - Staff
Monday, June 25, 2001
Tension is a sneaky thing. Tension accrues in hidden increments. One day you're relaxed and happy, and a month or so later you're snapping at the kids and grinding your molars to the nub. And you don't grasp how frazzled you've become until the source of the tension finally blows away and you take a deep breath and you're stunned by the realization that you haven't felt so free of stress in forever.
Say hello to the Braves without John Rocker. Say hello to a band of professionals who no longer come to work wondering what crisis might hit today. Say hello to 24 guys no longer held hostage by one man's mood swings. Say hello to a team luxuriating in the simple act of breathing.
So long as he was a Brave, Rocker could never be one of 25. He bore heavy baggage and seemed to go out of his way to remind everyone of his burden, which naturally he never saw as self-inflicted. Had the Sports Illustrated article been the last of it, he and the Braves might have been able to coexist. But that wasn't the end. With John Rocker, there's never an end.
He took the ovations that greeted his return as reason to feel emboldened. He saw himself as The People's Champ, saw the media as his sworn enemy. He made a professional workplace his venue for periodic venting. As much as his associates tried to ignore him, they couldn't. Logistics wouldn't let them.
Baseball teams are together from February through October. They travel as a group. They change clothes in the same room. Ballplayers come to know one another in a way that the average office worker will never know the person in the next cubicle. Ballplayers tend to judge each other on the strength of one basic question: "Is he a good guy?" If the answer's yes, they'll extend every benefit of the doubt. But if it's not . . .
The final read on how completely Rocker had divorced himself from his colleagues came in the wake of that brouhaha in Toronto. Tom Glavine plunked Raul Mondesi. Mondesi got mad. Glavine indicated that Mondesi should get serious. Much jawing and posturing ensued, but the matter would have ended had not Rocker thundered in from the bullpen and challenged Mondesi.
Had he been anyone else, Rocker's charge would have been interpreted as one teammate looking out for another --- in sum, a noble thing. The Braves didn't see it that way and said as much. The Braves, having been around Rocker for lo these many months, saw it as just another in a series of psychodramas. They saw it, rightly or wrongly, as having nothing to do with camaraderie and everything to do with one man's excesses.
Rocker wore everyone out. He'd do something and leave others to answer for him. He left the impression that his failures weren't really his failures. Ballplayers hate that. Ballplayers notice when a guy steps forward and says, "I messed up. Put this one on me." Greg Maddux, who has messed up less than any pitcher of this generation, mouths those words all the time. There's no record of Rocker having ever said them.
You can say that this trade makes the Braves a weaker team on paper, and you'd have a case. The Braves now have no established closer. (The Indians, by way of contrast, have two.) But the game, as has been noted, isn't played on paper. It's played by men who ride the same planes and buses, who wear a common uniform. It's played by men who figure to perform better because, as Chipper Jones noted, they can breathe again.
The 2001 Braves were 37-34 with John Rocker. They're 3-0 without him
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