Will the real Jason Heyward please stand up?

[Millwood1Hitter]

Who exactly are you? The one that was highly touted as a great prospect that could hit for average, power, and walk like your once in a century rookie campaign

Or

The one that struggles to even hit the most mediocre of fastballs and breaking stuff and strikes out or rolls out to second base every at bat?

We've seen more of the later, and the excuse has always been injury. You've had some Phenominal stretches like after moving to lead off before getting hit in the face.

It's put up or shut up time.

[Heyward]

He's on pace for a 6-WAR season

[Gary82]

He's on pace for a 6-WAR season

Is he really? lol

I really wish he would hit, but his defense is great.

[zitothebrave]

Is he really? lol

I really wish he would hit, but his defense is great.

He will hit. If he keeps his defense up, we have maybe the best player in the NL. Heyward's on an insane pace defensively with a 55.9 UZR/150 now.

[thethe]

I love Heyward and want him here long term but the talk of him getting more money than Freeman was and always will be crazy.

[Julio3000]

The real Jason Heyward is Andruw Jones, apparently.

[Gary82]

The real Jason Heyward is Andruw Jones, apparently.

I can live with that.

[gtcway]

I can't verify these numbers, got it from the comments section on ESPN. But if they are accurate, it's worse than I thought.

Jeff Williams - Explain to me again how Heyward will "come around" His career numbers are below average across the board. If you don't believe that, here are his 162 game average numbers for his career:

148 hits, 88 runs, 29 doubles, 4 triples, 22 home runs, 70 RBI, 14 steals, 76 walks, 137 strike outs, .256/.349/.435 (.784 OPS)

Even if you wanted to argue those numbers aren't "bad", those are 162 game averages and he averages 111 games per year, so you get the point. He's not very good. When you've been in the league 5 years and your best year was your rookie year, that's not a good sign. Braves fans should know something about that (See: Jeff Francoeur)

[Millwood1Hitter]

I don't care what the statistics say, he has been awful at the plate.

[zitothebrave]

Who exactly are you? The one that was highly touted as a great prospect that could hit for average, power, and walk like your once in a century rookie campaign

Or

The one that struggles to even hit the most mediocre of fastballs and breaking stuff and strikes out or rolls out to second base every at bat?

We've seen more of the later, and the excuse has always been injury. You've had some Phenominal stretches like after moving to lead off before getting hit in the face.
It's put up or shut up time.

This post has so much fail. The "we've seen more of the later" part.

Got to love the strikes out or grounds out to second every at bat. That's so lol worthy.

We have 4 years of Sample with J-Hey. we have 3 years of very good offense, 1 year of below average offense. Even with his below average offense season, he was still a very good MLB player because of his speed and defense. Last 2 years before this he posted a 121 and 120 wRC+ neither are world beaters, but for someone with best in baseball defense, being well above average with that insane defense makes for a great player.

Complaining about Jason is silly.

[jsebe10]

He will hit. If he keeps his defense up, we have maybe the best player in the NL. Heyward's on an insane pace defensively with a 55.9 UZR/150 now.

Ahhhh. Gotta love sabermetrics. Been disguising Jason's mediocrity and title of being a bust for 3 years now.

He's not what everyone wanted him to be. The complaining and worry about Heyward is just. There isn't a sabermetric in the world that can convince me otherwise. Ride him out as long as possible and he can take his ass and that gold glove to free agency. He looks like an idiot standing up there with new ungodly stance he has.

[Heyward]

Ahhhh. Gotta love sabermetrics. Been disguising Jason's mediocrity and title of being a bust for 3 years now.

He's not what everyone wanted him to be. The complaining and worry about Heyward is just. There isn't a sabermetric in the world that can convince me otherwise. Ride him out as long as possible and he can take his ass and that gold glove to free agency. He looks like an idiot standing up there with new ungodly stance he has.

He's had one below average year at the plate.

Three over very good years.

Not counting this season.

Keep making stuff up though.

Bust though, no, not what most thought, probably.

Contract wise, i'm not sure.

[jsebe10]

I love Heyward and want him here long term but the talk of him getting more money than Freeman was and always will be crazy.

Shouldn't have even been a thought. What really alarms me was at the time Franceour got canned, his #s suggested he'd be hitting circles around Heyward. The difference is that we have the pitching and hitting to carry Heyward.

[Julio3000]

Shouldn't have even been a thought. What really alarms me was at the time Franceour got canned, his #s suggested he'd be hitting circles around Heyward. The difference is that we have the pitching and hitting to carry Heyward.

Heyward is in no small part helping to carry the pitchers.

[thethe]

Yeah, Heywards value on the defense is real. But, if he wants to get paid top dollar he needs to get more consistent at the plate. I can't even remember the last time Heyward hit a ball hard.

[Heyward]

Shouldn't have even been a thought. What really alarms me was at the time Franceour got canned, his #s suggested he'd be hitting circles around Heyward. The difference is that we have the pitching and hitting to carry Heyward.

Heyward's defense doesnt help at all, does it?

[zitothebrave]

Shouldn't have even been a thought. What really alarms me was at the time Franceour got canned, his #s suggested he'd be hitting circles around Heyward. The difference is that we have the pitching and hitting to carry Heyward.

What the hell are you even talking about? Heyward's worst season (ignoring this year's tiny sample) he his .227/.319/.389 in a pitching heavy era. With the Braves Francoeur (ignoring his small sample rookie season) Francoeur bested those numbers when adjusted to era and accounting for the importance of on base percentage, Francoeur topped Heyward's worst season once. His super lucky .337 BABIP season. And ignoring Failcouer's fluketacular rookie season, he never (including his time with the Royals) came close to Jason's second worst season offensively. Francoeur hit really ****ty for a full season and a half before we canned him. I'm assuming your "hitting circles around" comment pertains with Jason's season this year. Which is only about 1/7 through.

Maybe you should take a chill pill and use your head.

[Carp]

Ryan Langerhans was fantastic on defense too. I don't see many people upset that we let him get away.

Base running and defense are nice, but he's going to have to show some offense to be worth keeping around. That being said, I fully expect Heyward to get hot at some point as long as he doesn't get injured.

This just goes to show ridiculous of a stat WAR actually is. In what reality is Heyward and his .566 OPS more valuable than Freeman and his 1.033 OPS. Even if Freddie were Adam Dunn defensively (he's not by the way) and even if Heyward were Ozzie Smith defensively (he's not either by the way, as good as Heyward may be), there is no way that the defensive difference is even remotely close enough to compensate for the massive difference in offense that Freeman provides.

[zitothebrave]

Ryan Langerhans was fantastic on defense too. I don't see many people upset that we let him get away.

Base running and defense are nice, but he's going to have to show some offense to be worth keeping around. That being said, I fully expect Heyward to get hot at some point as long as he doesn't get injured.

This just goes to show ridiculous of a stat WAR actually is. In what reality is Heyward and his .566 OPS more valuable than Freeman and his 1.033 OPS. Even if Freddie were Adam Dunn defensively (he's not by the way) and even if Heyward were Ozzie Smith defensively (he's not either by the way, as good as Heyward may be), there is no way that the defensive difference is even remotely close enough to compensate for the massive difference in offense that Freeman provides.

Jason Heyward will never be as bad of a hitter and is a much better defender than Langerhans, bad comparison bro.

And preventing runs is as important as scoring them. You can argue the fine points. But Jason has been valuable to this team defensively. Our team's pitchers have significantly outperformed their FIP and Simmons and Heyward are the 2 biggest reasons. Despite having no range Freddie, terrible Uggs and Johnson we kill it.

[The Chosen One]

Freddie may not have the best range, but he gets pretty much every wild throw that Uggla, Johnson, and Simmons throw over there. He picks up the 1 hop throws as good as anybody at 1B, and as Friday suggested, he is a good 1B to hold the bag.