I think we could catch up....if we went on a tear of a life time

 

 

but all be just as happy winning the WC and getting playoff birth.

Allright, look. Before you all get all excited and start berating me for being so bold, just remember one thing. I was the one who started the Wild Card thread back in May. And what I am about to say, I say with the the same spirit.

 

First off, why are the Braves so ridiculously good? Lopez and Castilla have helped out enormously and Cox should be up for manager of the year (if not the past 13 years). This team is a professional ball club. But they are not champions. No, they are not.

 

Call me crazy, but I think we can catch them. Sure, we have our work cut out for us, but we have 7 games against them in Sept. That means potentially making up a 7 game ground. They are 11.5 ahead of us, which means we have to make up 4.5 and sweep the Braves in Sept. Even I dont totally think that could happen, but it is not beyond belief the way this team is playing.

 

I think all we have to do is get to the playoffs and we will take the Braves. Our pitching is just as good, if not better - excepting Smoltz of course. (For example, team ERA: 4.26 to our 4.03) Lets look: Their staff is pretty much Ortiz and Ramirez. Ramirez is quietly putting together one of the better rookie pitching campaigns, and with good reason with D-Train and Webb around. Maddux, Hampton and Reynolds form out the rest of their roster. All very good pros with more past than future. But without Smoltz, they do not have a commanding lead over our division. It is too bad other teams cant have the same success against them we seem to. Statistically, and perhaps I should post it here but not enough room, Willis, Redman and Beckett are all favorable comparisons to Ramirez and Ortiz.

 

Offense? Very good. They have 3 guys who will have more than 30 homers this year, and plenty of guys (4) in that 15+ range. So they have power. AVG? .283 with .828 OPS - for the team. That is ridiculous. But how long do you expect guys like Giles, Castilla, Furcal and even Lopez to continue to provide offense like they have been? I assume they will continue, after all, we have a similar situation here in Miami with some of our hitters putting together good seasons. But I would argue we are not getting career years from some of them, and I even feel we have not hit our peaks with most of them. Cabrera is only beginning. Encarnacion is not quite as good as he could be. Castillo is not the speed demon he was, but is still hitting. Lee is solid, but still short of his potential I feel. Yet weare winning, and doing so at an incredible rate.

 

The Braves, who have all the stats, are not as good as good as they should be. They are beatable. Ironically, it is their pitching that seems to be susceptible to failure. And with that, I think now that more teams are starting to file in here, things will get interesting. Maybe the Braves relax a little and other teams with nothing to lose get more and more dangerous. We could even fade under all this pressure, but I highly doubt it. We have the pitching (healthy for a change), we have the defense, we have all the intangibles and the psychological advantage to make a run. I think this team is good enough not only to get into the playoffs, but to win the division. Our bullpen has gotten remarkably better, in fact dominant, since Urbina has come along.

 

Forgive my rambling, but I think that if we continue to perform as well as we have, the race for our division will get very interesting and the Braves will be feeling the pressure. Who knows, this is baseball.... :confused

I think we could catch up....if we went on a tear of a life time

 

 

but all be just as happy winning the WC and getting playoff birth.

Sorry, but as much as I love this year's team (except Almanza), the Braves would all have to die in a tragic accident for us to catch them. I mean, we're 11 games above .500 already, and we're STILL 12 GAMES BACK!! I hate them. :thumbdown

We cannot catch up but we can coe close. They have very good offense to help there pitching....

chances of catching up to the braves

 

 

200-1 thats maybe being a little to generous

 

 

but as long as their are odds they will be defied, but still i guess FutureGM's right to catch them they'll have to die in a tragic accident

done, someone start division board, actually, i think there may already be one, lets follow this thing, it can happen

I just want to know why are the Braves so good? It seems like teams just fall asleep against them. They have good stats on offense, and even with pitching they are pretty good - but not as good as they have been in the past. It is almost like they have had a roll reversal, but they are still winning. I give credit, and I think Cox is one hell of a manager, but I cant stand them. I am not convinced though that they are as good as their record indicates.

they arent as good as their record....

 

too bad thats all that matters though

unfortunately, we couldnt play em 1st round either...its a shame. We'll have to go through the Giants first.

The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! that was pretty inconceivable, so were the '95 Mariners coming back on the Angels, they were down by 10 games around mid to late August werent they. im not saying its going to happen but stranger things have happened.

Sure would be nice to be the new king of the hill. :shifty

We have a good shot at the Wild Card, but I'm not optimistic about winning the division. This is the Braves we're talking about, they're not just gonna roll over and die in late August-early September. They always seem to find a way to get the job done.

Yeah, they roll over and die in October.

 

Hey, don't you think the rest of baseball will be pulling for us if the last week of the regular season we are 2 games back of the division and about to push the braves back to the Wild Card? End the damn Brave reign of terror already.

Hey, don't you think the rest of baseball will be pulling for us if the last week of the regular season we are 2 games back of the division and about to push the braves back to the Wild Card? End the damn Brave reign of terror already.

Maybe Boston can push the Yankees back to the Wild Card, too.

 

Hell, then we could face the Red Sox in the World Series! Re-match!

 

:mischief2 I've been having too much Robitussin

so are we gonna start updating the division thread again????????

so are we gonna start updating the division thread again????????

Consider it done. :thumbup

its really not as hardto atch them as you guys think. we have 7 games with them in sept. dont expect a total sweep of them, if we dont get the sweep chances of catching them are very low. but thats ok we gotta just worry about this wild card.

 

if today was the all star break then yea maybe we could have a legit chance of catching them, but i am fine with taking the wildcard.

why would we need to catch the Braves anyway?

 

jonnylons i would give you more credit but i get the distinct feeling that we could be trailing the 1927 Yankees and you'd still be saying how they're not all that great & the Marlins could beat them.

 

not like i don't enjoy the enthusiasm though. :thumbup

nah hotcorner i'm almost 99% they would catch them. but we dont need to catch them, let them win the damn division.

 

they'll look all cutewhen they win over 100 games. but the braves know, " watch the f*** out if you meet up with the marlins in the playoffs"

 

seriously they know not to f*** with us

Braves choke in the playoffs anyways.

According to Bill James's Pythagorean Theorem of Baseball, which accounts runs scored and runs allowed into a formula to calculate expected wins and losses, the Braves are playing 7 games better than they should be...

Since divisional play began in 1969, no team has ever overcome an 11-game deficit this late in the season to win a division (that includes the '95 Mariners). The Braves are not catchable.

Hotcorner, I only think we can catch the Braves because this team is damn good. I said that at the beginning of the year though. In fact, the way the Marlins are playing now, one would have to think they are a team of destiny or something. We may not catch the Braves, but only because we had a bad start. Huge injuries and a bullpen meltdown. The Braves are not a great ballclub.

 

Thanks Markkotsay for that James stat. I dont put so much faith in stats (which is why W/Ls are not all that matters Ramp - until the big W, World Series, of course :w00t ) but I think that is a safe way to articulate that the Braves are far exceeding their potential given their current production. And seven games over an anticipated production level would be very interesting because we play the Braves 7 times in Sept.

 

My point is this, why not try and go for winning the NL East? If nothing else, you fall short and still make the Wild Card. But more importantly, you generate a belief throughout this team - which they now have, despite some of you more skeptical fans - that this team is very, very good and should win the division. They build momentum. This team is just as good, at the very least, as the Braves. I wouldnt be saying this if this team did not have the potential, despite what some (Hotcorner) might think.

So what would the Marlins have to do differently to switch gears and go for the NL East? Win more?

P.S. Catching up with a team is more than just having a great team yourself. You need luck. You need the team ur trying to catch, to play 11 games worse than you. So, as good as we have been playing, the Braves have had just as good a record (regardless of if you think they aren't playing as well as us).