The Atlanta Braves Are Very Bad, And Fredi Gonzalez Isn't Helping...

[goldfly]

The Atlanta Braves Are Very Bad, And Fredi Gonzalez Isn't Helping



It’s not easy managing a team as bereft of talent as the Atlanta Braves, so my first impulse is to feel bad for Fredi Gonzalez, who has steered his garbage team to an 0-7 start. But the Braves have been in some very winnable games, and Gonzalez hasn’t been doing much but tripping over his own feet in the early going.

Last night’s loss to the Washington Nationals saw Gonzalez make a few bad decisions, which he later defended with some particularly cringeworthy quotes. The Braves got a surprisingly strong start from reclamation project Jhoulys Chacin, who held the Nationals scoreless through six innings and needed only 69 pitches to do so. In the top of the seventh, with the score still 0-0, Braves second baseman Gordon Beckham hit a two-out double. Chacin was due up next, but Gonzalez decided to yank him for pinch-hitter Jace Peterson, a career .224/.296/.310 hitter. Peterson struck out on four pitches, and Gonzalez later justified the decision to pull his lights-out starter thusly:

“[Chacin] was pitching some kind of baseball,” Gonzalez said. “I think if it’s one of those decisions later in the summer, where you’ve got a winning streak going and you’re rolling, you maybe let him hit there. But he was pitching some of the best baseball I’ve seen this year.”
There are a lot of factors managers need to consider when making in-game decisions. “Are we on a winning streak?” really shouldn’t qualify.

Gonzalez continued boning things after Chacin was pulled. The Braves loaded the bases with one out in the top of the eighth, and had Jeff Francoeur due up. Gonzalez could have brought in Kelly Johnson—a career .333/.361/.623 hitter with the bases loaded, incidentally—but he left Francoeur in there to ground into an inning-ending double play. Again, he didn’t have a great explanation:

“I thought about [pinch-hitting Johnson], but Frenchy has been in the game and he’s been swinging,” Gonzalez said. “He comes up with those big hits in those situations. The matchup wasn’t one of those matchups where it was crazy one way or another. I kind of felt good about that.”
Jeff Francoeur is, incidentally, a career .240/.270/.320 hitter with the bases loaded. Also, Jeff Francoeur sucks.

The Braves have now lost four games in which they’ve held a lead in the seventh inning or later, but it’s not the results or even Gonzalez’s decisions that should worry Braves fans as much as Gonzalez’s reasoning.

It’s hard to effectively manage a team this bad. Every night, Gonzalez is going to be faced with what are essentially lose-lose decisions. Do I bring my bad hitter off the bench, or let my worse hitter swing away? Which of my not-very-good relievers should I use in this situation? But those moments become even bigger minefields when the guy making the decisions is starting from a false premise such as “Jeff Francoeur comes up with bigs hits in those situations.” If Gonzalez keeps going like this, what was already going to be a bleak season for the Braves is going to be that much harder to watch.

http://deadspin.com/the-atlanta-brav...isn-1770712125

[Braves1976]

I see they used the quotes I refused to quote last night where it didn't seem like I was picking on a retarded kid.

[buck75]

When is Eddie Perez going to get his chance to manage the Braves?

[bravesfanforlife88]

When is Eddie Perez going to get his chance to manage the Braves?

Hopefully no later than after the Florida series. Would be poetic justice though. Him being fired by Florida then being fired IN Florida

[NinersSBChamps]

lol deadspin articles...

[GovClintonTyree]

The Atlanta Braves Are Very Bad, And Fredi Gonzalez Isn't Helping



It’s not easy managing a team as bereft of talent as the Atlanta Braves,

It’s hard to effectively manage a team this bad. Every night, Gonzalez is going to be faced with what are essentially lose-lose decisions. Do I bring my bad hitter off the bench, or let my worse hitter swing away? Which of my not-very-good relievers should I use in this situation?

But those moments become even bigger minefields when the guy making the decisions is starting from a false premise such as “Jeff Francoeur comes up with bigs hits in those situations.” If Gonzalez keeps going like this, what was already going to be a bleak season for the Braves is going to be that much harder to watch.

http://deadspin.com/the-atlanta-brav...isn-1770712125

Really? So Fredi should say "Jeff Francoeur sucks?" Way to pump a guy up. Pretty sure Fredi knows he's a vet hanging on who would have retired if we hadn't given him a "what the hell?" job. We were choosing between Bourn, Swisher and Francoeur. Really didn't matter which one we picked.

I think the salient points are the ones above the nonsensical Francoeur argument. This team sucks and John McGraw couldn't win with it.

Do I love Fredi? Nah. But the .200 BA and 6.00 ERA are the reason we suck, not because Fredi sucks.

[GovClintonTyree]

When is Eddie Perez going to get his chance to manage the Braves?

Do you think Eddie Perez would win with this team? If you hired him and he was a brilliant tactician, we'd move from a 56 win team to a 58 win team.

[bravesnumberone]

No offense to Eddie, but part of the problem is just sticking around the inner circle.

[CyYoung31]

Not to defend Fredi in any way, but choosing to make bases loaded stats as the center point of your argument is cherry picking at its finest. Looking at their splits would be the way to go there.

[GovClintonTyree]

Not to defend Fredi in any way, but choosing to make bases loaded stats as the center point of your argument is cherry picking at its finest. Looking at their splits would be the way to go there.

More like booger picking.

[nsacpi]

Not to defend Fredi in any way, but choosing to make bases loaded stats as the center point of your argument is cherry picking at its finest. Looking at their splits would be the way to go there.

Yup. Francouer against a righty versus KJ against a lefty. Look up the numbers, and try not to be fooled by small samples from a particular season. The defense rests its case. Or the prosecution depending on your point of view.

[bravesfanMatt]

Yup. Francouer against a righty versus KJ against a lefty. Look up the numbers, and try not to be fooled by small samples from a particular season. The defense rests its case. Or the prosecution depending on your point of view.

Your honor. I would like to add that using kj would have forced dusty to either use his last lefty then or save him for mallex nick ff rotation

[striker42]

I don't like it when I see writers or talking heads say things like "It's not fair to put all the blame for the 0-8 start of Fredi." They were doing this on sports radio this morning. It's like they think the fans are only upset because the team is 0-8. So they point to the lack of talent and the under performance of key players and say it's not all Fredi's fault. They don't give the fans near enough credit.

We're not upset with Fredi because the team is 0-8. I'm sympathetic to the fact that there are times where he really doesn't have any good options. What I'm upset with Fredi about is that he's taking the bad situation and making it worse. The title of that article is perfect. This is a bad team and Fredi isn't helping.

I don't think the Braves would actively try to tank. That doesn't seem to fit the way this organization operates. I especially don't think they'd tank after the front office swore this year would be better. But Fredi couldn't do a more perfect job of tanking if he tried. And that's why I have a problem with him. So many of his moves are completely indefensible. It's like he's trying to pick the worst possible move.

[bravesfanforlife88]

[Enscheff]

I agree Fredi is pretty bad, but it's hard to take an article seriously when they quote a batter's line with the bases loaded as the main argument for or against a decision.

PHing for Chacin was perfectly defensible. He is a filler in the rotation, and the very next inning could have easily blown up on him. With the way this offense has been going, Beckham's double could quite literally been the only chance the Braves had to score a run. He could have gone with KJ there instead of Peterson, but that's a very minor gripe.

As far as PHing KJ for Frenchy...they would have brought in a LHer to face KJ.

This team is complete garbage, and no manager would change that.

[Millwood1Hitter]

Fredi is horrible. Yes, this and last season is not necessarily his fault, this team and that team was garbage. And Fredi is exactly not helping them out, putting them in position to win a few winnable games here and there....BUT....

the problem lies in the fact, we had some pretty damn talented teams that played under him and play uninspired baseball at times and underachieved, and was apart of one of the great September collapses in history. Along with that, and not even remotely close to winning a playoff series....Fredi's track record and resume is not something to be thrilled about.

And he needs to be gone before this wave of young talent gets here, otherwise we will see more of the same, players not being put in a position to succeed, and the long-term ramifications are talented youngsters that loose confidence and can't reach their ceiling.

[yeezus]

I strongly disagree that Fredi isn't helping. He's certainly helping them be a worse team.

[nsacpi]

I strongly disagree that Fredi isn't helping. He's certainly helping them be a worse team.

There has been a collective vow taken

[mossy]

Damn. He's gotta let his starters log some innings. 7 minimum. I can't understand why he's pulling guys so early when they have low pitch counts, especially with a horrible pen.

[dak]

Damn. He's gotta let his starters log some innings. 7 minimum. I can't understand why he's pulling guys so early when they have low pitch counts, especially with a horrible pen.

I was fine with Fredi pulling Wisler for the PH last night. We were down 3 in the 7th inning, so I think that's a pretty standard decision. Some of the other decisions this year though are very questionable. The sample size of decisions in Fredi's career is high, and Fredi is a replacement-level in-game manager.

On the FO, I think they've been foolish to make these proclamations. It causes them undue embarrassment when it could have been easily avoided by giving dull, GM-speak answers. While I'd prefer they don't make themselves and the franchise look foolish, I'm much more concerned about baseball and roster management decisions than PR. My concerns about the competency of this FO's decisions are definitely mounting. I can only hope there's been some internal acknowledgement of some of the poor decisions that have been made and how they can be avoided in the future.