Catching up

Now that I know that people will continue to ask about these posts until I complete them :-), here we go. It's about the '82 Braves because all 5 players requested were on the team and they can be discussed somewhat together.

The 1982 Braves as a whole are an odd team. Pythogoras puts 'em at 85-77, but they overachieved/lucked out enough to eke out a division title, the only one in between '69 and '91. Their offense was precisely average - 100 OPS+ - but thanks to Fulton-County Stadium they led the league in runs scored. The pitching was actually about the same, but boy did it look bad. This was like a less extreme '95 Rockies - not bad at anything, but boy did they look lopsided.

Runs per game, home/road: 4.79 (2nd)/4.33 (6th)
Runs allowed per game, home/road: 4.78 (11th)/3.89 (4th)

Unsurprisingly, this gave them a tepid home record - 42-39 - but they were 47-34 on the road, best in the league. Maybe they were just in the wrong park.

This was also Joe Torre's first year on the job for the Braves, right after Bobby Cox went to Toronto. Torre didn't do a lot other than watch Dale Murphy blossom (OPS+ in 1981: 101; in 1982: 142) and get an actual rotation. In 1981 it was primarily Niekro, Gaylord Perry, and Tommy Boggs, with nobody else claiming the other spots; in 1982 it was Niekro, Rick Mahler, Bob Walk, and former closer Rick Camp, who was moved to the rotation in June with at least decent results. Other things of note: Rafael Ramirez learning to hit at the major league level (.218/.276/.303 in '81, .278/.319/.379 in '82) and a 24-year-old Bob Horner playing 140 games. Claudell Washington, 27, and Chris Chambliss, 33, were the only regulars over 26. There was a lot of promise for the future with a young productive lineup that was already helping to win divisions.

What happened? Horner is still one of the only third basemen to play a huge amount of games at 3B before 26 and play fewer than that after turning 26; he's only 5 years older than Roger Clemens, but that's kinda hard to remember. Ramirez sustained his level of hitting for another year but then started striking out quite a bit more; it seems he had enough speed that he benefited by making a lot of contact, but with worse plate discipline came less contact, and he faded pretty quickly. He lasted with the Astros until 1992, showing that the 'Stros have allowed awful hitters to play SS for quite some time (Adam Everett, I choose you.) In contrast to Ramirez, Bruce Benedict had great plate discipline, but that's about it, and his barely-enough-to-survive hitting stopped being barely enough. 2B Glenn Hubbard, born on an AFB in West Germany, was a souped-up version of Ramirez, with a better overall hitting profile and well-known defense; he didn't have the speed, but he could punch a double and take a walk, and with good defense at 2B, that's a winning player. He was done by 1989, but he was a useful player for sure, and the beard and the card with the python on it are just icing on the nostalgia cake.

Claudell Washington, one of the "oldies" at 27, was an odd free agent signing to begin with (at least for what was considered a big salary at the time), but he had been reasonably productive in the majors since 19, so it's not necessarily a bad gamble to take on a guy like him. He actually had his best years with Atlanta, a nice combination of speed and power, but he was pretty much a left-handed poor man's Reggie Sanders, and those players are only useful when you have some studs in your lineup. Those would have been Murphy and Horner had one of these not tanked early...it also didn't help that young CF Brett Butler was traded as part of the package for Len Barker. Butler was one of those players that people thought he wouldn't succeed, but he did, and he could have done it for the Braves for a long time.

As for the other two on the team of note/requested posting...Pascual Perez, the eldest of the Pascual/Melido/Carlos Perez trio, didn't have a year in 1982 that screamed "I'll be good" (he was a PTBNL for Larry McWilliams, after all...not a hearty endorsement), but he went 29-16 over the next two seasons. His control completely deserted him in '85, however (51 walks in '83 and '84, but 57 in '85 in half the innings); he went 1-13 and his flamboyant character (which was abundant; he was nothing like the professional clean image of the '90s Braves, Halle Berry and l'affairs Chipper aside) wasn't enough.

And now we come to a completely different player, one who didn't fade out early - Gene Garber. Garber had a somewhat quirky career path. He was in the 20th round of the first-ever amateur draft of 1965, came up for some cups of coffee with the team that drafted him (the Pirates), was traded straight-up to the Royals for Jim Rooker after the '72 season (highly lopsided for the Pirates; Rooker came out of almost nowhere to win 67 games over the next 5 years - couldn't have been anticipated), and went from a fringe reliever in Kansas City to a powerhouse in Philadelphia, part of a sterling bullpen trio of himself, Ron Reed, and Tug McGraw that each saved a fair amount of games. Traded to Atlanta for the immortal Dick Ruthven (who was at least reliable in '80 for the Phils, which is all anyone cares about looking back), Garber was the immediate closer in Atlanta, but with bizarre results. After a 2.53 ERA as closer in '78, he had a 4.33 in '79, saving 25 games but with a 6-16 record, second in the league in losses as a reliever, which I'm guessing never happened before or since. This got him removed from the closer spot for two years, but in 1982 there weren't that many good options, and Torre putting Garber back as the closer worked like a charm; he went 8-10 but saved 30 games off a 2.34 ERA. By this time, he was 34, and his aging plus the Bruce Sutter signing meant that his career was going to matter less, but it was a slick move by Torre. Think about it - when closers have the S on their cape, they're fine until they lose it, after which they have a hard time finding someone to give it back to them. This was not Garber's path, and it worked very well for him and the Braves.

According to Wikipedia, he now raises emus. I don't know what all the young flameouts are doing, but at least it's something. Can we make an emu the Braves' mascot? We could name it Gene...