Atlanta Braves Clippings Thursday, May 21, 2020 Braves.Com
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Atlanta Braves Clippings Thursday, May 21, 2020 Braves.com Braves' 1957, '95 WS teams in Dream Bracket 2 By Mark Bowman ATLANTA -- The Braves’ two most recent World Series-winning teams will represent the organization in MLB Dream Bracket 2: Dream Seasons, which begins on Thursday. Major League Baseball, in conjunction with the makers of Out of the Park Baseball 21, have created this best-of-seven series simulation tournament, which includes some of the most successful clubs in each franchise’s history. Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews will match up against Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling when the 1957 Milwaukee Braves meet the 2001 D-backs in the first round of the National League’s Region 1. As you may remember, this is the same Arizona squad that needed just five games to eliminate Atlanta from the ‘01 NL Championship Series. Chipper Jones and Atlanta’s Cy Young Award-winning trio of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz will battle Ryan Braun and Zack Greinke when the 1995 Braves face off against the 2011 Brewers in the other first-round matchup in the NL’s Region 2. Twenty-five years later, this remains the only Braves team to win a World Series since the franchise moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta in 1966. Aaron, Mathews, Red Schoendienst and Warren Spahn were the Hall of Famers that highlighted the 1957 Braves roster. Aaron hit 44 homers and won his only NL Most Valuable Player Award at the end of this memorable season. Spahn also won his only Cy Young Award that year. As for Schoendienst, he proved to be a very valuable midseason acquisition. The 1957 Braves clinched the World Series title when Lew Burdette tossed a shutout vs. Don Larsen and the Yankees in Game 7. Burdette went 3-0 with a 0.67 ERA in three starts during this Fall Classic, earning series MVP honors. Spahn and Burdette could neutralize the strength of the D-backs’ rotation, which boasts Johnson and Schilling, who finished first and second, respectively, in balloting for the 2001 NL Cy Young Award. With Jones, Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz, the 1995 Braves also enter this simulated bracket challenge with four Hall of Famers on their roster. The club’s Hall of Fame manager Bobby Cox had the luxury of penciling David Justice and Fred McGriff into his lineup on an everyday basis. The 2011 Brewers won the NL Central and eliminated the D-backs in the NL Division Series. But their World Series aspirations ended during a NLCS matchup against the Cardinals, who had claimed the Wild Card spot the Braves seemed destined to land before freefalling in September. Watch Smoltz's last shutout Thurs. at noon ET By Mark Bowman ATLANTA -- You’ll have a chance to spend Thursday afternoon watching John Smoltz construct the last shutout of his Hall of Fame career. Beginning at noon ET, MLB.com and Braves.com will stream the 2-0 win the Braves claimed over the Padres on April 15, 2006. Smoltz threw a four- hit shutout and Adam LaRoche hit a solo homer that accounted for one of the two runs San Diego starter Jake Peavy surrendered over seven innings. After halting his temporary experience as a closer, Smoltz rejoined the Braves’ rotation in 2005 at the age of 38 and proceeded to post a 3.22 ERA over the next three seasons. Smoltz was 29 years old when he won the National League Cy Young Award in 1996, and he finished among the top seven in balloting for it in both 2006 and ‘07. Along with having a chance to watch one of the last gems of Smoltz’s storied career, fans might also feel a little bit of nostalgia while watching a Braves team that included Jeff Francoeur, Brian McCann, Wilson Betemit and some other Baby Braves. Some of the Padres you might be surprised to see in this game include former Braves third baseman Vinny Castilla, current Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza. San Diego’s lineup also included Adrian Gonzalez and Brian Giles, whose younger brother Marcus was Atlanta’s leadoff hitter in this contest. Atlanta Journal-Constitution For baseball’s minor leagues, 2020 seems a major washout By Mark Bradley, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Nobody’s sure there’ll be a major-league season. Everyone assumes there won’t be a minor-league season, though no official announcement has been made. Here’s J.J. Cooper, executive editor of the authoritative Baseball America: “There are three things we know. One, the current plan at the major- league level has a taxi squad, which essentially is saying, ‘We’re not playing minor-league baseball.’ Two, minor-league operators across the board are adamant: ‘If we don’t play (before) fans, we’re not playing the games. It doesn’t make sense for us. Why would we carry these expenses with no revenue?’ And three, every issue major-league baseball has as far as different jurisdictions is true at the minor-league level – but more complicated because they’re in more states. If the Pacific Coast League, which is in seven states, has three states where it’s OK to play games and four where it’s not, what do you do?” Cooper again: “I haven’t talked to any MiLB (minor-league) operator over the last few weeks who realistically expects to have a season.” The Braves have six minor-league affiliates, two based in Georgia – Triple-A Gwinnett and Low-A Rome. Six times 25 gives us 150 players, nearly all of whom are in the developmental stages of their baseball lives. Do such prospects really need to skip a year? Answer: no way. But what to do if the minors don’t play in 2020? Cooper: “That’s the million-dollar question. Everybody talks about the need of figuring out a way for those players to get at-bats and games. No one wants it to be a lost season – especially for pitchers. No one wants pitchers to throw some bullpens this year on their own and then try to ramp back up next year. (But) no one knows what that means yet. There’s talk about a super-Arizona– whether that’s massive instructs (instructional leagues) or a much-expanded Arizona fall league – or getting team players together at some point in the complexes.” Back to taxi squads. The belief is that, if/when the 2020 season starts, major-league rosters will be expanded to 50, or twice the normal size. Half that number will be on a practice squad. Cooper’s guess is that those 25 will break into two groups – players who can be summoned to the majors for immediate help and high-end prospects in whom the club has the most invested. “Obviously you’re going to want your close-to-the-majors top prospects there to make sure they get at-bats and innings,” Cooper said. “It’s not hard to guess that Ian Anderson and Cristian Pache and Drew Waters are going to be there. It’s not hard to say that (Braden) Shewmake and the college guys they went for last season (in the draft) will be there. But how much are they going to balance having guys who are ready to step in and getting top prospects exposure to help their development?” In other seasons, the second 25 would be scattered among the affiliates. Cooper expects no scattering in our time of pandemic. He anticipates the taxi squad will remain with the 25-man big-league roster. (You’ll recall that Julio Teheran was dispatched to Florida to say sharp after he was omitted from the National League Division Series roster last year. He was summoned after Chris Martin was injured in Game 1. If that were to happen this year, such a player might have to undergo a 14-day quarantine, which would defeat the purpose of “staying sharp.”) “Having one (quarantine) bubble is going to be easier than having two,” Cooper said. “Let’s say the Cardinals are playing the Braves, a four-game series. The Cardinals would bring their 50 players; the Braves would have their 50 there. Think of it like an instructs game: Maybe at noon that day, (taxi squads) play five innings – just to give them at-bats and innings. They’re seeing live pitching; they’re stretched out.” Then: “Do you want have two places where you’re doing testing? Do you want to have two hotels where you’re getting food shipped in? It just makes it easier to have it all together.” We pause to note the obvious: Nobody on the periphery, and maybe nobody on the inside, knows exactly what will happen with baseball. MLB and its players must decide about playing before anything else gets addressed. The scenario described above might or might not approximate reality. Beyond taxi squads, what might occur? Do the Braves assemble 100 or so non-taxi players somewhere and keep them in place all summer for a few months? Such a gathering would surely mean testing and quarantine, which wouldn’t come cheap. Cooper: “MLB teams are making every effort to cut costs. In some cases, there are minor-league coaches being furloughed. They could bring them back, (or) you could do instructs with less coaches. One question is, are MLB teams willing to bear the expense of bringing these players to the complexes to play intersquad games or whatever? Second part is, can they develop structures for that to be safe? It’s one thing to say we’re going to do these things at the MLB level, but minor-league players do not have a union negotiating for them.