Kuzul

It’s June 1st and I have an alarming stat for Braves fans—this year’s primary starting pitchers (Hanson, Hudson, Kawakami, Lowe and Medlen) are having a more successful year at the plate than the starting centerfielder, Nate McLouth. Through 51 games (nearly a third of the year!) the pitchers are hitting .184 and McClouth is hitting .179 with no signs of coming out of his slump. In fact, it’s hard for me to even call what’s happening with McLouth a slump at this point.

The Braves have straightened out most of their issues in the lineup—Yunel Escobar, Melky Cabrera and Chipper Jones have heated up while Jason Heyward, Martin Prado and Troy Glaus are still more than holding up their ends of the bargain. McLouth is the lone holdout and has seemed allergic to any kind of success at the plate, save the one dramatic walk-off home run earlier in the year.

So what is there to do? The Braves have five options in the outfield—Heyward, Cabrera, McLouth, Eric Hinske and Gregor Blanco—and I think they need to shift the hierarchy, which is something Bobby Cox has been notoriously slow to do in the past. But in order to really take advantage of what’s possible for the team this year (a playoff berth and beyond) it is completely necessary and needs to happen sooner rather than later. 

Right now Heyward and McLouth play every day in right field and center field, respectively, with a rotating cast in left field. Heyward is entrenched in right field, but it’s time to see what Cabrera can do on a full-time basis.

I propose that Cox start an outfield of Heyward, Cabrera and Hinske as the primary lineup. Hinske has exactly the same number of hits as McLouth in almost half the at-bats and has proven himself as a quality ballplayer over the years.

On days when Hinske needs a rest or there’s bad pitching matchup for him, put McLouth in center and shift Cabrera to left. It may seem drastic and crazy to use McLouth as a fourth outfield considering his salary, but something needs to happen. The Braves are playing well right now and Cox needs to strike while the iron is hot. 

Two other options would be to use Blanco on a more regular basis (but he seems to have settled in as a pinch runner and late inning defensive replacement) or to bring up Jordan Schafer from triple-A. I happen to believe that the Cabrera/Hinske option is superior to this, but if you disagree please let me know in the comments. 

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Does anyone else remember the hype machine surrounding Jordan Schafer from about, say, 2007 up until 50 games into the 2009 season?

The sky was the limit for this kid.

He was (and still is) a superb glove in center and has the potential from a speed/contact standpoint to turn into something resembling an above-average Major League talent.

Pretty amazing what a 50-game suspension and a broken wrist can do to a career isn’t it?

After winning the center field job in Atlanta in Spring Training ’09, Schafer promptly introduced himself to the Major League community with two home runs in the Braves’ opening series in Philadelphia.

Then, the strikeouts came (63 to be exact) over the next 50 games as Schafer saw his line plummet to an abysmal .204/.313/.287.

Hoping to remedy the problem, the Braves sent Charlie Morton, Gorkys Hernandez, and Jeff Locke to the Pittsburgh Pirates for a reigning NL All Star and gold glove recipient in Nate McLouth.

And all was good in Braves Nation…so we thought.

A .237 average and only (considering what the Braves thought they were getting) 14 homers in 129 games since joining the Braves has reduced McLouth to the No. 8 hole in Atlanta and left Atlanta looking around the outfield for an effective answer for their bat in center.

Amazing how things have sort of come full circle, huh?

Now, I think the time is fast-approaching to throw Jordan Schafer back to the wolves and to ship McLouth out of town.

You may be asking why I would suggest throwing a 23-year-old that has struggled to a .232/.319/.317 line in the minors this season into a situation that was not particularly kind to him last year with a guy with very strong potential already manning that spot.

For me, it comes down to glovework, money, and the future.

If you’re going to have a black hole in the lineup, he might as well be able to “go get ’em.”

While UZR painted McLouth as a “neutral” fielder at 0.8 and Schafer as below average at -4.0 in 2009, I think we can all recall Andruw Jones-esqe fielding prowess from Schafer last season while McLouth looked a little more like a mortal.

Or, to put this a little better, Schafer could fly around the field and get to a lot more in the field than the slightly-less-athletic McLouth. 

Add to that the fact that Schafer would be making the league minimum for what may well prove to be lackluster play as opposed to McLouth’s $5 million and the pendulum swings even further to the former No. 1 prospect in the Braves’ organization.

Oh, and let’s not forget that Schafer is still very “toolsy” and is likely to be the Opening Day starter in 2011 anyway.

Why not let him play through his issues a little more at the major league level (that’s how you have to learn)?

As I’ve been trying to say, it really couldn’t be much worse than what the Braves are currently getting.

Now, I’m not suggesting that this needs to go down today.

No, Melky Cabrera and Eric Hinske should be starting in the outfield right now along with J-Hey (both are swinging red-to white-hot bats right now) instead of the Hinske/Cabrera-McLouth-Heyward situation we’ve been seeing.

But once everyone starts leveling out a bit in terms of “playing to talent,” I think Schafer has to be the guy you look to.

Plus, if he starts to figure it out, he’s got the talent and speed that would look awfully good at No. 8 or leading off if he really works out the kinks (SomeoneFast, Prado, Heyward is scarier than Prado, Heyward, Chipper-—by a mile…and let’s remember that he drew 27 walks in 50 games which in one less than Jason Heyward’s 28 through 43 games, as a point of reference).

Nate-Dogg just isn’t doing the job for the Braves right now (and hasn’t looked comfortable at the plate in a long time).

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That was rough, wasn’t it?

Count the layers of the L-sandwich: W-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-L-W.

After a stretch of futility of nonagonal proportions (bad geometry joke), the Atlanta Braves scratched out a win (and their first save in 20 games) Friday night in Atlanta as Billy Wagner induced a double-play to Houston clean-up hitter Carlos Lee.

Timely offense, superb pitching, and mostly clean fielding (we’ll forgive J-Hey’s boot in right field) netted the ‘Bravos’ what had so eluded them for over a week.

Well, it was either that or me wearing my Elon University shirt today—the last thing I wore before this horrid stretch started last week against the Phillies.

But, I think I’ll sit pretty with the former…

Doesn’t this just feel great, though?

Even sans Escobar and Jurrjens for a bit, just seeing some excitement out of this line-up (especially from the lead-off spot) is extremely refreshing.

Nate-Dogg energized this lifeless heap of humanity (and a surprisingly sizable Turner Field crowd) with a lead-off blast to left-center and also went on to swipe a bag after a perfectly placed bunt-for-hit.

Throw in 1.5 Jason Heyward home runs (as he was robbed of a near-blast in the eighth by Hunter Pence) to bring his April total to six (about 1/3 of what I predicted for him before the season started—that’s looking pretty bad), and this group showed some of the promise it displayed in the season’s first two home series.

A Tommy Hanson’s eight-inning, 99 pitch, seven strikeout, no walk, (*breath*) two-run performance followed by Billy Wagner’s second save took care of the other end of the game as the Braves added a tally to bring their win total to a whopping (sarcastically) nine.

Now, this was only one game—but it offered a lot to build on.

Sparking the offense on their home turf (provided this keeps up at least a bit) before shipping out for three game sets at Washington, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee should bode well for the National League’s worst team in terms of team batting average.

One win after nine losses is kinda huge—but two or three in a row are needed to really solidify the team’s bot of regained mojo.

But, it takes one in a row to get those multiples.

So, until tomorrow…

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