VirginiaBrave
Well-known member
Fair point. But, being truthful I think most Fredi haters wanted him gone after 2011. And most can't get past it.
Oh Fredi haters.?
- Thread starter VirginiaBrave
- Start date
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
Yeah, I suppose that's true. An opinion-based argument isn't likely to change those minds, though.
goldfly
<B>if my thought dreams could be seen</B>
NinersSBChamps
<B>Voted Worst Poster <br> 2015 (Co-Winner)</BR>20
lol we are tooting our own horn for not being complete trash, but still 10 games under .500
Define competitive?
Can you even call this team rebuilding, look at the lineup:
C- 38 years old
1B- 34
2B- 25
SS- 25
3B- 30
LF- 34
CF- 32
RF- 31
He didn't
We have scored 70 less runs than we have given up for goodness sake.
SP- Miller - 24
SP- Teheran - 24
SP- Wisler - 22
SP- Perez - 24
SP- Foltynewicz - 23
CL- Vizcaino - 24
RP- McKirahan - 25
RP- Brigham - 27
RP- Marksberry - 24
RP- Aardsma - 33
RP- Detwiler - 29
RP- Kelly - 27
Even with all the "old codgers", the Braves' roster is the third youngest in baseball.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/rosters
BedellBrave
It's OVER 5,000!
The Nationals doing that poorly?
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
The pitching is young and promising. The lineup is a major work in progress. The tricky part of the equation is we are in an era where good pitching is relatively plentiful and good hitting relatively scarce.
While Fredi doesn't deserve all the credit, is it really that hard for some people to give him part of it for keeping things together and not having the team roll over (as someone mentioned earlier)?
I've agreed with those who felt this was a 70-75 win team from day one. And that was as constructed. Since then...
Callaspo shows up out of shape and flames out.
Minor went down for the season.
Teheran and Wood struggled mightily for stretches.
Bethancourt struggled and had to be sent down.
The middle relief innings became a disaster.
Jason Grilli went down for the season.
Jim Johnson was traded.
Freddie Freeman misses 36 games (29.5% of the season so far).
Given that the team's three best SPs (according to most since the naysayers panned Miller from day one) vastly underperformed, the "only offense" the team had hasn't played in roughly 1/3 of the games, and CJ was CJ, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to say Fredi's done a pretty good job of keeping things together. Quite a few people said the offense was going to be "historically bad" and while it hasn't been "good", if you'd own up to saying that this team would be beyond terrible if Freeman missed significant time you'd have to admit you were wrong.
They have been "competitive" - meaning that they aren't constantly blown out and they battle. They've won some games they shouldn't have and lost some they shouldn't have, but they typically stay in games. They are what they were expected to be without the above mentioned disappointments - which should have turned them into cellar dwellers much earlier.
That's the definition of being competitive - they're less talented than many of their opponents but they aren't pushovers. Some of the veterans (including KJ and Uribe) deserve some credit for that as well, but other than Pierzynski let's be fair - they haven't been major producers, and mainly have served as great examples of how to be professional, always be prepared when your name's called, and how to fight until the last out is recorded. Those are all the things our numerically-inclined group says can't be quantified and therefore don't count for anything. If that is indeed the case, you have to give their share of the credit to Fredi as well.
I've agreed with those who felt this was a 70-75 win team from day one. And that was as constructed. Since then...
Callaspo shows up out of shape and flames out.
Minor went down for the season.
Teheran and Wood struggled mightily for stretches.
Bethancourt struggled and had to be sent down.
The middle relief innings became a disaster.
Jason Grilli went down for the season.
Jim Johnson was traded.
Freddie Freeman misses 36 games (29.5% of the season so far).
Given that the team's three best SPs (according to most since the naysayers panned Miller from day one) vastly underperformed, the "only offense" the team had hasn't played in roughly 1/3 of the games, and CJ was CJ, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to say Fredi's done a pretty good job of keeping things together. Quite a few people said the offense was going to be "historically bad" and while it hasn't been "good", if you'd own up to saying that this team would be beyond terrible if Freeman missed significant time you'd have to admit you were wrong.
They have been "competitive" - meaning that they aren't constantly blown out and they battle. They've won some games they shouldn't have and lost some they shouldn't have, but they typically stay in games. They are what they were expected to be without the above mentioned disappointments - which should have turned them into cellar dwellers much earlier.
That's the definition of being competitive - they're less talented than many of their opponents but they aren't pushovers. Some of the veterans (including KJ and Uribe) deserve some credit for that as well, but other than Pierzynski let's be fair - they haven't been major producers, and mainly have served as great examples of how to be professional, always be prepared when your name's called, and how to fight until the last out is recorded. Those are all the things our numerically-inclined group says can't be quantified and therefore don't count for anything. If that is indeed the case, you have to give their share of the credit to Fredi as well.
Tron fights not for the user, but for Fredi.
nsacpi
Expects Yuge Games
That kind of stuff happens every season. Remember 2013? It wasn't so long ago. We won 96 games in spite of:
Heyward breaking his jaw
Huddy having his ankle obliterated by EYJr
Dan Uggla hitting .179
McCann only playing 102 games
Melvin hitting .184
Injuries to Beachy, Venters, EOF
Stuff happens every season. Winning teams are built to withstand those things. Of course, some years you have better luck than others. I'm not arguing that's not the case. But my impression is our luck has been decent this year with respect to things like injuries, hitting with RISP, pinch hitting, etc.
Julio3000
<B>A Chip Off the Old Rock</B>
I will agree that there is something to be said for the team's playing personality. We don't see a lot of mental mistakes, we don't see any lack of hustle. I give the veterans a lot of credit for that—and Tron, since he sets a pretty high bar for having his head in the game and never giving up on a play. I'm not sure how much to give to Fredi, but he has had a difficult task, with the roster constantly turning over, etc.
The flipside of that is that this has been a season essentially devoid of positive expectations, and therefore pressure. And I'm still not sure that I understand why he gets kudos for managing a team of lovable losers but no blame for last year's underachieving, dysfunctional mess.
It does seem like we're moving the goalposts a tad from "competitive" meaning "competing for postseason play" to meaning "playing hard and not getting blown out too often."
VirginiaBrave
Well-known member
And to top it all off they are not cellar dwellers, Three good weeks to end August, winning series could make September interesting if the Nats and Mets keep screwing around.
Dalyn
Fredi Gonzalez Supporter
Yikes.