What to do with Uggla now?

Thanks Enscheff. Uggla's problem is he's a one-trick (or two-trick if you count walks) pony. I have never seen a scatter chart on him, but has he ever hit a HR to RF during his career? I don't think he can adjust. That's just not who he is.

McCann on the other hand has the flexibility in his game that he should be able to spray it around some. But it gets back to Ted Williams' approach on the shift. He never let the shift bother him. His view was "Why should I take a single when I can hit the ball harder and do better?" It's all risk/reward and the game situation. My guess is the opposition doesn't shift so dramatically if the winning run is on second base and it's late.
 
I've watched Uggla take batting practice. All the hitters hit the first few pitches to the opposite field. Uggla gave it a shot too. But it is a part of the game he has neglected so much that his attempts at going to right were quite feeble even in batting practice.

But whatever his limitations, he had some value as recently as the first half of 2013. The fact that he declined after the eye surgery makes me a little suspicious and think we should not be in such a rush to dump him.
 
nsacpi said:
I've watched Uggla take batting practice. All the hitters hit the first few pitches to the opposite field. Uggla gave it a shot too. But it is a part of the game he has neglected so much that his attempts at going to right were quite feeble even in batting practice.

But whatever his limitations, he had some value as recently as the first half of 2013. The fact that he declined after the eye surgery makes me a little suspicious and think we should not be in such a rush to dump him.
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I remember Ron Gant was the same way. If he ever tried to go to the opposite field, he looked like a Little Leaguer.
 
wheresmykayak said:
If I were Wren, I'd try to sell Uggla as being an OBP machine. Because despite everything else that he sucked at last year, he was still pretty decent at drawing a walk. You never know, there might be a team out there craving someone who can do that....
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His ability to draw walks wasn't overlooked, but that, in and off itself, wasn't the reason he was brought to ATL. Then, there's the salary issue, which is why he became such a lightning rod. He was expected to lift 35-40 jacks a season and bang doubles off the wall.

Assuming that the root cause of the problems was eye adjustment to the surgery, it's strange that there wasn't a formal announcement or a 15 day DL stint. Now would be a good time to confirm, from a PR standpoint. (It's understood that the main buzz, right now, is all about the new ballpark.) Timing is everything, but if he just had eyesight problems, the best approach is the direct one. Somebody from the org, or Dan, himself, should be put out word, "hey, it was more difficult to follow the ball after the surgery."

What leads me to believe that this could still be the case is that he's obviously well conditioned, probably one of the strongest guys on the team. He's too young to have lost that much bat speed, which should've been easy to detect by the hitting coaches and scouting staff.

Another issue is the upcoming void of veteran leadership. After McCann signs elsewhere, and it's increasingly likely that Hudson will do likewise, who does that leave on the current roster?
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Use a tee. Put the ball deep in your stance. Keep your box. Focus on throwing your hands rather than the bat head. Repeat 10,000 times.
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Yeah, I refuse to believe a professional baseball player can't become better at hitting to all fields. What else do they have to do other than work on getting better at baseball? Count their millions over and over?
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Use a tee. Put the ball deep in your stance. Keep your box. Focus on throwing your hands rather than the bat head. Repeat 10,000 times.
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You should never throw your hands.

Quality hitting is staying back on the ball you have that right but you shouldn't throw your hands ever. It saps power and you wind up like Jeff Francoeur.
 
zitothebrave said:
You should never throw your hands.

Quality hitting is staying back on the ball you have that right but you shouldn't throw your hands ever. It saps power and you wind up like Jeff Francoeur.
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Lead with your hands. And the point is to hit the ball to right, not to hit the ball out. He's got that one down.
 
Just up on MLBTR, if someone would be kind enough to link it, keep Knucksie from having a hissy fit, Orioles want Beltran but have to dump a costly contract i.e. Weiters, Johnson or MARKAKIS. Hmmmm Uggla for MARKAKIS sounds good to me. Even would eat some money.
 
PawPawMaxwell said:
Just up on MLBTR, if someone would be kind enough to link it, keep Knucksie from having a hissy fit, Orioles want Beltran but have to dump a costly contract i.e. Weiters, Johnson or MARKAKIS. Hmmmm Uggla for MARKAKIS sounds good to me. Even would eat some money.
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How many outfielders are we allowed to play?
 
Last time I looked we only have 2 since BJ is a question and Shafer is in limbo. Markakis would seem to me a pretty good option as a LH bat, 4th OFer and one never knows what will happen since we dont have that many trade chips other than Kimbrel and JUPton.
 
Well, the Braves pretty much have no choice but to hope that BJ finds his swing again. I'm inclined to believe that his problems were mostly mental (he hit just fine in Spring Training), and maybe a fresh start will make him hit somewhere over .200.

It's not like we've got a choice. He has 4 years left on his contract.

At least with Uggla, he'll be gone in two years tops. Why is it that we always have a player or two that are just dead weight? We just changed from pitchers (Hampton, Lowe), to position players.
 
wheresmykayak said:
Well, the Braves pretty much have no choice but to hope that BJ finds his swing again. I'm inclined to believe that his problems were mostly mental (he hit just fine in Spring Training), and maybe a fresh start will make him hit somewhere over .200.

It's not like we've got a choice. He has 4 years left on his contract.

At least with Uggla, he'll be gone in two years tops. Why is it that we always have a player or two that are just dead weight? We just changed from pitchers (Hampton, Lowe), to position players.
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I have never seen a major league hitter with a swing plane as messed up and with as little chance of connecting with the ball through the hitting zone as B.J. Upton. Unless they're performing some major surgery, his ability to hit a baseball will not magically reappear.

But I, too, hope he gets it back. But I think they need to totally rebuild him. His swing is a dumpster fire.
 
It's probably more complicated than this but it looks like the only thing wrong with both BJ and Uggla is they try and hit a HR to left field with every swing. If they would both give up the idea of trying to hit a HR and just go for solid contact up the middle they'd start getting more middle in fastballs to turn on.

I don't know if this is conventional wisdom or actually true, but the eyes agree.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
I have never seen a major league hitter with a swing plane as messed up and with as little chance of connecting with the ball through the hitting zone as B.J. Upton. Unless they're performing some major surgery, his ability to hit a baseball will not magically reappear.

But I, too, hope he gets it back. But I think they need to totally rebuild him. His swing is a dumpster fire.
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His swing is not the issue. Well that is to say it's not a good swing, but it's the same swing he's had his entire career and he has not performed close to this level of suckitude. If it isn't mental (which I believe it was) then perhaps he's simply gone the way of ATL's two former high profile CFers and his skills have simply diminished. As has been said many times, CF is a very physically demanding position to play.
 
GovClintonTyree said:
Lead with your hands. And the point is to hit the ball to right, not to hit the ball out. He's got that one down.
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You should probably never tell a hitter to focus on their hands. Focusing on any one part of your swing is like focusing on playing one note in a symphony, you're bound to start neglecting other parts and screwing up your playing.

The most important aspect of swinging is truly mental, and prolonged slumps like BJs aren't uncommon simply because when you get down on yourself and struggle you usually over complicate your swing. What's the most common thing you hear from a hitter when they break out of long slumps? That they've worked with someone and simplified their swing. Why does that often work? Because they're not trying to fine tune every part of their swing and they go back to doing what got them to the majors which many times is a fine swing. Hitting like pitching the most important thing is repeating mechanics. So having someone work on too many fine point changes at ones likely will lead to a trainwreck. Simplify and let the man do his thing. BJ isn't an exceptional hitter. I'm not even a huge fan (everyone knows I wanted us to keep Bourn) but he's gonna be much better than he was last year short of like Carpe said he just lost it because of how demanding CF is since before last year he only once since being a starting majorleaguer posted a wRC+ under 105, so I expect him to be back in the 105-115 range next year and a 3+ WAR player. Short of a catastrophe.
 
Short of a miracle happening and someone willing to take Uggla with us only eating about 8M per year, which may or may not happen what I see happening with 2B next year is this.

1. Uggla will start the season. They'll give him ST and April to prove he still has it.

2. If he has it, awesome, he's a great hitter who aside from last year was a virtual lock for around a 2-3 WAR

3. If he doesn't have it then other guys will be looked at. All will be looked at in ST but my guess is they try Pastornicky or Pena first. HOpefully they don't try that too long, to me neither of them are major league starters. They're basically value wise not too dissimilar to Elliot Johnson, who I hope is cut so Fredi isn't tempted to let him play.

4. Tommy will likely be the 3rd option at 2B. Why? Because we know how the Braves work, they have guys they like in the majors they're less inclined to bring up a higher ceiling minor league guy unless he's a star.
Tommy is not a star. But Tommy should be able to hit and that's what is most improtant, because our other options don't have a skill as strong as Tommy's bat. Pastor is mediocre at pretty much every aspect, same with Pena. Tommy is killer with the bat then about mediocre elsewhere to poor with the glove.

I still to this day fail to believe that the Braves don't believe that TOmmy can't play 2B at the major league level because if they did believe that then they'd move him to the OF.
 
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