Play your talent

ChapelHillMatt

ChapelHillMatt

Approaching Buddy Hernandez Territory
I know Uggla and BJ have been bad this year but if we are going to lose I'd like to lose knowing our most talented players were out there. Maybe not playing the first 2 games has fired them up and they'll be playing with a chip on their shoulder. Is there anyway to get Uggla back on the roster? I can't take anymore of Elliot Johnson.
 
I'd play him over Gattis. He's the much better defender and defense is important in this series since runs are so hard to come by.
 
ChapelHillMatt said:
I can't take anymore of Elliot Johnson.
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What has he done wrong? You act like he's supposed to drive the offense. He has the same number of hits as McCann and J Up.

I don't think Uggla can be brought back until after we beat L.A, but I agree. I'd like him in there too.
 
ChapelHillMatt said:
I'd play him over Gattis. He's the much better defender and defense is important in this series since runs are so hard to come by.
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Gattis made one defensive miscue and has looked great at the plate. I get what you are saying in general but bj has to be broken down and rebuilt in the of season.
 
I'd argue that CJ was our offensive MVP so far, although Gattis has been solid.

EJ is 0-7 with 4 Ks. The number of hits isn't the thing. Justin is 0-7 but has made some solid contact. 7 ABs is a tiny sample, but EJ just looks hopeless at the plate.
 
Eliot Johnson is not a particularly good baseball player. I think his record speaks for itself. He's a AAAA utility guy.

The upside on Uggla is better and I think he should have been on the roster instead of Constanza or Reed Johnson, but let's not get carried away with this idea that Uggla has been terribly wronged. He had a great June and a decent July (due solely to impressive power numbers), but he really slid off the table (and slid is the polite term). He's got no one to blame but himself for the situation he (and by extension the Braves who are paying him $13 million for his underperformance) is in. I'm no strict adherent to "little ball" strategy, but the playoffs are different than the regular season and Gonzalez and company rolled the dice. When you realize that Fredi and Frank figuratively want to spoon with Uggla, you can only imagine how difficult the decision was for them.

It's too bad Pastornicky (and Pena before him) got hurt, but some of us thought a deal for Boniafacio would have made sense at the deadline regardless of Pastornicky's presence and health at the time. But that's water under the bridge. Wren waited too long to have a decent option to Uggla in tow after Pena's injury and with Pastornicky's injury, the replacement became Janish or Johnson. zito would argue LaStella should have been in the conversation. I frankly don't know.

So there's plenty of blame to go around (Uggla and Wren in particular) and the Braves are left in a situation where it's difficult to let a guy play himself out of a slump seeing it's the post-season. Maybe we'd have been better off not being in the fight for homefield advantage and Uggla could have been given a full week to try and swing himself back into a groove. Lots of questions.
 
BJ is striking out 100% of the time. Gattis is young and has had some jitters but is still hitting and hasn't found his stroke yet. No way I'd take him out.
 
Yeah, losing Pena really hurt.

As bad as Dan looked, I didn't think he really got an uninterrupted chance to get going after the surgery. Like 50 said, though, it's water under the bridge now.
 
50PoundHead said:
Eliot Johnson is not a particularly good baseball player. I think his record speaks for itself. He's a AAAA utility guy.

The upside on Uggla is better and I think he should have been on the roster instead of Constanza or Reed Johnson, but let's not get carried away with this idea that Uggla has been terribly wronged. He had a great June and a decent July (due solely to impressive power numbers), but he really slid off the table (and slid is the polite term). He's got no one to blame but himself for the situation he (and by extension the Braves who are paying him $13 million for his underperformance) is in. I'm no strict adherent to "little ball" strategy, but the playoffs are different than the regular season and Gonzalez and company rolled the dice. When you realize that Fredi and Frank figuratively want to spoon with Uggla, you can only imagine how difficult the decision was for them.

It's too bad Pastornicky (and Pena before him) got hurt, but some of us thought a deal for Boniafacio would have made sense at the deadline regardless of Pastornicky's presence and health at the time. But that's water under the bridge. Wren waited too long to have a decent option to Uggla in tow after Pena's injury and with Pastornicky's injury, the replacement became Janish or Johnson. zito would argue LaStella should have been in the conversation. I frankly don't know.

So there's plenty of blame to go around (Uggla and Wren in particular) and the Braves are left in a situation where it's difficult to let a guy play himself out of a slump seeing it's the post-season. Maybe we'd have been better off not being in the fight for homefield advantage and Uggla could have been given a full week to try and swing himself back into a groove. Lots of questions.
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Well put. If we make it to the next round, I would bring back Uggla with the intention of playing him most of the games at second. I would probably drop Janish and use Elliot Johnson as Chris Johnson's late game defensive replacement.
 
ChapelHillMatt said:
I know Uggla and BJ have been bad this year but if we are going to lose I'd like to lose knowing our most talented players were out there. Maybe not playing the first 2 games has fired them up and they'll be playing with a chip on their shoulder. Is there anyway to get Uggla back on the roster? I can't take anymore of Elliot Johnson.
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Sorry but I completely disagree.
 
The Uggla and BJ situations are different. In the case of BJ, we have a productive alternative in Gattis. Before he went into his own slump, Schafer was also a productive alternative.

In the case of Uggla, the alternative is much ore marginal. I don't think either Elliot Johnson or Uggla deserve to be in the lineup. But those are the choices. So I would keep running them both out there until one showed a glimmer of life. We did see a glimmer out of EJ at the end of the regular season, but it was just that. Certainly not enough to justify making the kind of decision the team made to keep Uggla off the roster. And now EJ has reverted to form and we're left with no alternative.

Btw when Fredi decided to have Simmons bunt in the seventh, I thought for sure this meant a pinch hitter for EJ. I know neither Constanza nor Schafer are great choices, but one of them should have hit for EJ in that situation. If you are going to have EJ bat, then having Simmons bunt makes little sense. Fortunately, Mattingly bailed us out with some mind bogglingly bad choices of his own. Did Mattingly know about Reed's injury and the fact he hasn't gotten a hit in over two months?
 
Uggla never should have been dropped in the first place especially not for a backup that wasn't good enough to play in KC. I get that Dan hasn't been good, but I also get that won 70+ games with him at 2nd. He has earned that right. If they want to dump him in the off-season fine, and I would have been fine with it if we were talking say McGriff over Bream but we're not. I told y'all it was doomed to failure. A shockingly classless move by the Braves. Bet Cox wouldn't have stood for it...
 
I agree with the decision to leave Uggla off the roster even though it hasn't worked out. If we're fortunate enough to move on I put him on the roster.
 
Yeah, EJ is looking rough. But again, if Uggla wasn't sooooooo damn awful, we wouldn't even be in this position.

Either way, we're not going to win much until Justin and McCann start hitting more too. Not solid contact, hits. In key situations.

And it goes hand in hand with the point about BJ. You can't just insert an automatic out into the lineup unless the other seven guys are hitting.
 
bravesnumberone said:
Yeah, EJ is looking rough. But again, if Uggla wasn't sooooooo damn awful, we wouldn't even be in this position.

Either way, we're not going to win much until Justin and McCann start hitting more too. Not solid contact, hits. In key situations.
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I agree that if those guys hit, we win.
 
cajunrevenge said:
When I saw the name of this thread I thought surely this isnt about Uggla and BJ. How wrong I was.
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Both are talented and have the potential to make an impact, even if it's in small sample sizes. I don't like either player obviously but we are playing a catcher in LF and a AAAA player in their place. Uggla can get on base via the walk and run into a homer potentially and BJ can give us good defense and good baserunning (if he can get hot, which he's done in the past)
 
Some of you are so funny. If Uggla had been on the roster and starting and was 0-fer with 5 K's you would be saying at least EJ gives us a chance at a productive out...he should be in there. Both suck. Uggla had plenty of opportunity to claim his spot but EJ did just enough good things late to get the nod. Batting 8th in the lineup, with speed and a chance to be a situational hitter isn't the end of the world for a weak hitting middle infielder. We don't need him to be a hero.
 
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