Twitter Feed: July 29

-Yesterday was fun even before the game began.  There were reports that Jake Peavy had packed up things and a trade was imminent.  Soon after that, the Braves and A's were the teams most likely to bring Peavy on board.  That was followed by tweets ESPN's Jim Bowden and FOX's Ken Rosenthal that the Braves weren't in on anything.  According to what people think the White Sox are offering for Peavy, a package equal to or greater than the package the Rangers gave up for Matt Garza, I am less keen on making a trade than I was a few days ago when I wrote about Peavy.

-Speaking of Rosenthal, this morning he tweeted about his new column that includes a few lines about the Braves.  He wrote about how the Braves are getting "terrific work" from Jordan Walden, Luis Avilan, and Anthony Varvaro.  One of these is not like the other.  While Varvaro's 3.61 FIP is good enough, I worry about him.  Hix xFIP is about 80 points higher than his FIP and a 1.5 K/BB doesn't inspire much confidence.  While people talk up the bullpen's ERA ranking, which is first, I look at the bullpen and wonder if beyond the top three relievers, the Braves have guys to count on in high leverage situations.

-In Gondeee's latest update, he also mentioned the heavy workload on Walden, Avilan, and closer Craig Kimbrel.  It's enough to give a guy fits when you remember the breaking down of the pen late in the season two years ago from Jonny Venters, Eric O'Flaherty, and Kimbrel.  O'Ventbrel was dominant until September, which magically coincided with the epic 2011 collapse.  Follow gondeee at @gondeee.

-Back to Rosenthal's column, he mentioned Chris Johnson's BABIP, something I mentioned here earlier this month.  While Johnson's .421 BABIP is extremely high, only Joey Votto has a higher BABIP since the beginning of 2010 (.370 to .366).  Not that Johnson is highly comparable to Votto (23 WAR to 3 WAR should make that clear), but Johnson's style of hitting seems to result in a high BABIP.  Not that he will maintain a .421 BABIP, but this far into the season, it's less a fluke and more a sign of a player who doesn't live by the same rules most players do.  He also is a Joe Simpson favorite - 34 hits to left, 42 hits to center, 28 hits to right.  Seriously, Simpson wouldn't need Viagra looking at that.

-Elsewhere, this tweet mentions that Kimbrel and John Smoltz are the only closers in franchise history to have three 30-save seasons.  Kimbrel, who has 120 saves, passed Mark Wohlers for third all-time and needs 21 more to tie Gene Garber for the second most saves in franchise history.  Smoltz holds the record with 154 saves.

-One of my trade targets isn't coming to Atlanta, per Ken Rosenthal.  According to him, the Tigers have acquired Jose Veras, who I wrote about a few weeks ago.

-Mark Bowman tweets this goody.  The Braves "hit .224 w/ RISP in their first 80 games.  They have hit .325 w/ RISP in the 25 games that have followed."  It's a long season.  Don't focus on splits that normalize over time.