Don't take it personally; did not want thread to project one point of view only. FWIW, I disagreed sharply with the initial posting's statement and many of the following posts reflected the hysteria that is so rich at time like these. So i made the call. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
Well now, with its patronizing tone, the thread-title
still reflects one point of view only—it's the other side of the coin, but it's still a singular editorial perspective. If you truly wanted a more objective title, you'd have just truncated things to
Braves Call Up Max Fried, full-stop.
As for "taking it personally": for what it's worth, I have no problem with
this particular call-up, and never said I did. As mentioned, Fried's on the older side as it is, so service-clock concerns are mitigated; moreover, given his injurious history, throwing him some limited major-league innings out of the bullpen, over the final month-plus of the season, is probably a good way to position the kid—whether it's for a rotational or relief role—to potentially make the 25-man out of the gate next spring. Personally, I was never banking much on Fried anyways, so that probably fuels my indifference to this specific instance—but I was totally on-board with bringing up Newcomb and Simms, to see what they've got, for much the same reasons as I'm ok with this.
However, in light of some of the much-less-justifiable promotions, I can totally understand and sympathize with some of the knee-jerk bewilderment and/or disapproval of this move. Yes, in a vacuum, the Fried promotion makes a lot of sense; but after the rushing of Swanson last year, the needless major-league debut of Albies this past week, the hyper-accelerated schedule heretofore for Acuña, I can see why it'd have the first-blush look of a haphazard or ill-conceived move.