Week 3: SunTrust Park Review

A few of you have asked for my thoughts on the new Braves Ballpark, so I figured this was as good of a place as any to share some photos and talk about my experience a little bit.

TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Max	4.714	1	Keith	3.250	1	Dave	3.667		Max	My Story Begins
2	Arthur	4.714	2	Arthur	3.750	2	Matt	4.000		Dean	Closing the Door
3	Keith	5.000	3	Brian/Josh	4.000	3	Max	4.167		Arthur	DOMINATION
4	Brian/Josh	5.071	4	Paul	5.000	4	Michael	4.667		Paul	South Florida Gators
5	Dave	5.143	5	Max	5.125	5	Cory	5.000		Dave	I Hate Fantasy
6	Michael	5.214	6	Michael	5.625	6	Dean	6.000		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
7	Matt	5.500	7	Dean	5.875	7	Arthur	6.000		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
8	Paul	5.571	8	Dave	6.250	8	Paul	6.333		Brian/Josh	Alternative Stats
9	Dean	5.929	9	Matt	6.625	9	Brian/Josh	6.500		Matt	615 for the win
10	Cory	6.500	10	Cory	7.625	10	Keith	7.333		Michael	Pic'em Pelham'ed

But first, yeesh; the league is kinda a mess right now. The league leader in the power rankings stands at 4.714, a tie between Max and Arthur, an all-time worst (dating back to 2011). For reference, the next lowest number 1 ranking was Josh Waring in 2013 at 4.357, allll the way back before Brian was even in the picture of team BJ. What this means is that we are all bunched together, there has been no consistently good team. Paul had one of the worst weeks in Floored history in week 1, but after week 3 he is already in the middle of the pack. Long ways to go in the season.

 SunTrust Park opened up Friday, April 14^th, I’ve already been lucky enough to go twice: first on opening day with 42,000 other people and then last Wednesday with the place only about half full. The first thing to note is that they have built a town center, called The Battery, much like CityPlace in West Palm Beach all the way around the park. The idea is that the Atlanta Braves weren’t getting enough of your money at Turner Field in downtown Atlanta because there was really no life around the stadium, so now they moved 9 miles northwest up I-75 and added a bunch of restaurants and bars to make you hang out before and after the game. It works. It’s beautiful around there.

 

 Right now there is only a few restaurants open so they were overcrowded with hour long waits even on the Wednesday game, but if you look closely you can see the expansion occurring and a time when it will be a great place to eat before night games.

 The ballpark itself is pretty incredible. It’s a great open-concept with great sight lines all around the park. The theatrics are entertaining with a number of video boards, there is a roof over the upper deck which is going to be great in the summer. There are also a ton of beer lines and vendors so we were never waiting very long…nice.

 The downsides, parking sucks. It’s overpriced and if you don’t get one of the limited parking deck spots in the Battery the open-air lots themselves are a half mile walk away. Early in the year the Braves are still recommending you pre-pay for parking so you know where you’re going and aren’t driving aimlessly around the park looking for a spot, but with this comes Ticketmaster fees. I am anxious to see how this unfolds.

All in all it was a great experience, it’s an innovative setup.

OK onto the week in reviews, chances are if you had a good start to the year you sucked, and if you had a bad start to the year you bounced back.

The heavyweight matchup of the week should have been Dean vs Dave, but these teams are far from their title contending selves from years past right now. Oddly, Dean was near the league lead with 13 HRs last week, but not much else went right offensively for him. His pitching continues to be one of the things I’m paying attention to most in the league once again putting up mediocre numbers. After poor early pitching starts to the week, Dean is forced to stream starters and it just isn’t working yet. Dave put up some good, high volume, innings en route to the win, keeping his ERA under 3.00 while posting 71 pitching Ks. Dave will need to learn how to cope without Madison Bumgarner for the forseeable future.

Michael edged Matt in an underwhelming victory. Matt’s offense put up a pretty good week hitting .297 with 13 HRs but his R/RBI/SB/BB numbers weren’t all that high allowing Michael to stay in the game. Michael continues to suffer injuries and made the tough choice to cut Rich Hill earlier in the week, time will tell whether it was a Monster or a Max move.

Brian and Josh beat Keith with a solid offensive performance. These are two of the best three offensive teams in the league through 3 weeks and it showed. All around impressive and fairly close offensive numbers put the balance of the matchup on the pitching side and BJ streamed their way to victory. Smart managing here by Brian and Josh identified that they could rack up strikeouts and wins to win the matchup, it worked. Keith never made a counter move to keep up.

Arthur took advantage of the weak gazelle, aka Cory. Cory is really struggling with the losses of Starling Marte, Adrian Beltre, and now Miguel Cabrera. It’d be hard for any team to keep up with those losses. Keep trying, champ. Arthur continues to put up good numbers, in his own right though. Led of course by my arch nemesis Bryce Harper (who had two HRs and 5 RBIs before the second inning was over on Wednesday), Arthur is getting production up and down his lineup.

Monster of the Week: Brian and Josh, they made some great managerial moves late in the week to seize the opportunity to stream their way to victory.

Max of the Week: ok it can’t be the guy with the useless minor leaguer on his roster because his team is playing too well…for now…so I’ll pivot to the flipside of the Monster-producing matchup: Keith. Keith didn’t make any pitching moves as Brian and Josh made their strategy clear. Keith wins the Max of the Week.