Bravo Blog: 2012 Postmortem

I've calmed down. It hurts when the season ends, but it's time for some quick thoughts on the 2012 Braves. It helps with the pain, after all.

To be fair, I was ready to write this a month ago, when they looked like they were going to let another September slip away. Then Chipper Jones hit a home run, they figured it out and followed Braves tradition and waited until October to fail. That was a cheap shot. I'm sorry. I'm still dealing with the game.

Cheap shots aside, I enjoyed the season because I love baseball. The Braves kept it interesting until the end. Now, it's time to talk about how it ended.

First things first.

The Call

Yes, the call sucked. It wasn't why they lost, though.

The infield fly ruling was awful. Letter of the law? I can see it. However, the spirit of the law was not honored. It was not a situation in which an infielder could intentionally drop a pop up to get a cheap double play, which was why the rule was created. Ken Rosenthal agrees with me. Kozma misplayed the ball, and it should have been bases loaded with one out. The umpire didn't even make the call until Kozma backed off. That's what has me upset. The rule says the call must be made immediately. The call was made a second before the ball hit the ground, just as Kozma gave up on it. That wasn't right.

That said, that's not why Atlanta lost, and everybody knows it. Three errors lost that game. Chipper's error opened the gates for three runs, then Uggla and Simmons let in one more each. That was the game. It takes a lot for me to blame an entire loss on a call (The last time I did that for one of my favorite teams was the 1997 NLCS. Eric Gregg's strike zone for Livan Hernandez was... you know what? Let's not do this now). I don't blame this loss on the bad call. It sucked and squashed a possible rally, but I blame the loss on the Braves' bad defense, which is a shame. They were the best defensive team in the National League this year.

The Format
I'm actually not going to complain about the format, even though a lot of people want to. If you're going to play 162 games, winning your division should matter. It does now. The Braves were punished for getting dominated by the Nationals in NL East play. Don't like the Wild Card Game? Don't be in it.

People say it should be two out of three. Maybe I'd buy that, but travel and getting all these games in before Thanksgiving gets more challenging. It's easy to complain about the format when your team loses. I'm sure Cardinals and Orioles fans love it right now.

Chipper

Thanks for the memories, Chipper. The Braves will miss you.

I could write ten pages on Chipper Jones. I'll just say it sucks that his career ends like this: on a night when he committed a key error that lost the game and when Atlanta fans spent more time throwing trash on the field than cheering their hero. That latter part is disgraceful.

Chipper Jones did more for the Braves' franchise than any number one overall pick did for the team that drafted him. He was a keystone for almost two decades of very good baseball in Atlanta. I wanted him to get one more championship, but it just wasn't to be.

You can't say he was the greatest anything. Brave? That's Hank. Switch hitter? That's the Mick. Third baseman? That's Schmidt or Brett. But Chipper is no lower than fifth on all of those lists, and maybe two on a couple of them. He's a first ballot Hall of Famer, and Braves fans should be grateful he was so dedicated to  that town and that team.

Now begins the task of making sure the franchise stays competitive without number 10 at third base. The Braves have options and a decent amount of money to spend (Jones, Derek Lowe, and Michael Bourn all come off the books). Maybe they try to keep Bourn, or maybe they go with cheaper options like Nick Swisher. Maybe Prado fills that spot at third or they try something else there and leave Prado in left. We can turn on the hot stove when the weather gets colder.

We'll see what happens. For better or worse, choking or not, the Braves are my team. I'll still be chopping in 2013.