Chopping With The Braves And Rolling With The Tide
It sucks because I was so excited about what he could bring us. He did the exact things he didn't need to do and screwed up himself and the franchise. If he was even close to the guy he was supposed to be, this rebuild is looking really good.
The Kawakami treatment would include exile to Pearl.
I just don't worry too much about punishing players for off the field behavior further than the justice system or the commissioner's office. I don't exactly know what he did, but he's been punished for it and I don't quite understand what makes playing sports different from any other job.
If the braves want to cut him, that's cool. If they want to play him to try and salvage value that's also all right with me.
If he lights in up in the minors, I think he'll be given another shot. If he lights it up in the minors, though... also means he may build some trade value back.
According to the Twitters, Olivera was playing winter ball in Puerto Rico and quit his winter ball team after becoming frustrated that no MLB teams had made him an offer. He was hitting a blazing .250 with an impressive 1 HR and a staggering 14 RBIs in 33 games.
This guy is a child.
Cuban-mania
MLB was like a kid with it's nose pressed against the show window of a closed candy store. When the doors finally opened, the kids ran in and started shoving whatever they could lay their hands on right into their mouths. Turns out, some of the candy that looked appealing was rotten.
JohnAdcox (12-29-2016)
Lots of scouts were drooling over this guy.
Went down and saw him in person.
Good question for many scouts for many teams....what did you see? What did you miss?
Yep. If I'm Coppy, I want to know exactly where the process broke down. I suspect that the problem was so many teams started off by watching old video of the guy. He hadn't actually played in several years so they were looking at video of a 27 year old Olivera. They then went and watched him perform under very, very controlled circumstances designed to make him look good. Instead of looking at this with a skeptical eye, they took his performance as proof that he's the same player he was when he was 27.
I could be entirely wrong but that's my guess of how it went down.
JohnAdcox (12-29-2016)
Remember there wasn't a total cloak of mystery surrounding Cuban players, despite the embargo. MLB teams had access to reports and data compiled from other Latin-based scouts. It seems rather improbable that the contract was offered by the Dodgers simply from old clips.
Remember Freeman went on rehab assignment and watched Olivera take BP. Said he was the real deal and the sound off his bat was different. Lmao.
Forever Fredi
Metaphysicist (01-08-2017)
This would normally be true, but Olivera played all of 73 games from ages 27-29. He missed two years all together. So there wasn't much recent info on Olivera. The guy teams were going to get was going to be on the wrong side of 30 while the guy they knew from reputation was much younger.