All-Time Braves Lineup

It's interesting that this week's Open Mic topic is a team's all-time lineup, as ESPN started discussing the all-time franchise players for each major league team. Considering the history of the Braves' franchise goes back to the Boston Red Caps in 1876, there's a lot of potential players to put in the lineup. Because this history is so deep, some seemingly obvious choices are going to be either out of position or not in the starting lineup.

46 members of the Baseball Hall of Fame were members of the Braves organization at some point in history. While technically Babe Ruth was a Brave, his contributions in a Brave uniform were dwarfed by his years with the Yankees and even the Red Sox. In order to be considered, a player had to spend at least 5 years with the Braves.

For instance - Chipper Jones has the 2nd highest lifetime batting average for a switch-hitter (behind Frankie Frisch's .316), and 3rd on the all-time homeruns list for switch-hitters behind Mickey Mantle and Eddie Murray. He's 3rd on the all-time home run list for 3rd basemen, with Mike Schmidt leading the pack. All of the people in front of him on these 3 lists are in the Hall of Fame, and someday Chipper will join them. The problem is for this lineup, since Eddie Mathews is already in the Hall of Fame with his 512 homers and 14 straight seasons with 23+ homeruns.

So - let's get the pitching out of the way because it's the easiest. Of the 23 pitchers who have reached 300 wins, eight have played for the Braves organization at one time or another. Only two (Gaylord Perry and Cy Young) played a majority of their careers for other teams. John Clarkson played 5 of his 12 years with the Boston Beaneaters, having an unheard of 49 wins in 1888 and then again in 1889. The other five make up our all-time Braves starting rotation.

Kid Nichols
Warren Spahn
Phil Neikro
Tom Glavine
Greg Maddux

Where's Smoltz? In addition to winning over 200 games in his career and being one of the best post-season pitchers in history, he's also the Braves career saves leader, and is tied for the NL record for saves in a season with 55 in 2002. It's hard to keep him off this list, but it's hard to leave any of the five guys listed off this list.

For people following baseball today, Glavine and Maddux need no explanation. 655 combined wins, 6 total Cy Young Awards, only begin to describe that pair. Warren Spahn is 5th on the all-time wins list with 363, the winningest left-hander ever, played in 3 World Series and pitched a no-hitter after he turned 40. Kid NIchols won 5 pennants with the old Boston Beaneaters between 1890 and 1901 and is tied for 6th on the all-time wins list with 361. Phil Neikro is one of very few knuckleballers in the Hall of Fame, and earned many of his 318 wins on some really bad Braves teams. The only two years he went to the playoffs were with the Braves in 1969 (23-13, 2.57) and in 1982 (17-4, 3.61), as both times the Braves lost in the NLCS.

Sorry John Smoltz - guess you'll be the closer for the Braves this time.

Now getting to the lineup, we have our position battles like at catcher (Javy Lopez, Del Crandall, Joe Torre or Brian McCann), third base (Eddie Mathews or Chipper Jones), and center field (Andruw Jones or Dale Murphy).

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