Final Thoughts on 2011 Atlanta Braves: I'm over it

As I said in my World Series pick this year, the nine lives of this year's St. Louis Cardinals have now helped me get over the fact that a Braves team that had been widely assumed to be the National League Wild Card this year instead came up one game short of getting into the playoffs. A late-surging team didn't just come in and swipe the final playoff spot from the Braves and then fold. No, instead the Cards are actually about six four innings away from possibly winning the World Series.

And their run has been every sort of improbable, capped off, no less, by a Game 6 that some are calling the greatest game they've ever seen. (I'm not going that far.) People will remember that for years. St. Louis accomplished something.

Now what about that other league's wild finish? The Red Sox suddenly appear to be a still-sinking ship with both Theo and Terry fleeing town, and the Rays that took the Wild Card from them quickly fell to Texas. So, years from now, that's still going to be remembered more as a Boston disaster than a Tampa Bay accomplishment.

And this year's Braves? Oh, sure ... they blew a pretty good size lead in the division too. But like I said, St. Louis was red hot when Atlanta could barely manage to win any series. And when you compare not getting into the playoffs to the many, many painful season-ending losses that actually occurred in postseason games not so long ago, this year isn't going to hurt near as much as the 1991 finish. Or 1996. Or 1998.

No, Braves fans should be saying this ranks among those. Yeah, it's a new kind of "suck," but we've been through worse. The way this season ended was irritating, but I don't think it's going to be terribly haunting.


This year's Braves seemed to hit their stride late in the spring and play reasonably well throughout the summer. But by the time mid-August rolled around, there were already lingering doubts about how the team could even fare in the playoffs. Could they reasonably win a game in Milwaukee? Would Derek Lowe regain any sense of playoff form?

The answers, as I've already talked about, never came to be. And now we're left here wondering what went wrong and if it will be fixed next year.

And so where do you begin with this team? How about the strengths can we take comfort in. Namely, the back end of your bullpen with O'Flaherty, Venters and Kimbrel. They put up beastly numbers this year, but when they crumbled in the finale, you had to wonder if it might have been the result of being overworked during the year. Considering the starting pitching staff that seemed to always have at least one arm taking up residence on the disabled list, it's no small wonder the three young guns were summoned so frequently.

But just as my concern going into a possible postseason was what good would those late relievers serve if there's no lead to protect, the bats left much to be desired heading into next year. Martin Prado didn't match the little offensive outpouring he had last year after being moved into the outfield. Dan Uggla was under .200 for most of the year until his tremendous hitting streak righted him. Too many times in games I watched this season, there were missed opportunities.

So can the front office spend any money this off-season? (Probably not.) Where are the bats going to come from? (The minors? Three batting champions this season, I hear.) What's the rotation going to be starting next year? (I'm not even guessing right now.)

There's a lot that will have to be addressed. And depending on how these things are handled, whatever does get done between now and the next Opening Day will help make the 2011 campaign an even more distant memory.