GDT 7/8: Braves in a AAA stadium

I don’t think you need a grain of salt to resolve this disjunction. We just happen to be living in the n<10% extension of reality.
The odds were obviously wrong. This team hasn't hit since April of 2024, and with the extensions, there's no real way of fixing it
 
Why should he? Most the fanbase thinks he walks on water.

This is his baby though...
What makes that entire post worse is the fact that people don’t wanna even admit when he's screwed up. The goodwill of a World Series goes a long way. But it is not to infinity. It is beyond time for AA to be held accountable for the egregious mistakes that he’s made. And just because you do that does not mean you don’t acknowledge that he is an overall good general manager. However, resting on your laurels will surely find this 'good' GM on the azz end of a firing.
 
went back and looked at FF's broken wrist season...

After injury in 2017 - .515 slugging, .223 ISO

Career: .511 slugging, .183 ISO

Keep in mind, FF came back in the same season. I don't think we can blame the wrist for Riley and Ozzie.
 
What makes it feel bleak is that the pre-season odds (which I always take with a grain of salt) had the Braves with a > 90% chance of being in the playoffs and a healthy chance at winning it all. No one was kidding themselves during the bleak Eddie Haas/Chuck Tanner/Russ Nixon era.

There is a certain arrogance in the current front office and player development staff that we've seen with the aggressive promotion of pitchers when it was obvious they weren't ready. I don't know who is doing the book on the guys as they move up the system, but there's something in the analysis that is missing. And I will hit the extension/Kelenic nail on the head again because if you're a team like the Braves that is concerned about the luxury tax threshold, you can't tie up money because (and I hate using military analogies) the "war you start isn't the war you end up fighting." Not having money to at least acquire reasonable stop-gaps has really hurt this team both last year and this year.
The Kelenic criticisms aren't really fair.

AA rolled the dice 3 times that offseason, and the returns on 2 of those 3 dice rolls was exceptional. If Kelenic became a LHH Riley and one of Sale or Lopez completely flopped, would folks criticize the chance he took on the pitchers? We knew the downside of all 3 of those moves, and only 1 of them hit anything close to the worst case scenario.
 
What makes that entire post worse is the fact that people don’t wanna even admit when he's screwed up. The goodwill of a World Series goes a long way. But it is not to infinity. It is beyond time for AA to be held accountable for the egregious mistakes that he’s made. And just because you do that does not mean you don’t acknowledge that he is an overall good general manager. However, resting on your laurels will surely find this 'good' GM on the azz end of a firing.
AA has made several mistakes recently, mostly in the roster depth category. There have consistently been glaring holes on the bottom half of the roster he has been completely unable/unwilling to address for some reason. It has gotten extremely frustrating.

Of course, no team is going to survive the loss of Sale, Schwelly, Lopez and AJSS (literally a complete post season rotation), but this team's problems started happening well before those pitchersd were lost.
 
went back and looked at FF's broken wrist season...

After injury in 2017 - .515 slugging, .223 ISO

Career: .511 slugging, .183 ISO

Keep in mind, FF came back in the same season. I don't think we can blame the wrist for Riley and Ozzie.
Freddie had a 1.200 OPS and a .748 SLG pre-injury in 2021. Is absolutely affected him, and he said as much. And it lingered into the following season.
 
"Offseason" being the key word. Since last offseason, AA has been horrible. The deadline moves last year were bad, and this offseason was horrid
The Kelenic criticisms aren't really fair.

AA rolled the dice 3 times that offseason, and the returns on 2 of those 3 dice rolls was exceptional. If Kelenic became a LHH Riley and one of Sale or Lopez completely flopped, would folks criticize the chance he took on the pitchers? We knew the downside of all 3 of those moves, and only 1 of them hit anything close to the worst case scenario.
 
Freddie had a 1.200 OPS and a .748 SLG pre-injury in 2021. Is absolutely affected him, and he said as much. And it lingered into the following season.
Ahhh... so if no wrist injury, he woulda continued at that pace. Got it. The sample post-injury in 2017 was much bigger and it aligned with career avgs.
 
Ahhh... so if no wrist injury, he woulda continued at that pace. Got it. The sample post-injury in 2017 was much bigger and it aligned with career avgs.
every player is affected and recovers differently, just like every break is not the same.. comparing one player's success to another's failure is fools gold.. Also, rehab programs are not the same.. I probably question the entire Brave's medical staff at this point as this is the most injured team in the history of all sports. They can't keep anyone healthy.

Now, am I buying that Ozzie and Riley suck because of the wrist.. nah.. too many other guys suck with them.. so I am thinking it is some sort of hitting change that Hyers is implementing that is not working, or the team just doesn't care and going through the motions..

I mean they are in a minor league park where runs are scored in droves and they mustarded 1 run..
 
I remember a blurb on radio one night when Allen was in his hot streak. They said he credited the braves telling him to not swing as hard as he can. He said he used to fly out, but taking off his swing had more balls falling. When I heard it at the time, I thought it was a great adjustment for Allen.... now I'm wondering if they teaching this to all our guys. ISO numbers are falling...
 
Ahhh... so if no wrist injury, he woulda continued at that pace. Got it. The sample post-injury in 2017 was much bigger and it aligned with career avgs.
Probably not. But he was quite clearly peaking as a hitter. He was on a 60 homer pace prior to the injury. Even accounting a little cooling off, he lost a ton of power after the injury. So using his career numbers is dumb.

He was at .569 SLG the year prior to 2017, with 34 homers and a .267 ISO. And in 2019, he had 38 homers and a .549 SLG. It's almost like something happened in between the end of 2016 and the start of 2019 that affected his power. Maybe something Freddie himself mentioned he was struggling with.....
 
The Kelenic criticisms aren't really fair.

AA rolled the dice 3 times that offseason, and the returns on 2 of those 3 dice rolls was exceptional. If Kelenic became a LHH Riley and one of Sale or Lopez completely flopped, would folks criticize the chance he took on the pitchers? We knew the downside of all 3 of those moves, and only 1 of them hit anything close to the worst case scenario.
I beg to differ (and you know that I respect your acumen). One of the cardinal rules (or should be a cardinal rule) for teams not the Yankees, Mets, or Dodgers is that you don't pay players who are playing for other teams (or in the case of Evan White not playing at all). My comments are solely about the Kelenic acquisition and not about the other guys. When the team had injuries last season, there was no way to acquire reasonable stop-gap players largely because we were paying guys on other teams and wanted to stay below the luxury tax threshold. Two-out-of-three isn't anything to sneeze at, but it's important to look at all elements both good and bad and not just the ones that turned out well.
 
I beg to differ (and you know that I respect your acumen). One of the cardinal rules (or should be a cardinal rule) for teams not the Yankees, Mets, or Dodgers is that you don't pay players who are playing for other teams (or in the case of Evan White not playing at all). My comments are solely about the Kelenic acquisition and not about the other guys. When the team had injuries last season, there was no way to acquire reasonable stop-gap players largely because we were paying guys on other teams and wanted to stay below the luxury tax threshold. Two-out-of-three isn't anything to sneeze at, but it's important to look at all elements both good and bad and not just the ones that turned out well.
Claiming they spent too much resources on Kelenic when they had depth holes elsewhere is certainly valid. But spending too much money anywhere and failing to address depth is a valid concern regardless of where the overspend occurred...even it was spent paying guys on other teams.

The crux of the issues lately has been a lack of MLB caliber depth. It's almost as if AA never realized players get hurt and need rest to help keep them healthy. It's a truly bizarre mistake to make for a GM of his quality. Like, no shit, let's not rely on Elder in October, or Eli White in LF when we already know Acuna won't start the season.
 
Hoping we can see Braun, Meija, or Burkhaulter soon. All of them are doing relatively well. Brett Sears is being pushed hard this year. Maybe see what he has too.

These guys aren't raw 20 year olds. These are experienced college pitchers. Let's see what at least a couple of them got in a throw away season. Don't worry about the options or the clock on these guys since they are all like 25 anyways.
 
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