Talking Chop

of course. my only gripe is that they keep playing a guy who isnt feeling to hot and he isnt doing anything about it. Chipper at least sat himself

drumzalicious - April 21, 2009 reply

That reader is an idiot.

+1

I’m sorry, so he has all of these offensive numbers… have you seen his defense/attitude? We aren’t questioning his stats its his “I dont a flying fuck” attitude that we are pissed off about.

cmdpsu15 - April 21, 2009 reply

I dont care what he did in the past what is he doing right now. He is blocking a roster spot!

That a boy - April 21, 2009 reply

Get that BA, and RBI crap outta here!

Bowman is right for once, how ironic?

This moronic reader reminded me of a great FJM post: Enjoy

Nice

I still check that site hoping for an update.

TradeAndruw - April 21, 2009 reply

same

You should stop. They really retired. Ken Tremendous is working for the new Office-type show, Parks and Recreation.

That’s a shame, but that show is fucking terrible.

It’s really not very funny, no. I could watch Rashida Jones wash dishes, though. Good lord, that woman is hot.

Ken Tremendous is also Mose Schrute, Dwight’s hillbilly/Amish brother.

The first episode was BAD, but the second came along quite nicely. Give it another shot

hmm…

Poehler & Jones were going door to door getting people to come to a town hall meeting, and just pissing them off, and when the meeting came along, she got ripped to shreds. It was a riot

You’re not making a sound argument using RBIs, doubles, and hits. Not only that, but who the hell cares what he’s done over the past 14 years if he looks old and done this year? The slow starter is a decent argument, but that’s the only nugget in this otherwise useless bunch of drivel.

“Obviously Chipper would have had more hits if he had been able to play a full season.”

Obviously.

+1

Reverse That

Chipper signs with the Angels at the old age of 36.

He blows ass and gets hurt on a daily basis during ST and first few weeks of RS.

His platoon position player is playing well.

Add all of your pointless stats from above.
Chipper 5th in hits
Chipper 8th in doubles
Chipper 6th in RBI’s
Chipper 3rd in Total bases.

What do you have?????

The angel’s fan base calling for chipper to get cut. Nobody from the Angels gives crap about chippers HOF career with the braves.

The brave’s fan based doesn’t care about GA’s HOF career.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR “ME” LATELY.

Charmin519 - April 21, 2009 reply

Almost credible

Until he decided to go beyond his sharing of subjective stats and opinions, to slamming all Atlanta fans by insinuating Bobby Cox is the type of manager that never makes any mistakes, like, say, leaving Derek Lowe in a game too long.

He was lucky to hold them to 3 runs. You have to think the offense could score 1 run against the Nats bullpen, everyone else has this year.

TradeAndruw - April 21, 2009 reply

Not to continue the GA smearing

But I have no confidence that GA would have been able to catch the Jesus Flores almost grand slam that Diaz tracked down on the warning track. Probably would have bounced off the wall and cleared all the bases for a double.

I see where you're coming from

Bobby can make some bad decisions, but there’s a segment of the Braves blogosphere that is ready to call for his retirement every time he makes a decision they wouldn’t make.

In this case, it’s not cutting a player after ten games. I’m ok with saying Bobby knows better than those people.

Cutting him might be a little rash, but he needs to be placed on the DL. You have to agree with that much.

I wouldn’t disagree. If a couple more days rest don’t help his calf, then he should be put on the DL.

Not quite

I understand your point about it being a little early to cut Anderson, but most of the bloggers who want Bobby out have been after that for years. To be honest, they have a point. I love Bobby Cox, but Bobby of 2009 isn’t the Bobby of 1995. Just look at what he did to poor Blaine Boyer, and the consequences of that. That, not to mention the fact that Anderson has indeed sucked.

Andy Braves Fan - April 21, 2009 reply

What Bobby did to Boyer is nothing like what Bobby did to Avery. The whole ‘mismanagement’ of the bullpen thing, Jesus. Yeah, Boyer got overused last year. So did Ohman. But four of our five starters got hurt and the replacements were mostly shit. What was he supposed to do?

Oh, I know

but that is just one example of Bobby’s declining ability to manage. I don’t agree that Bobby is a terrible manager (now) as some would argue, but I would argue that he is well past his prime and that it is time to move on.

Andy Braves Fan - April 21, 2009 reply

I think the point is

That Anderson has been a productive player for 14 years. He’s looked pretty bad this year, but he’s only had 26 at-bats, he missed most of spring training, and he’s probably got some lingering issues with that calf that caused him to look a little sluggish in the field and running out ground balls.

To address the writer’s stats, well, they are important. I know it’s important to minimize the number of outs you make. OBP is more important than batting average, sure. But batting average is still important, doubles are still important, etc. I get so tired of reading this kind of stuff. We all get that walks are important, but a player can be useful with an OBP around .340. Garret Anderson has been for a while.

Either way, he should be better than Gregor Blanco and better than what Brandon Jones has shown so far.

…he’s probably got some lingering issues with that calf that caused him to look a little sluggish in the field and running out ground balls.

If that’s the case he needs to sack up and tell the organization to put him on the DL until he feels healthy. He’s not helping any out there as is.

And no, counting stats like hits and doubles are not important. He has played a long career, so of course he has alot of them but that doesn’t mean that he deserves to get the benefit of the doubt because of it. Jeff Kent has alot of doubles, maybe we should sign him to start over KJ.

As stated by someone above, the only useful nugget was that GA has a poor April average for his career.

He’s played a long career in which he got a lot of hits and doubles. There’s some value in a guy who can hit .290, whether he walks enough or not, especially when the guy is hitting some doubles.
Look, he’s obviously not a perfect player, but he was better than taking a chance Brandon Jones can hit major league pitching. Which he absolutely has not in his career. Or making Diaz the everyday left-fielder again, because he totally blew in that role last year.

The problem is that that all happened in the past. Bobby has a tendency to stick with people for too long when it’s pretty obvious they don’t have it anymore. It’s probably why the players love him so much, but it’s frustrating as hell as a fan. Players decline, players fall off a cliff…just because Anderson used to be good doesn’t mean he should get the benefit of the doubt.

I hated the signing, as I’m sure everyone on here knows. But after I cooled off I told myself that I’d be fine with it as long as he’s hitting 5th or lower. He has no business hitting 3rd with that OBP, and no business hitting 4th with the SLG. Even in games where McCann and Chipper aren’t playing I do not want him there.

I was also assured by numerous people that his defense was average at worst, and perhaps it’s mainly due to the calf but he’s looked just about as Dunn normally does out there. It doesn’t hurt at this point to DL the son of a bitch and bring up Jones to see what he can do.

Garret can't blame dropping balls that hit your glove on his calf.

And even if he could that would just prove that he had no business trying to play through it.

I think that Anderson used to be good is the only reason anyone would give him the benefit of the doubt. At least for 30-35 games.

As far as the dropped balls are concerned, I don’t know. I have no explanation for them.

Really he's never been anything special.

A career 105 OPS+ is only good acceptable if you’re a shortstop, catcher, or second baseman.

If you’re playing LF, something over 120 is about par for the course. And he’s only broken 120 three times in 15 seasons.

Sure they’re important, but its cherry picking. Why not use percentages to describe the player? OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, etc etc all include the counting stats within them…sure its nice to rattle off the hard numbers of what he’s achieved but when you take into account PAs you see an above average player in the past… now he’s past his prime, is hurt, looks disinterested, and is taking up money that could’ve been used to shore up the pen…or gotten a better option than himself. There’s not a lot of value in that.

Speaking of cherry picking

I like the lack of defense. His range has been dropping the last few years, and in terms of FIP, he’s barely being league-average. It’s hardly showing this year for us, though.

How does a bad calf keep him from closing his glove around a ball? Three times?

Gage23 - April 21, 2009 reply

“Garret Anderson has had an above average career, so he should start every day”

The fact that the hits and BA are artificially inflated by a complete disregard for talking walks only add to the idiocy.

How about we compare something that matters like say, Times on Base from 1995-2009?

1. Manny Ramirez- 3,596
2. Chipper Jones – 3,546
3. Alex Rodriguez- 3,511
4. Derek Jeter- 3,504
5. Barry Bonds- 3,473
6. Jim Thome- 3,405
7. Carlos Delgado- 3,238
8. Gary Sheffield- 3,211
9. Jason Giambi- 3,191
10. Luis Gonzalez- 3,185
11. Bobby Abreu- 3,157
12. Craig Biggio- 3,136
13. Johnny Damon- 3,121
14. Brian Giles- 3,073
15. Todd Helton- 3,059
16. Jeff Kent- 2,954
17. Ray Durham- 2,946
18. Frank Thomas- 2,944
19. Vlad Guerrero- 2,896
20. Jeff Bagwell- 2,884
21. Omar Vizquel- 2,862
22. Jason Kendall- 2,853
23. Bernie Williams- 2,825
24. Shawn Green- 2,823
25. Jim Edmonds- 2,776
26. Garret Anderson- 2,772

Ouch.

So you're saying we have the 26th best player of the last 14 years? We've struck gold!

All kidding aside, his longevity obviously helps him in counting stats. But he posted an OPS+ over 100 not too long ago, and would have been better than anybody we fielded last year.

Garret just doesn’t bring anything to the table that I don’t think we already have with Brandon Jones.

Another interesting nugget, that is sort of my point against hits being used as a HOF barometer…

Tim Raines has more Times on Bases than Tony Gwynn, as well as nearly 500 more stolen bases, and 50 more HRs.

My other issue with Garret, is how many runs is he giving back because he's a useless defender

For a team that used defense as their excuse not to go after Dunn to somehow wind up with one of the very few players that could actually be a worse defender is mind-boggling.

Garret Anderson has been on base less times than several people who haven’t fucking played for a couple years.

!Vive la Francoeur! - April 21, 2009 reply

Chipper is only 50 behind Manny?

Despite missing several thousand games to injury?

Slow Starters

Garret Anderson, Mark Teixeira, Adam LaRoche, Andy Pettitte, the Philadelphia Phillies, etc, etc.

Now I’m curious here. Do these players really have to be in games during their yearly slow months? Is playing like shit in April a mandatory requisite for a rise in performance as the summer progresses? What would happen if a team took a “slow starter,” and didn’t start really playing him until like June? Do they start slow then, or do they come in, playing like their June form? Why do they start slow? Do they not like the cold? The rain? Why is it that the term “slow starter” exist, insinuating that a player is playing well below marginal to where they have to be designated as such? The majority of players start the seasons playing at least slightly above-average, if not hot, before they begin to come back to earth.

Too bad we can’t stick GA in AAA until he actually “starts,” and then bring him back up if he’s an improvement over Matt Diaz.

It might be a playing time/getting loose thing, so if you don’t play him for April, May will be his cold month

Sounds like he could use a stint in “extended spring training”.

I still fail to understand why we didn't go after Jim Edmonds.

Hell, we could improve our team a good deal today by cutting Garret, and signing Edmonds.

Edmonds rakes righties, Diaz rakes lefties. Use a strict platoon of the two in LF, and it’s like having > .850 OPS left fielder. Not to mention Edmonds can still play CF, and would be about as good as it gets in left.

And that’s before we even get to the intangibles where Edmonds is a guy that actually hustles, as opposed to Garret the Glider; or the fact that Edmonds has been arguably one of the elite CF over the last 15 years, and we have a rookie CF how could learn some things from him.

I mentioned this in December and was laughed at.

mvandonsel - April 21, 2009 reply

Pretty much.

mvandonsel - April 21, 2009 reply

I was all about Edmonds. I think at the beginning of the offseason my list for LF was as follows, in order (strictly FA, no trades):

Dunn
Burrell
Abreu
Griffey / Diaz
Edmonds / Diaz
B. Jones / Diaz
Wickman
Anderson / Diaz

Griffey and Edmonds may have been flip flopped, can’t remember after all the shit that went down. Reguardless Edmonds rakes lefties and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he’s a better defender than GA.

Edmonds rakes ~~lefties~~ righties.

Wickman

lmao

This is something I saw Mac @ BravesJournal write

Here’s two batting lines from last year:

A. .293/.325/.438
B. .293/.338/.416

Pretty much exactly the same. Line A is Garret Anderson from last year. Line B is Omar Infante. Garret Anderson is making more money this year, and is 10 years older. If GA doesn’t regress because of age, we can hope that he has the offensive output of Omar Infante. That is his ceiling. I would say that GA is better at LF defense, but I’m not going to be making any arguments supporting GA’s defense after what I’ve seen so far this year.

garriscp - April 21, 2009 reply

The first paragraph pretty closely resembles that time a dude bitched at gondeee for swearing or something, and called him MR GANDY the whole time. That was good times.

I liked the guy who would find a typo and then go off on Gondeee about how a chimp could write better.

TradeAndruw - April 21, 2009 reply

Yeah, that was awesome.

John Drake number 6 - April 21, 2009 reply

And gondeee took care of both posters by paying ~~Patrick Bateman~~ ~~Smoltz’s Beard~~ Mr. Glass to ~~ban~~ ~~murder~~ “take care” of them.

mvandonsel - April 21, 2009 reply

son.of.sourman

I miss his awfulness.

buzzdeadwax - April 21, 2009 reply

I just keep telling myself

that none of this (GA being ABSOLUTLY TERRIBLE, epic bullpen collapses, the whole lack of a fifth starter so far this season, etc) will matter when we start winning again. But losing to the Nationals? Versus their rookie #5? WTF, Braves? And I don’t want to hear about Zimmerman’s “ace potential”, ’cause we had our actual ace in there against him.

I won’t say that being a Braves fan is getting harder, but it sure is making me wake up with a hangover a lot more often.

Meatloafin' - April 21, 2009 reply

Do you all realize how immature you sound?

I’m disappointed to realize that so many of my fellow Braves fans sound just like the Mets fans I heard on the radio while working in the NYC area the last few years.

I had assumed that the utter lack of sympathy or patience expressed by them was specific to obnoxious New York sports fans. Evidently such immaturity is more pervasive than I realized.

Given the strident, petulant, impatient tone of most of the comments posted here I’m beginning to think the average age of commentators is less than 13.

For the callow among you who object to the relevance of Anderson’s lifetime stats, “The past is prologue to the future.”

Thanks for the info.

Did you plan on actually adding to the conversation? Elaborating on the topic at hand? Or were you just going to hurl insults and act like you’re better than everyone?

John Drake number 6 - April 21, 2009 reply

Like we say in Texas

I can read it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

Yeah, I figured you didn’t have a clue

While you’re right to say that we haven’t given Anderson much of a chance, he hasn’t done anything to ingratiate himself to the Braves, now has he? You preach patience with Anderson, but we preach the fact that Anderson was superfluous to what we already have.

You mention the lack of sympathy…why should we be sympathetic? To us, he’s a mercenary. Speaking for myself, his past means little to me as a fan. Which really isn’t a BAD thing per se, but he’s not going to get a longer rope if he were to, say, drop a few fly balls, look lost at the plate, or miss some games due to injury. So, yes, I have little patience for a player who I think was an unnecessary addition when other parts of our team (read: Ohman) could’ve been shored up.

Welcome to TC, by the way.

Cliff Floyd is the same age as FUGA and has a higher career OPS, why don’t we sign him?