Your C Team

CBS Sports gave the Braves a C.

Bleacher Report dropped them from three to five.

FanGraphs — the people who invented WAR — called the deadline "lethargic."

Your C team just won its sixth straight.

I want to be clear about something. I said this morning that I'm 78% sure the October window is closing. I'm not moving that number tonight. One game against the Marlins doesn't change the math. Mahle's 5.13 ERA is still the Game 2 starter. Strider is still done. Lopez is still on the IL. The things I'm worried about did not change between 7:15 and 10 PM.

But the national grades are wrong. Not wrong in their conclusion. Wrong in their reasoning.

Mike Axisa wrote that the Braves "settled for Tyler Mahle and Lane Thomas" and called the deadline "fine at a time when Atlanta had a chance to do more than fine." That's a clean sentence and a bad argument. Ellis already showed you what the market actually looked like: deGrom invoked his no-trade clause against every team. The Dodgers paid for Skubal with a package that would have cost Atlanta its Rookie of the Year. The Braves didn't settle. The market priced them out.

A C implies you had the test in front of you and bombed it. The Braves had a test with no answer key.

Here's what actually happened tonight while the national media was filing their deadline report cards. Grant Holmes — one of the four arms Ellis identified this morning as unproven for October — threw six innings of shutout ball. Five strikeouts. One walk. Five hits, no damage. He's 7-4 with a line that doesn't look like a question mark. It looks like the beginning of an answer.

Riley put a ball 433 feet into the Atlanta night. Albies went deep for the nineteenth time. Olson doubled twice. The lineup that Axisa says needed more offensive help scored four runs on seven hits against a Marlins team that — let's be honest — they should beat.

And they did beat them. For the sixth straight time they beat the team in front of them.

None of this changes October. A win streak against the Marlins and the Nationals is not the same as a win streak against the Phillies or the Dodgers. I know this. My 78% knows this. But a C doesn't know this. A C doesn't know that Alex Anthopoulos refused to trade Drake Baldwin because he thinks Baldwin is the franchise catcher for the next decade. A C doesn't know that the bullpen — Lee, Suarez, Iglesias, 1.43 ERA across 107 innings — is the best in baseball and the entire October strategy.

A C just counts what you added and compares it to what the Dodgers added.

The Dodgers got Skubal. Congratulations. The Braves got Holmes throwing six scoreless on a Tuesday in August and nobody will write about it tomorrow except us.

I'm still at 78%. The national media is wrong for a different reason than I am. My number is about a rotation that needs to survive October with one proven arm. Their letter is about a deadline that didn't look impressive enough on paper.

One of us is measuring the right thing.

Tell me I'm wrong.