Walker takes no responsibility for the poor offense

Hmm, I don't necessarily disagree with much that he said, other than his misguided "they'll get it eventually" notion that experience = improvement. Simmons has taken a big step backwards. CJ has taken a big step backwards. Hell, even Freeman has taken something of a step backwards this year. So no, the more they see at this level does not mean they will learn and improve by it each year. While it's nice to hear his love for the game, if he's out of ideas on how to get these guys better at-bats, then yes, bring in someone else. Obviously, this ain't working.

Seems like a nice enough guy though.
 
I really don't know how much to put on his shoulders. It's not like he has a group of great hitters to mess up.
 
The lack of progress Simmons has made is the most disappointing to me. He has very good bat-to-ball skills, but his approach of trying to hit homers all the time is killing him. He swings so hard half the time he almost falls over. The approach a guy takes at the plate is something a hitting coach should be able to help correct fairly quickly.
 
I agree with giles on this one.

How much can you really blame Walker for? Simmons is impossible to coach right now. He'll go through stretches albeit short ones where he shows patience at the plate. Doesn't try to swing for the fences and looks very promising. Then he will do what he's always done and almost fall over because he swings so hard. That just seems natural to him as he's done it probably his entire baseball career.
 
Hitting coach makes sure the video room has bottled water, the cages are scheduled and operating and oversees organization of information on that days pitcher. Simmons has said himself this how he has swung all his life. Young players are prone to inconsistency.

Not comparing this years Braves to this team but the World Series Champion 1965 Dodgers had 1 .300 hitter. Don Drysdale
No one with over 12 HR and a CF that in his day was very comparable to BJ. After the season the Dodgers neither fire their manager or hitting coach.
At the time they were the most successful MLB organization and the model of how an organization should be run. Because in my mind they understood, "that's baseball"
Also interesting was in the 10th round of the '65 Amataur Draft they drafted Tom Seaver

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/1965.shtml
 
Enscheff said:
The lack of progress Simmons has made is the most disappointing to me. He has very good bat-to-ball skills, but his approach of trying to hit homers all the time is killing him. He swings so hard half the time he almost falls over. The approach a guy takes at the plate is something a hitting coach should be able to help correct fairly quickly.
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Except when you hear interviews with Simmons he says he refuses to change his style.
 
DaneHill said:
Hmm, I don't necessarily disagree with much that he said, other than his misguided "they'll get it eventually" notion that experience = improvement. Simmons has taken a big step backwards. CJ has taken a big step backwards. Hell, even Freeman has taken something of a step backwards this year. So no, the more they see at this level does not mean they will learn and improve by it each year. While it's nice to hear his love for the game, if he's out of ideas on how to get these guys better at-bats, then yes, bring in someone else. Obviously, this ain't working.

Seems like a nice enough guy though.
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The only way those guys get better or exhibit more patience is if you program them ala The Manchurian Candidate. Walker's track record here and elsewhere isn't that great, but he's not working with a great set of hitters here.

PS--Simmons is a pure arm swinger with a terrible approach and I don't think he's going to get any better unless he makes some dramatic changes and as gilesfan says, it appears that Simmons doesn't believe he's doing anything wrong.
 
I always swing hard,” said Simmons, who hit a grand slam in Tuesday’s 13-10 win against the Rockies. “I swung hard my whole life. I wasn’t strong when I was younger; that’s where I get the full-effort swings from. Not saying that I’m strong now, but I always had to put a little extra to get the bat around. It’s just how I swing.

“Sometimes my swing feels better and I’ll hit better. But it’s not like I’m trying to do anything different.”

He says he can’t change overnight and start taking more controlled cuts every time he swings. But Simmons, a tireless worker who spends as much time as anyone does with Braves hitting coach Greg Walker and assistant hitting coach Scott Fletcher, has listened to their advice and begun to control the aggression in his swings somewhat.

“It’s a life habit. I’m trying to get better at it,” Simmons said. “Sometimes I can do it. It’s easier to slow things down a little bit sometimes. But, I mean, I try to stay true to myself. When I try to be a completely different hitter you get stuck in the middle of nowhere, because you’re not the hitter that you want to be and you’re not doing what you normally do. So you’re in the middle. That doesn’t work out sometimes either.”

When I hit a home run, or I hit doubles, singles, nobody says anything (about the hard swings),” Simmons said, smiling. “When you’re struggling and not hitting they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s doing this too much now.’ I always swung hard. You can check. Whether I hit a single or not. Whether I swing and miss or I hit it, I’m still swinging the same.”
 
I just don't see where firing Walker or Fredi fixes anything. The problem this team has is they do not hit as a team. You could watch every game over this year and I bet you could count less than 20 times where a Braves batter other than a pitcher attempted a bunt, hit the ball behind a runner, or otherwise make a purposeful out. Prime example was Saturday night against Cosart, Jason leads off with a single, you would think the next move would be to get Heyward to second either by bunt or steal in a game of that importance but no. The mentality of waiting on the 3-run homer is what kills this team. Walker could preach until blue in the face it won't help. This is on the players...
 
My favorite part is where Walker says trying to inflate a starters pitch count to get them out of the game is an outdated strategy. Hey Greg, your strategy isn't working, maybe time to reevaluate your position on this.
 
VirginiaBrave said:
I just don't see where firing Walker or Fredi fixes anything. The problem this team has is they do not hit as a team. You could watch every game over this year and I bet you could count less than 20 times where a Braves batter other than a pitcher attempted a bunt, hit the ball behind a runner, or otherwise make a purposeful out. Prime example was Saturday night against Cosart, Jason leads off with a single, you would think the next move would be to get Heyward to second either by bunt or steal in a game of that importance but no. The mentality of waiting on the 3-run homer is what kills this team. Walker could preach until blue in the face it won't help. This is on the players...
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And what part about not bunting a guy to 2nd is not the manager and hitting coaches fault? First of all if our guys are told by the manager to bunt then they should do so. Second if the guy can't bunt ( which is more likely the case here) then that falls squarely back on the hitting coach. I worked with 8 year old girls on Saturday for about 20 minutes and half of them can now bunt. I'm tired of these big league coaches getting a pass while they are making a ton of money to win.
 
cajunrevenge said:
My favorite part is where Walker says trying to inflate a starters pitch count to get them out of the game is an outdated strategy. Hey Greg, your strategy isn't working, maybe time to reevaluate your position on this.
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With pitch counts limiting pitchers from going much over 100 pitches these days we should try hard every game to work the count. Especially against the real good pitchers.
 
jason27nc said:
And what part about not bunting a guy to 2nd is not the manager and hitting coaches fault? First of all if our guys are told by the manager to bunt then they should do so. Second if the guy can't bunt ( which is more likely the case here) then that falls squarely back on the hitting coach. I worked with 8 year old girls on Saturday for about 20 minutes and half of them can now bunt. I'm tired of these big league coaches getting a pass while they are making a ton of money to win.
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But here is the thing, we have had three different hitting coaches in five years, four if you count Fletcher, the roster has turned over nearly 100% and yet it's the same issues that got TP relieved of duties. Major league players that can't put together good at bats. At some point it's about these guys looking in the mirror.
 
jason27nc said:
With pitch counts limiting pitchers from going much over 100 pitches these days we should try hard every game to work the count. Especially against the real good pitchers.
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We walked five times and Gosselin got hit by a pitch. Granted, that's not at-bat to at-bat, but I think the problem has less to do with taking pitches and more to do with the fact that we don't hit the pitch when it's hittable.

I'm old and lazy, but I'd be curious to see how the Braves rank in terms of swinging at pitches out of the strike zone and swinging and missing at pitches within the strike zone. It's just my impression that the opposition simply isn't afraid to make us hit the ball.
 
Getting into the bullpen doesn't mean what it meant even 3 yers ago. We can in part thank the Braves for that. Every team is stocked with pitchers specializing in 6th 7th eightth and 9th innings. Wvery team is stocked with pitchers to throw depending on where you are in the line up and game situation.

I think it a combination of scouting has become so sophisticated and every team has 5 guys that throw over 95 late in the game.
Don't discount how teams have learned how to use spread sheeets and hit charts. Where 5 years ago that was pooh-poohed.
Martinez/Moylan -Venters/O'Flarrity and then Kimbrell.
that was the model to what every team has now.

So getting a starters pitch count up has marginal, at best, effect
 
There is only so much effect a coach can have on a player's production. In the end, it comes down to the player. Take Andrelton Simmons for example. The guy has the best contact rate on the team, both in the zone and out of the zone. He doesn't swing and miss very much. The problem is, his fly ball percentage is similar to Freddie Freeman's fly ball percentage. Between fly balls, line drives, and ground balls, fly balls will fall in for a hit at a lower rate. He's basically diminishing his contact ability because he is trying to drive the ball.

The question I have is whether Gary Walker is encouraging Andrelton's aggressive swings, or if he is trying to get him to see how much better he would be if he would stop swinging for the fences? IMO, hitting 17 home runs last year is probably the worst thing Andrelton could have done from a hitting standpoint. It convinced him that he can hit for power consistently, and he even admits that he isn't the strongest player.

The great coaches can get players to understand where their limitations are and get the to "buy in" to a better approach. Bottom line though, it is on the player. A coach can tell a player how he should be doing something till he is blue in the face. It will not make a difference until the player buys in and makes the necessary changes.

It's hard to get a player to change something he has done every since he picked up a bat though.
 
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