Will the real Jason Heyward please stand up?

Understood and agree. Hitting and driving in runs is also a foundation of a team.

It's not a priority over pitching and defense. Unless you have 8 Freeman and Justin's in your lineup and all have career years, even the best numbers won't win you 100+ games without somewhat decent pitching.

We had career years in 2003 from Javy-Sheff-Giles-Furcal. Smoltz held our crappy bullpen together. That's a once in a blue moon type of deal and was the reason we won 100. It's unrealistic to expect 4-5 guys to carry your team with career years year in and year out. Look what happened when we faced the Cubs with their dominant pitching, the only time their rotation was able to stay healthy all year.

Pitching is always and will always be a constant and a proven strategy for building teams. We won 1995 not because we outhit Cleveland, but our pitching came through.

Scoring runs are important, but scoring 5+ runs a game isn't when your pitching has been as good as ours.
 
Because he just took a toot of that cocaine he offered me (so did I).

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They gave him 2 years. 4.5M for 2014 and 7.8M for 2015. To me that screams wait and see.

Wait and see because of injuries and freak injuries, not performance.

If Jason puts up what he did his rookie or even 2012, he's worth that much money in this market especially with how young he is.

He's been unfortunate with the appendectomy, broken jaw, thumb injury, etc. His wrist injury his rookie year dropped his numbers lower than what they could've been. That was already an all-time historic his rookie year...
 
This season will shed a lot of light on what needs to be done, or what will be done. There's little doubt Heyward needs to start producing at the plate.
 
Schuerholz, Wren talk Heyward and extensions
By Jane Hammond

Scott Cunningham
MLB.com's Tracy Ringolsby says the Braves anticipate giving a big extension to Heyward after next year.

Tracy Ringolsby of MLB.com has an interesting article discussing the road to the Braves giving out so many long-term extensions to their core players of Freddie Freeman, Craig Kimbrel, Julio Teheran and now Andrelton Simmons. The key, as we all have heard, is the new Cobb County stadium which will bring in a larger revenue stream to the club.

"This was really born out of the idea that we feel we have a dynamic young core of players and over the next few years we definitely want to keep them together," said Braves executive vice president and GM Frank Wren, who along with manager Fredi Gonzalez got a contract extension of his own on Wednesday. "We do not envision going into a new ballpark without our core in place."
The whole piece is worth a read, and Schuerholz had similar thoughts, but the key here is this line from Ringolsby:

The expectation is that after next season, the Heyward deal can be expanded so that he, too, will be locked up at least through the first year in the new ballpark.
It seems so casually thrown in, as if of course we should assume Jason Heyward will be around forever. Interesting insight from someone who talked to both Schuerholz and Wren about the Braves' future.

...

This from the offseason, the Braves FO thinks very highly of Heyward, read and weep. I still dont think we'll keep him but it has nothing to do with the FO not liking him.
 
lol......keep trolling

Huh?
You have no idea what happened this off-season. The two sides talked long-term extension. It is completely possible they offered Heyward that kind of deal and he felt he could get more on the open market in a few years. You've provided zero evidence that Wren didn't offer him something close to what Hawk suggested.
 
I'd rather sign both of them. Both are great players. BUt if I had to choose gun to my head I take Jason because his ceiling is way higher.

Upton is already shaky out there defensively. I can easily see him dropping to Gattis level in a few years. Can he play 3rd base?
 
It's not a priority over pitching and defense. Unless you have 8 Freeman and Justin's in your lineup and all have career years, even the best numbers won't win you 100+ games without somewhat decent pitching.

We had career years in 2003 from Javy-Sheff-Giles-Furcal. Smoltz held our crappy bullpen together. That's a once in a blue moon type of deal and was the reason we won 100. It's unrealistic to expect 4-5 guys to carry your team with career years year in and year out. Look what happened when we faced the Cubs with their dominant pitching, the only time their rotation was able to stay healthy all year.

Pitching is always and will always be a constant and a proven strategy for building teams. We won 1995 not because we outhit Cleveland, but our pitching came through.

Scoring runs are important, but scoring 5+ runs a game isn't when your pitching has been as good as ours.

Good pitching has been the Braves motto for decades. But you know as well as I do it wasn't nothing for the Braves to keep and OF who hit 25-35 HRs in a season. Btw Grissom, Gant, Sheffield, Justice, Drew, etc. Mix on Fred McGriff, Chipper, Castilla, and Gallaragga....yes, the Braves scored a ton of runs during that time frame.
 
They offered Heyward a long-term deal a few years ago, he rejected.

And yes, he could of very well turned down a deal in the 15-17 mil range.
 
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