The Ted Turner Memoirs VII. - The Point Of No Return

[lilbiggio]

Quote: Originally Posted by OliDegu2008

Love your stories and posts! Looking forward to many more.

Thanks man for checking in always room at the table for one more bro.

Quote: Originally Posted by xboxxerx

Just came back to the forums after a 7 month hiatus. 1st thing I looked for of course was to see if you had a new Turner Memoirs going or not Lilbiggio. As always, your work is awesome. Looking forward to seeing if the Boys in Cobb County can do work this season.

I appreciate that kind word right there. It's definitely been going for a while. I think The Memoirs kicked off with an Ice Cold beer in 2010.. which I can't believe has been 5 years running with the boys from Cobb County..

That's adds up to a whole lot of Braves baseball Willis.


Now I do really wish I could update it as often as I used to back in the good ol days, weekly updates ain't cool.. and those Olympic breaks are pretty rough to keep anyone outside of a true devoted Braves fan interested... but circumstances change as we all know, and hell, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon and I'm committed to finish the story.






So now that the pre game pep talk and knuckle daps is at a stopping point, we head back down to good ol' state of Georgia and pick things back up. Atlanta jumped to a tie with New York as the Mets dropped 3 straight during the sim and the Braves picked up 2 games in the midst of the fire. At 30-26... and dead even for first place, is this the moment that the Braves move into the drivers seat for the rest of the season?





The answer to that run on sentence would be an emphatic no.

It was a frustrating game to be a part of. We've been having trouble all season putting runs on the board, so to actually come out of the first inning with 5 runs. You'd figure, damn that might be just enough to hold them off.

But we forgot to account for the Wilson Ramos is really good at playing baseball against the Atlanta Braves factor. The dude went 5 for 5 and was a consistent PIA the whole night. His homerun in the 6th putting the Nationals up by 1, and sure they gave up a pity run near the end.. but the demoralizing shot to grab the initial lead was enough to show this game was out of our hands.


Oh well right?



Well... the sim then is not very favorable for us guys. We drop the series in 3 games and fall right back to where we were. The hard work from the first week of June down the drain and back into the 3rd spot in the National League's Eastern Division.

Silver lining tho... it's just a single game now. That top spot is turning into a battle at the moment between us, the Mets and the Nats.

[lilbiggio]

June Staff Meeting
The Powers That Be - June 6th, 2016


Now guys we gotta remember, with the absence of Ted Turner, the Powers That Be have all but taken over sole operations of the Atlanta Braves. For the past couple years we have not been privy to any of the internal conversations and behind the scene dealings that happen at the closed door meetings at Turner Field. But... today, the Mystery Man was present at the meeting, and as a result... we get some scoop.

Quote: Originally Posted by Braves Financial Director

... and with the addition of another Waffle House grill on the south side of the park, I very well believe we will increase our profit share by 2% in the next 3 months.

Quote: Originally Posted by Walily Casiilas-Thomas

Excellent. Well done research Timothy.

*Shuffles papers*

Quote: Originally Posted by Walily Casiilas-Thomas

Let's see here, to our operations department now. Intelligence. How are we looking on the current project?

Quote: Originally Posted by Mystery Guy

The work is under way.. but he has been rather difficult to budge on his current agenda.

Quote: Originally Posted by Walily Casiilas-Thomas

dammit.... The weight of our operations depends on those kickbacks. We need him to see it will be a problem to continue his bid into the 2016 election.

Casillas-Thomas stands up and walks to his cabinet by the window pulling out a bottle of Jack

Quote: Originally Posted by Walily Casiilas-Thomas

(opening the bottle of Jack) Not that I blame him.. stubborn bastard that he is...

Casillas-Thomas begins pouring the drink into his shot glass

Quote: Originally Posted by Walily Casiilas-Thomas

I trust that you will resolve this issue now with your best judgement.

Quote: Originally Posted by Mystery Guy

Why yes.. Of course sir.

Casillas-Thomas puts the top back on the dark bottle and places it back inside the cabinet. Looking gingerly at the shot glass and then out the window overlooking Turner Field, he sips the drink and a wry smile comes across his face. Turning back around towards the table full of sheepishly looking Board of Regents, the face shows no emotion, as if the smile never happened.

Quote: Originally Posted by Walily Casiilas-Thomas

(sitting back down) Ok, Holman you mentioned you needed to speak with me?

Quote: Originally Posted by Holman Keezel

Yes sir, I was offered a proposal from another team. A package that might help our ball club out.

Quote: Originally Posted by Walily Casiilas-Thomas

Haha why yes.. why didn't you speak up sooner.

Quote: Originally Posted by Holman Keezel

I did... you elected to wait until the meeting to talk.

Quote: Originally Posted by Walily Casiilas-Thomas

...

Quote: Originally Posted by Holman Keezel

ahem... this comes from Milwaukee..

[lilbiggio]

The Brewers proposition to the Braves sends outfield David Murphy to Atlanta for young arms Williams Perez, and Fernando Nieve.


Now it took quite a bit of work to get it resolved down to these 3 players. The original deal included Carlos Gomez. It included other notables such as Freddie Freeman. Tommy LaStella, Jordan Schafer, and Evan Gattis.. Down on the farm, Emmett Tyson and Aaron Northcraft also were on the table.


Neither side really was willing to budge off of any star power, as the offer for Gomez who is in a contract year would require the #1 through #3 prospect as well as a MLB ready player. Although the Braves are kind of in regret mode over the loss of Heyward. Now is certainly not the time to be pillaged by the Brewers.


So that's how David Murphy came up. he's behind Gomez and Braun, and can't see the field, so his role as platoon OF on a last place team makes him expendable as Murphy believes he can still play. But.. if you're not going to come off of your best guy, your second best guy, and not even the third best guy.... what can you honestly and realistically expect to receive back in terms of compensation for your fourth best?


The answer to that question, is cash considerations.. two AAA arms under 25, and a player to be named. That's the MLB currency right there... and that's what it took to get this deal done.


David Murphy pending his physicals, may be able to join us out in Los Angeles as the Braves start a hellacious 10 game road trip through the West coast beginning in Colorado tomorrow night.

[lilbiggio]

The season of horrors continues for Atlanta.



A lot of the woes seem to correlate with the stride still. The Braves haven't experienced a fundamental deal breaker this bad since the throw timing situation about 2 years back that was causing 4 to 5 errors a game, and zero DP's.

Now the silver lining is, that situation got solved over time and hard work... but stride having been a problem for quite some time, it may be a tougher nut to crack for the boys in the cage.

[lilbiggio]

Quote:

MLB.com Braves West Coast Gems Atlanta's offense has been pretty sorry the past couple of weeks, but the Braves have been flashing the leather at a very efficient rate during the West Coast trip. Coach Gonzales discusses the effort Friday evening in Los Angeles.

It's already well documented that Atlanta is having one of the worst offensive campaigns in the last 7 years. And yeah, yeah... while all the work in the cage in the world could do you a little bit of good. A Friday night game vs. one of the world's best shutdown pitchers, was NOT what we needed to generate a little confidence heading into the end of June...




While the Dodgers games is usually one of the most fun series to play each season. Taking on Clayton Kershaw at this point in the year was just a bad omen. Couple that with Big Game Tommy Hanson taking the bump and a lineup full of fatigued players due to the road trip kicking our ***...

it's just really hard to see us coming out of this one alive. One positive however, David Murphy arrived on a direct flight from Milwaukee to LAX earlier today and was available for the game tonight.


Yes, we're here guys... Choo went yard in the first... and then Hanson tightened his nikes and only gave up 3 more hits the rest of the outing. Perfect. Kershaw did his work too, and once it was clear that Hanson wasn't going to give up the ill timed run.. it was obvious this one would go well into the late hours of the night.

Inning after inning came along, there was a scare in the 8th when The Dodgers got runners on first and second with no outs. But former Braves RF Jason Heyward of all people grounded out into a 6-4-3 Double Play to end the Dodger Rally.

The game would end in the 14th when we got a lead off hit from Schafer. He would steal second. And then was bunted over by power hitter Freddie Freeman. The Dodgers caught off guard scrambled to throw him out but threw it in the dirt and the ball bypassed Adrian Gonzales, and led to Schafer scoring easily from 2nd.


Not really pleased that we won it on some okie doke type play like that... but brehs... a win is a win, is a win... we gotta take them how they come.

[lilbiggio]

June continues dudes, and to be honest, I think Photobucket may have kicked the bucket. With all the popups it's starting to become obnoxiously unusable. So if anybody got any alternatives let me know because it's looking like it's time to move on.

On the field of play, we had a bit of excitement in the air. David Murphy has finally been cleared to play and will be inserted into the lineup tonight in Milwaukee. It's kind of ironic seeing as how, we rushed to get him out to LA and had the dude just sat back and posted up at home for a couple more nights he would have saved him and us plenty on airfare, but ah... the things we know now.

[lilbiggio]

Now we get to the pertinent portion of the update. And yeah, this one is a doozy.




First things first, the sim was favorable. We pick up a few more games in Milwaukee completing the sweep and head on home to Atlanta to face off against NY. The Mets have been playing good baseball the past two months and for what it's worth, the series down in Atlanta gives both teams an opportunity to give themselves a bit of breathing room in a tight NL East race.


Then... this happened.




Schafer is done for 2-3 months. That's pretty much the rest of the 2016 season brehs...

Now for those who haven't taken score, let me quickly explain the gravity of this pending situation.

We lose Heyward. The OF is in shambles while the Austin Wilson experiment is underway. Upton has been ok, but he hasn't been Justin Upton as of late. And due to pressures of the division slipping away, we just added David Murphy. For 3 games, that resulted in some sort of stability out there.


But now Schafer... the work horse, the table setter, "Instant Offense', our spark and emotional leader for those tough runs is gone for the rest of the year.



This is bad... real bad.





As a result of this news we will have to go back out in the market and bring in another guy. Since we're desperate the asking price just went up substantially. This will not be a repeat of the Murphy deal which we were so fortunate to get hammered out just a week prior.

[KevinKiermaier39]

Really Realistic, will folllow!