What's The Braves' True Problem?

Of late, the Braves' Community (and other Braves blogs) has been a stomping ground of unhappy Braves fans pointing fingers while releasing feces into their leighterhosen (myself included).

So, with Baseball-Reference.com and Joe, Jon, and Chip as my guides, I have decided to do a little investigating of my own.

I will look at the four major "sources" of this team's recent lackluster performance: Bobby Cox, Terry Pendleton, Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson, and (what list of Braves' fans qualms would be complete without this guy?) Frank Wren.

Bobby Cox

This one, in my opinion really needs no statistical backing, just examination of the games.

I really don't think you can blame a manager for offensive woes like the Braves are suffering from.

All he can really do is put out a different line up (about five over the past two weeks) and hold your breath.

You can't make a guy steal who (outside of McLouth and MAYBE Escobar) can't run.

You can't hit and run with guys (who are to be mentioned later) who can't make consistent contact.

You can't pray for homers with guys who aren't true power hitters.

Honestly, Cox-haters, give it a rest.

TP

This one is understandable, at first glance.

But when you look a little closer, you find that this club is number one in two out RBIs and in the top five in average with RISP.

Now, you can say that this is a player thing and that the hitting coach has little to no bearing on how a batter goes to the plate, but I say nay nay.

I think that a hitting coaches main concern should be giving his player's the mindset and gameplan to execute in high-pressure situations.

Still, some of you may question the lack of power exhibited from the Braves line up, and this is where a lot of you are going to disagree with me.

I don't think a hitting coach can really "teach" power.

I don't think Rudy Jaramillo (one of the best hitting instructors in the game today) couldn't turn Kotch, Kelly, and Frency into big-time boppers, and I really don't expect TP to.

You just can't reconfigure a guy for power, it isn't something that a guy can learn at full-speed against big-league caliber pitching.

Frenchy and KJ

These two, for me, are the cogs that need to get turning to allow this team to ascend through the NL East.

One of the most aggressive and streakiest hitters together in the bottom of a line up is not all that great.

You can't put yourself, in Francoeur's case, in an 0-2 count every AB and expect production.

Nor can you go 18-23 then 0-117 (a little ambiguous there) if you're Kelly Johnson.

Now, Jeff has started to churn; he's working counts a little deeper and making more solid contact, and has proved to be a more reliable run-producer in the six or seven-hole than he was earlier in the season.

Kelly, however, is deep in one of his famous Johnson slumps.

Provided, when he comes out of it, he'll be impossible to retire, but he needs to be able to spread out those hot-streaks over a month instead of a week.

Wren

I love these fans.

You know, the ones who think you can turn Jo-Jo Reyes around for Jermaine Dye.

The fans that expect every player who has an 0-for to be replaced the next day.

These are the guys who make any team's fanbase look bad.

This is directed directly at these guys.

Guys, when the market for "gettable" and "hold-onable" players is as limited as it is, you really don't want to pour all of your prospects into a Matt Holliday-type guy who will leave you for pin-striped waters.

Getting Nate McLouth, and his 12 homers and 40-some RBIs WAS our power addition.

I've said this in other articles, and I'll say it again, Brad Hawpe or Luke Scott would be NICE but not for the price.

Besides, wasn't this guy who assembled our fantastic rotation?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Basically, all the Braves need is for the bottom of the line up to step it up a little bit.

With the line up finally intact again, since Klutchman's return, the team seems to be putting forth a better offensive attack.

What they did in the last game in Cincy is what they're capable of doing every night when everyone is healthy (see tonight's Boston game).