"Better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
-Lincoln, Twain, Keynes, Confucius, etc.
Diversified interests are important. Don't get me wrong, there are undeniable benefits to narrowing one's focus for appropriate lengths of time, but the returns are diminishing, especially if the object of interest is something that is, ultimately, superfluous. Baseball is a game, nothing more, nothing less. To be sure, it is a game that I love, but in terms of importance, it ranks well behind my education, and lags infinitely behind social obligations, up to and including being a husband. And don't even get me started on Breaking Bad. So there's my excuse for having not written in a month.
Listening to a local sports radio station the other day in the car, I heard one of the personalities wax poetic about how the Gomez/McCann incident could prove to be the spark this team needs to go deep into the playoffs; a turning point, if you will. Maybe, maybe not. The fun thing about subjective analysis is that you can mold it to fit whatever argument suits you at the time. Oh, the Braves rolled off 15-straight wins after the Gomez incident? Boy, that guy must've gotten them fired up. Aw, the Braves got swept in the first round and the players decided to go join the circus? Geez, that Gomez fella really got into their heads, huh? Subjective questions disguised as hard and fast analysis are the equivalent of Upward leagues: everybody wins, everybody gets to feel good, like their opinion matters. Gross. Thankfully, most of the time, random distributions come along and rob those feelings of any validity and render them entirely inept. Reality is on the phone, and it told me to tell you that you're an idiot. Boom, roasted.
Look, September hasn't been a great month for this team. The freakin' injuries, man. The cruel, unfeeling reality of random outcome distribution cares nothing for our concerns. The race for the best record coming down to the final weekend of the season has huge implications for this team's playoff outlook. If they can hold, they'll get the winner of the WC playoff. If they don't, they get the Dodgers. This is where ambivalence rears its' ugly head.
Part of me believes that this team would be in a much better position playing anyone but the Dodgers. My rationale for feeling that way can be summed up in three words: Kershaw, Greinke, Ryu. Those guys can shut down an offense, especially one as inconsistent as Atlanta's. Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, while they are both quality teams, are probably a notch below the talent level of LA, so naturally, facing them is the outcome all rational Braves fans should be hoping for.
On the other hand, if there is one thing we should all know by now, it's that the playoffs exist in a type of vacuum. That is to say, what happened during the season, statistically speaking, is largely irrelevant in terms of predictive power as it relates to postseason outcomes. To put it as simple as possible: anything can happen. It's a roll of the dice. Just ask the Giants.
The identity of this team has been static throughout the season. When it's clicking, they're at least as good as Detroit, Boston, and St. Louis. Mediocre teams don't string together two double-digit win-streaks in the same season. When it's not, well...it's not. And we've seen just how futile things can be for this club when the offense isn't producing.
I've said it all season: this team is built to win the World Series. The ability is there. The desire is certainly there. Will they do it? Who can say? Even if they don't, it would be hard to argue that the 2013 Braves haven't improved the lot of the franchise, and in the long run, isn't that what we should really be striving towards?
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