Rafael Furcal retires

M

MadduxFanII

Swallowed by Mark Bowman
Announced today.

Furcal's one of those guys who had an indisputably excellent career, and yet it's hard to escape the impression that there was some greatness in there he didn't quite reach. Remember how excited we all were by him in 2000? Lightning speed, great contact skills, rocket arm and, best of all, .394 OBP. At the time we all thought he was 19, and it really seemed like we might have a Tim Raines at shortstop.

Then he turned out to be a few years older, lost a lot of the plate discipline and kind of settled into a player with a lot of mid-range offensive attributes.

Still, undeniably a really good player and a really exciting one at that.
 
Blauser: high walk rate, good power, and above average defense at premium position. He's definitely a guy that would have benefitted playing in this era.
 
Julio3000 said:
I saw Blauser from AA to the majors and I don't think you could say the guy ever had above average defense. Underrated ballplayer, though.
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I'll admit I cheated and looked at the defensive metrics. Your evaluation is probably better than mine. I wasn't old enough when he was on the Braves to have known how good he was.
 
Julio3000 said:
I saw Blauser from AA to the majors and I don't think you could say the guy ever had above average defense. Underrated ballplayer, though.
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This. There was a running joke in my house growing up that anytime someone messed up we called it a "Blauser." I can't even tell you how many times I watched him let a routine ground ball go right through his legs
 
IMO Furcal leaving was the nail in the coffin that the way the Braves had done things was coming to an end (money wise anyways). We failed to extend him when he was in his prime and had he came up 5 years prior there is no doubt he would of been with the Braves 10+ years overall. Turns out that was a good thing as he had a good first year in LA then battled injuries and ineffectiveness the rest of his career.
 
remember how embarrassing it was when it looked for a minute like he was coming back then the braves front office got played by his agent and just how much they whined about it? at that point i kind of knew that the run of front office brilliance was long passed (jd drew and texiera trades notwithstanding)
 
It was kind of stupid the way the contract snafu played out. If I recall correctly (and I may be incorrect), the Braves' total package may have been more than the Dodgers, but Furcal opted for the higher AAV (3 years at $13 MM per if I've got it right). I can't remember the Braves' offer, but I think it may have been for an extra year. At any rate, Furcal went against trend and took the shorter contract with the higher AAV figuring it wasn't going to be his last big contract. I agree that Schuerholz got played big-time and rather than sit back and contemplate tossing in an extra million or two, he started up the recrimination machine. It may have been his first "the economics of baseball stink" speech.

Anyway, back to Furcal as a player. Truly an electric player.
 
Wren was actually GM by the time they tried to bring Furcal back. But yeah that was pretty embarassing. For some reason the Braves have had a hard time with FA shortstops backing out at the last minute.
 
I remember being so annoyed at Fooky going for the bunt single everytime. Then one time at Shea he got a slap bunt double. Hit it over 3B's head who was cheating in to field the bunt.
 
Was a big fan of Furcal, such a dynamic player for us. One of my lasting memories though was during the 2004 season when he was arrested for DUI and was unable to celebrate the Division Title with the rest of the team because he couldn't be around alcohol.
 
I think what pissed Schuerholz/Wren off about the Furcal fiasco was that his agent broke some unwritten rule about the terms sheet of a contract. That, basically, agreeing on terms is step one and the terms sheet is only sort of a legal finality. Furcal's agent took the sheet once the Braves had offered it (signaling a completed deal) and shopped it back to the Dodgers for more money.

Although it was Wren's trade, I remember Schuerholz being extremely vocal about it (saying the Braves wouldn't be doing business with that agency anymore, etc.)
 
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