{"id":621,"date":"2010-04-01T08:59:48","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T13:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/?p=621"},"modified":"2010-03-31T22:26:20","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T03:26:20","slug":"letters-to-the-nl-east-part-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/2010\/04\/01\/letters-to-the-nl-east-part-35\/","title":{"rendered":"Letters to the NL East, Part 3\/5"},"content":{"rendered":"

(To read past year\u2019s letters, click here<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Letters to the NL East, Part 3 of 5. (part 1<\/a>, part 2<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\"atlantabraveslogo\"<\/p>\n

Dear Atlanta Braves,<\/p>\n

Oh how the mighty have fallen! I barely even have any ill will towards you anymore.\u00a0 It\u2019s been five years since you won the division and it\u2019s been a long five years.\u00a0 You don\u2019t appear to have the tools to make it this year either, although the rotation does have some promising young arms in it.\u00a0 Had you not traded Vazquez, I\u2019d almost be worried.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have a lot of faith in your bullpen holding up long term, as it feels like you downgraded there as well.\u00a0 Your offense has long been a weak point, and it probably still will be barring Heyward having a rookie season to rival Pujols and Reyes for the MVP and Larry Jones being healthy enough for the entire season.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re one of those middling teams that no one really wants to play because you\u2019re not a push over, but you\u2019re also not good enough for a rivalry either.\u00a0 Just boring.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be interesting to see if you guys finish above .500 this year or not, and maybe you can help out the Mets a little by playing the Phillies hard.<\/p>\n

One thing for sure, Bobby Cox is not getting another title before retiring this year.\u00a0 Maybe you should\u2019ve beaten the Yankees another time in the 90s.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n

Your former rival,<\/p>\n

Optimistic Mets Fan<\/p>\n

Feel free to head over to The Real Dirty Mets Blog <\/a>for discussion.\u00a0 Once the season finally starts, I’ll be contributing (at least) a weekly Optimism Report over there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(To read past year\u2019s letters, click here) Letters to the NL East, Part 3 of 5. (part 1, part 2) Dear Atlanta Braves, Oh how the mighty have fallen! I barely even have any ill will towards you anymore.\u00a0 It\u2019s been five years since you won the division and it\u2019s been a long five years.\u00a0 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Letters to the NL East, Part 3\/5”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[809,19],"tags":[938,30,2968,939,422,940,421,368,2964,14,382,941],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":625,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621\/revisions\/625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}