Orel Hershiser: Terry, Earlier you mentioned the moves the Braves made.
Terry: They acquired, as Fredi [Gonzalez] said, baseball players.
Savvy move. The Astros are like 5-60 since June 1st because they have wasted time and money acquiring pro surfers.
Reed Johnson is a gym rat.
I hate picking nits when it comes to dumb non-analysis, but isn't a gym rat who has a spot on an MLB team, like, the opposite of a capital B Baseball capital P Player? I think of the latter as someone who has great instincts and natural talent for the game (even if they're not particularly athletic), and the former as someone who sucks at baseball but works out a lot and hustles a lot and endears himself management so he always has a job. Also, Reed Johnson sucks at baseball.
He's at the ballpark all day,
OR IS HE IN THE GYM? MAKE UP YOUR MIND
he knows how to play.
Number of MLB players who know how to play baseball: all.
A guy like Eric Hinske sitting over there.
A sentence fragment in the style of Bill Plaschke. Eric Hinske has been a Brave for more than two years. Also, while Eric Hinske has stunk less than Reed Johnson over the course of his career, he actually stinks worse than Johnson right now. He's hitting .209/.287/.304 this year. No amount of knowing how to play and being at the ballpark all day can make up for that awfulness.
They have a ballclub that understands what they're supposed to do when they show up.
You are saying absolutely nothing. Your non-existant point is that the Braves have some players (who happen to be untalented and white and scrappy) who are dedicated to winning and prepare a lot in order to increase their chances of doing so. And that... makes the Braves identical to the other 29 teams in MLB. Really, the only thing you're actually saying is hidden in subtext: if guys like Johnson didn't work out all the time and hustle their asses off, they wouldn't have jobs because they sure as shit aren't very good at baseball.
Much as I hate the Red Sox, I didn't mind Francona as their manager. Now I wish they'd hire him back to get him away from TV microphones.
Actually, Reed Johnson is a perfectly good backup outfielder who can hit lefties and isn't a liability in the field. He's a better version of Matt Diaz, which is what the Braves were looking for. I'm just saying, he doesn't suck.
ReplyDeleteFrancona's commentary, however, does.
Reed Johnson is somewhere between mediocre and servicable. He plays good defense and will occassionally turn on a high fastball from a lefty, but that's about it. Why all announcers find it necessary to fawn over below-average white guys in every sport is beyond me.
ReplyDeleteI never felt baseball people were particularly smart as a group. Whether you are watching the brain dead moves of Dusty (bunt, bunt, bunt) Baker or Tony La Russa or Bobby Valentine, these guys seem anti-math and kind of " that's how I learned the game and I not changing anything" managers. Remembering back through baseball history, the game was filled with many farm boys and miners' or steel mill workers' sons. Perhaps as a group under educated. The more recent Latino influx of players, at least those from outside the U.S., also seem under educated. Not the greatest environment for nurturing intelligent thought. I give you John Kruk.
ReplyDeleteI probably should have used Ozzie Guillen as my moron exemplar as he is Latino. I was just stunned to learn that Kruk attended a couple of colleges.
ReplyDeleteJust think how many of these guys barely finished high school, spend 5 years riding a bus in the minors, and then end up in the bigs. Not exactly an academic career path.
ReplyDeleteI was probably too hard on Johnson (HEHEHEH HARD JOHNSON), who I admit is a useful player. His career stats profile reads like a steroids user's but that's neither here nor there. I guess I just said he sucks because I'm trying to provide a counterbalanace for the entirely unjustified praise Francona (and many other crusty old white guys in the baseball media world) heap upon him and his kind for no good reason.
ReplyDelete