 03/24/2004 8:00 AM ET
NL East: Open season on dynasties
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Tom Singer
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| Leo Mazzone (left) and Bobby Cox no longer have the most feared pitching staff in the NL East. (Gregory Smith/AP)
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It's open season on dynasties. The National League East palace is being stormed, and the king's crown rests uneasy.
The subjects have changed dramatically. A scan of the ranks reveals that only one Braves pitcher who started a game for them as recently at 2002 remains -- Jung Bong, of all people -- and much of 2003's thunder now claps elsewhere.
So Atlanta now faces the stiffest challenges yet to its title, and perhaps has placed too much faith in organizational momentum.
General manager John Schuerholz and skipper Bobby Cox aren't exactly fiddling while smoke encircles their little empire. But neither do they evince any outward signs of concern as the season nears.
The Braves no longer have the division's most feared pitching staff or loudest offense -- both of those are in Philadelphia.
Spring Training has answered few questions, hasn't provided any stunning revelations to suggest that the old Braves are just lying in the weeds.
Yet Cox surveys the trouble spots, such as a bullpen still in disarray, and declares, "These things always seem to work themselves out. They do every year."
They have every year since 1991. But one of these years, you'll flip that coin and it won't come up heads.
One of these years, you'll patch Will Cunnane, Antonio Alfonseca and Armando Almanza into your bullpen, and not even Leo Mazzone will be able to throw the switch. One of these years, a Mark DeRosa won't turn out to be Terry Pendleton.
This could be that year. This is expected to be that year. But in baseball, expectations rarely go as far as a flat knuckleball, so don't bet the ant farm on the Braves' decline.
One certainty, however: If the NL East turns out to be as strong and competitive as projected, the Braves will get lost in it; they won't be able to keep pace with a fast crowd through the unbalanced schedule.
So the onus is on the Phillies to play like the favorites, on the Marlins to prove they weren't a fish in the pan, on the Mets to play up to the hype and on the Expos to continue being a thorn in everyone's side.
The Braves do seem to have been energized by the very doubts they face. During the mid-1990s, once they were locked in, they -- and their fans -- treated regular seasons as an extended bore, just waiting for October.
The excitement of expectancy has returned. In a remake-crazy world -- Starsky & Hutch, Dawn of the Dead and Walking Tall are all playing at your multiplex -- the Braves have brought back 1991.
One of the recurring themes in camp has been how the Braves' current situation mirrors that of 1991, when they were coming off a 97-loss season and facing numerous roster puzzles.
Is that analogy supposed to be a good thing? Yes. The Braves turned that 1991 season into the first of 12 consecutive division titles. But do they really want to turn back the clock to when they were fighting off laughingstock status?
These Braves are still far above that, of course, with such cream as Chipper and Andruw Jones, and Rafael Furcal. However, whatever their leading assets, this is what most worries their fans:
DeRosa, Johnny Estrada, Adam LaRoche. The 6-7-8 hitters in the new lineup. Along with the day's pitcher, that order presents opposing pitchers with some easy innings -- if Atlanta brass guessed wrong on them. How this bottom draw is able to turn over the lineup stands out as the Braves' top question mark.
Nor is it very reassuring that two key cogs -- closer John Smoltz and new right fielder J.D. Drew -- have had to be nursed through Spring Training because of their propensity for getting hurt.
That is Cox's call. And it is hard to question anything he or Mazzone -- who is to inflated ERAs what Dr. Frank Jobe is to sore elbows -- consider best for the team.
We'll get a quick read on the Braves, who face a tough April schedule in which 12 of their first 21 games will be against 2003 playoff teams.
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