well dang, there goes my buy low in the offseason SS idea. Although Yunell seems like the anti-Walt guy, and lord knows they're not going to move off of OCab during the season.
You might want to listen to this then. JP Ricciardi just stumbled onto him at a local high school game. JP does radio up here regularly, and Collins came up when they were talking about Daniel Nava, around 5 minutes in.
http://audio.weei.com/m/32005740/jp-...pn-analyst.htm
"Reality tells us there are no guarantees. Except that some day Jon Lester will be on that list of 100-game winners." - Peter Gammons
Most of those guys also had a history of being big jerk wads too... Escobar is having a career year slump in the power department and he's still tracking to be an average major leaguer. In other words, he's already provided $40M+ surplus value production-wise while Atlanta has waited for him to "put it together".
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
Fair point. Wainright has blossomed.
(Wainright went in the deal for JD Drew, who then proceeded to finish 6th in the NL MVP voting during his one year in Atlanta before he walked as a FA.)
So that makes 2 guys whom the Braves reluctantly traded who then blossomed elsewhere.
The wash-outs still far outnumber the subsequent stars.
I think it's easy to believe because the Reds didn't have a replacement shortstop to offer Atlanta. The Braves wouldn't have pulled the trigger trading Escobar if they didn't get someone to replace him. It wasn't that they were looking for the best deal in return... it was they were looking for the best deal that involved someone to upgrade the position.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
Buster Olney tweeting last night:
When Alex Gonzalez walked into the Atlanta clubhouse the Braves' players gave him a standing ovation.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/ok...el-escobar.php
First thought: wow.
Second thought: Buster only knows that because someone on the inside in Braves land made a special point to tell him about it. Which seems kind of sad to me, actually, because it means someone is really going out of their way to bury Yunel Escobar in the press.
Lots of someones actually, because it's not just Buster with this stuff. Talking casually to other writers over the past day or two and the most striking thing is that almost everyone has talked to someone with the Braves who has had something bad to say about the guy. There's always a bit of an analyst/reporter split in evaluating a trade, but the degree to which reporters with team sources all love the Gonzalez deal so much and analysts don't is (a) uncanny; (b) almost certainly a function of hearing negatives about him from Braves sources.
I heard that mentioned on a couple different radio stations this morning.
I have always thought that winning solves everything. Its easy to have a free and loose clubhouse when you are playing good baseball and winning. While I think chemistry and clubhouse environment is important, I do think it can be over rated. It is very rarely that you will hear of a clubhouse environment that is awful when a team is playing good baseball.
That said this is a scathing indictment of when the Braves were happy to see him go. To me it really shows that the Braves players had tired of his antics and the Braves brass were ok with replacing him with Alex Gonzales.
In 15 years, I only remember 1 guy that everyone in Atlanta (fans, players, front office) was ready to move like Escobar and didn't really care what the return was: John Rocker.
I think the interesting thing is going to be what the Braves do when they find out that Gonzales's power doesn't translate well into the NL East parks. Turner Field is a pitchers park, as is Citi Field in NYC. Most years in FLA, Gonzales didn't put up big power numbers. (He hit 41 HRs in 2003-2004 during the tail end of the PED era.)
Right now, Glaus leads the team with 14 HRs, and Prado/Heyward are tied for 2nd with 11 each. McCann is the only other guy in double-digits with 10. Anything is an upgrade over Escobar (both on and off the field), but I'm not sold that Gonzales is the bat that makes the Braves a clear favorite in the NL. They still have horrifically anemic bats in the OF (McLouth and Melky Cabrera), and outside of Tim Hudson, the starters have all been fairly hittable. They've got a good bullpen though. The question will be whether or not Bobby Cox wears it out before the stretch run.
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