LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The answer came to John Schuerholz one day last October. After another long day of meetings during which the Atlanta Braves general manager analyzed, discussed, researched and pondered why, for the first time since 1990, his team wasn't in the playoffs, he decided to dine at a Chinese restaurant near Turner Field.
After he finished eating, he cracked open the fortune cookie and there it was, the answer he'd been seeking, pithy wisdom summed up in a few wise words.
"Fix Bullpen, Good Things Will Follow," the thin strip of white paper read.
Aw, just kidding.
The reality, though, is that the reason the Braves' amazing streak of 14 straight division titles ended last season was just that simple, just that obvious. And Schuerholz will now acknowledge he saw it coming more than a year ago, even as he was assuring everyone that Atlanta would be just fine with Chris Reitsma as the closer, thank you very much.
"You know how we baseball people are," he said recently before an exhibition at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex. "We always prefer to be positive and optimistic. But we knew what the reality was, and you could see it from the work of the previous winter. We tried to sign every free-agent reliever out there. We tried to sign [Bob] Wickman, Trevor Hoffman, Danys Baez. We tried to get them all and our pile of money wasn't as big as the others, and we couldn't get them.
"So we said, 'OK, we're going to try to make this work.' We've got the most positive manager in the world [Bobby Cox], who thinks guys can step up and do the job, but we were concerned about it. And sadly it came home to roost on us, and it cost us dearly."
The numbers tell the story. Braves relievers had 29 blown saves, second in the majors to the Kansas City Royals (31). The Mets' bullpen failed to convert 15 save opportunities and won the National League East going away.
"What if we had just had a horrible year blowing saves, say 20? We might have been in the World Series," Cox said. "We had a good team last year. But you've got to have all areas going to win."
Schuerholz actually began addressing that last July 20 when he acquired Wickman from the Indians for minor league catcher Max Ramirez. Wickman converted 18 of 19 save opportunities with a 1.04 earned run average after coming to Atlanta, but it was too late to salvage the season. The Braves moved quickly to sign him to a 1-year extension.
