Making Fun of Mark Bradley Monday

Written by Thomas on April 11, 2011 – 12:06 pm

Everyone’s favorite AJC sports writer has decided to take a rational approach to the Braves’ 4-6 start, but that doesn’t mean his most recent piece deserves to be used as anything more than frat house toilet paper. While the message of Bradley’s article makes sense, Braves fans don’t need a condescending reminder that it has only been 10 games from him of all people. So in the tradition of the late and great firejoemorgan.com (RIP), here are some excerpts from Bradley’s work with added commentary.

Stop thinking what you’re thinking.

 

Fine.

The Braves are 4-6 and haven’t hit a lick…If the next 152 games track a similar course, Frank Wren and Fredi Gonzalez will have much explaining to do.

 

Actually, he’s on to something in the first couple of sentences here. So following his logic, if the Braves continued this pace they would only win about 65 games. Hmm, that would be bad. I don’t care what anybody says; that’s investigative journalism at its finest. Somebody call a Red Sox beat writer and let them know that if their winning percentage continues they will be in for a disappointing season.

But this team will hit harder and win more over those 152 games. And how do we know this? Because we watched something similar happen in this very city only last year.

 

Agreed. The Braves will win more than 40% of the next 152 games, but not because they started similarly last year. Their talent level projects them to win far more than 65 games, and there is less than a 1% chance that they don’t.

Did we learn nothing from our hand-wringing of spring 2010? Have our years of watching baseball taught us so little about the game itself?

 

His use of “we” here really makes me angry. Bradley wrote a piece last April declaring the Braves dead after their nine game losing streak. So instead of acknowledging his individual failure, he makes it seem as though the entire Braves Nation was right there with him. As for his second question in the excerpt above, in Bradley’s case the answer is most definitely yes.

Baseball isn’t football. The season last six months, not 16 weeks.

 

Our researchers are working around the clock to verify both of these statements.

And an enduring truth of this sport is that a proven hitter will eventually hit. Dan Uggla is hitting .158 after 10 games. Dan Uggla will not be hitting .158 after 40 games.

 

Well done. This may be the first time Bradley has appropriately used sample size to make an educated prediction.


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Time To Hate On Mark Bradley….Again

Written by Thomas on May 3, 2010 – 7:39 am

AJC sports writer and eternal pessimist Mark Bradley could have waited until Sunday before writing that “these Braves aren’t going to win anything”. But even after the club’s weekend sweep/absolute drubbing of the lowly Astros, don’t hold your breath for Bradley to rescind his April 30th nail-in-the-coffin declaration. After all, we’ve already played 15% of the season which means that only 85% remains. To steal an analogy from Frank Wren, this would be like declaring the Falcons (with a record of 1-1) out of the NFC playoff race at halftime of their third game. For you golfers out there, it would be like saying Phil Mickelson had already lost the Masters because he played the first eleven holes in (+1) on Thursday. No self-respecting journalist would ever jump to either of these conclusions (barring a serious injury to Matt Ryan or Carl Spackler cutting the bottom of Lefty’s hamstring), yet Mark Bradley has done so for the Braves.

What makes Bradley’s comments even more senseless is that just ten days earlier he wrote this on his AJC blog, “I’ve said it before, and I say it again: Something’s happening here. The Braves are believing in a way they haven’t believed since the run of division titles was broken in 2006…they’ve got a difference maker on their side now, a difference-maker who isn’t yet old enough to take a legal sip of champagne. Be he will be come October”. These warm and fuzzy comments came on the heels of the Braves’ epic comeback win over Philly (you know the one) and seem to insinuate that the Braves will be playing in October. Silly Mark! He was basing this prediction on only a couple swings of Jason Heyward’s bat, so he decided to be reasonable and base his latest on a nine game skid. At least his sample sizes seem to be increasing, but in the meantime I am going to try avoiding anymore journalists’ predictions; they tend to blow things out of proportion.


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