The Season: O hell! what have we here? A carrion Death, within whose empty eye, There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.

Ever since grade 9 English, these words have stuck with me as the ultimate expression of someone who just fucked up real good. The Braves, hoping to squeeze one more championship out of the Cox/Glavine/Smoltz/Chipper era, traded some real good young players for Mark Teixeira last summer, but failed to make the playoffs.

This year, they tried again with the same group - but after a few weeks of hanging on the fringes of contention, the team collapsed. Tex played very well, but wasn't able to help an organization that is simply exhausted - he was traded to the Angels at the deadline. The Braves have played horribly since he was dealt, and Tim Hudson had season-ending surgery.

High Point: A 5-game winning streak in May - including a four-game sweep of the Mets - had the Braves well-positioned as a contender in the NL East.

Positive Trends: The Braves picked up 22-year-old Jair Jurrjens from the Tigers in return for Edgar Renteria. He has had a terrific rookie season in the rotation (13-9, 3.62 ERA)

Brian McCann, after a bit of a disappointing season in 2007, has again established himself as one of the best-hitting catchers in baseball (.297 average, 23 homers, 82 RBI, still only 24 years old).

Yunel Escobar had a nice rookie season in 2007, and has followed up with a solid sophomore year.

Pleasant Surprises: Chipper Jones, at age 36, decided to go out and hit .400 for the first couple of months. He's since regressed to "only" a .365 batting average.

Martin Prado is batting .330 in limited playing time. 24 years old; obviously he's not this good a hitter, but he's forced the Braves to make a decision about him.

Disappointments: Give me a "J" (J!) Give me an "E" (E!) Give me an "F" (F!) Give me another "F" (F!) And, for good measure, give me another "F" (F!) What does that spell? Jeff F'ing Francoeur! The hacktastic one, after taking a small step forward at age 23, took a huge step backwards at age 24, failing to hit for either average or power.

It would be nice to be optimistic about Francoeur, who certainly does have talent - but this season has "Cory Snyder" written all over it.

Casey Kotchman, one of the key players that the Braves received in the Teixeira deal, is batting .183 with zero homers. Still only 25 years old, still talented - but once again, Casey has to start all over.

Lots of injuries struck the pitching staff this season. We shouldn't have been surprised by Glavine or Smoltz - or, God knows, Mike Hampton - but the Tim Hudson injury was a heartbreaker.

The Predictable: Win or lose, Bobby Cox still finds ways to get ejected from ballgames.

Epitaph: I'm not William Shakespeare, and am not exactly sure what is written on the Braves' scroll - something along the lines of, Rebuilding requires its own pace, Old men may grow too old before it's done, You cannot reschedule the former, Just so the latter can take part.

That doesn't even rhyme, but whatever; the 2008 season may turn out to be a good thing for the Braves, as they could have stayed on the fringe of contention and decided to keep Teixeira, but were terrifically unlucky (a 9-27 record in one-run games - whatever flaws the team might have had, that's just ridiculous).

Thus, onwards: the team has lots of good young players, but they need to find a couple more starters; the bullpen was a disaster, but that can be fixed in short time. If Cox, Smoltz, and Chipper want to hang around and take part, that's fine, just so long as they don't expect the team to "go for it" if they're a few games out of the wild card next summer.