The Daily Chop: Francisco Cabrera, The 1998 Braves and more

Having Major League Baseball on pause has given us the opportunity to turn our attentions to some of the great Atlanta Braves teams of the past. One of the teams that will always be remembered fondly is the 1992 team who followed up their 91 breakthrough with another trip to the World Series thanks to a thrilling Game 7 win over the Pirates in in the NLCS. The most pivotal play in that series came from Francisco Cabrera who delivered a clutch pinch hit single in the ninth that famously scored Sid Bream which has become an iconic call in Major League history.

Cabrera didn’t go on to have an impactful career following his heroics but he will always have a special place in Braves’ fans hearts. The Athletic’s Jeff Schultz caught up with Cabrera earlier this week to discuss that faithful moment and much more in a great interview. Here is my favorite part with Cabrera describing what was going through his mind as he stepped to the plate in Game 7.

“I was thinking: ‘If I get a hit, I’m a hero,’” Cabrera said. “If I don’t get a hit, nobody knows me, so nobody is going to remember me, anyway. So I didn’t feel no pressure.”

You have to love that.

More Braves News

I wrote about why the 1998 Braves are the best Braves team to not win the World Series. We will be taking a game-by-game look at their excruciating and frustrating loss to the Padres starting later today so be sure to check back for that.

Our Throwback series took a look at the red hot start of the 1982 Braves and the ice cold start of the 1988 squad.

Chipper Jones is the focus of this week’s Staring Nine column by Cory McCartney as he continues his look at each Braves player to have his number retired.

Thursday’s Braves flashback traveled back to April 16, 2005 and a loss to the Phillies thanks to a big game by Chase Utley.

Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo released an updated mock draft earlier this week and projects UGA right-hander Cole Wilcox to the Braves.

MLB.com’s Will Leitch compiles a list of each team’s best players of the 1990s. Greg Maddux makes the cut for the Braves as the only pitcher in history with multiple seasons of at least 200 innings and a 260 ERA+.

MLB Pipeline recounts each team’s best third base prospect of the past 20 years. For the Braves, it was Andy Marte who was a Top 10 prospect according to MLB Pipeline in 2005.

MLB News

Union Chief Tony Clark is still optimistic that MLB will play games in some capacity in 2020.

Good news here as A’s minor league manager Webster Garrison has been taken off a ventilator and is now breathing on his own as he continues to fight off the coronavirus.