Atlanta Braves : News : Atlanta Braves News
I don’t care about the Jordan/Canseco/McGwire stuff. I am hereby declaring a no steroids zone.
What I wanted to mention is that Bobby is saying nice things about Buddy Hernandez, which is a good sign, even comparing him to Greg Maddux (!) with a fastball that looks faster than it is.
Cuts were Macay McBride, as I’d been predicting, and Luis Hernandez, who had little chance of making the team and is probably two or three years away with the bat. More cuts are expected tomorrow; I’m guessing that we’re going to start to see the outfield situation thinned out.
Hernandez is only 26? man, it seems like forever that he’s been getting ignored down in the minors.
Thanks for the story, Mac. We absolutely need Hernandez in the bullpen this year because there is practically nobody else who can strike out batters. He could quickly become the top set-up guy, and may even close out games if Kolb’s smoke and mirrors act fades like it did in the second half of last season. Perhaps Buddy can evolve into Billy Wagner, or even John Rocker with more control (Of a baseball and everything else in life).
Dave, Hernandez has been kept in the minors all these years because he’s a notorious soft-tosser. Now, while I think there is an excellent chance he could succeed in the majors, comparisons with Wagner or Rocker are completely unfair. Wagner is by all accounts the hardest thrower in the majors – of all pitches thrown over 100mph in 2003, he threw something like half of them. Rocker, when he was still sane, was a fireballer himself.
Nevertheless, I hope he makes the team and does well.
My mistake. I assumed he had heat because of his strikeout totals…so, is there a lefty soft-tosser with a comparable K rate? I’ve never seen him pitch and am curious who he’d be compared to.
Sid Fernandez, maybe?
Wait … isn’t Buddy a right-hander?
He’s a left-hander…which makes it even stranger that the Braves traded for Tom Martin last year, now that I think about it.
Um …
Buddy photo
Sportsline link
Looks like a righty to me.
Buddy Hernandez is right-handed.
Some website listed him as a LH one time, and I guess I just never got that image out of my head.
I don’t think I’m nearly as stupid as my posts in this thread have made me out to be, but I could be wrong.
Just read an article in Sports Illustrated about the Braves. The gist is the incredible success the Braves have had in extracting performance from discarded players. The article of course mentions, Drew, Wright, Burkett, Hammonds, Remlinger, Franco among others. The author is Albert Chen. He seems like a good writer. He quotes Schuerholz as saying that good scouting and ‘instinct’ are the secrets to the recent success at taking on these projects getting them to play at a high level. Scouting and instinct take a front seat to statistical analysis in the Braves organization. Which does explain why Mondesi whom the mention lost 15 lbs on the Javy Lopez comeback program was signed and why Brian Jordan who must look good in a pair of jeans was signed despite the fact that he has really really sucked the past couple of years.
You can’t argue with success. Schuerholz has made some terrific acquisitions from the scrap heap and Bobby and Leo have done an even more remarkable job of getting them to play. So while I’d be leaning more on statistical analysis if they continue to succeed with the scouting/instinct thing the more power to them.
Of course no mention of Ken Caminitti, Rico Brogna, Albie Lopez, Armando Almanza and Robert Fick either but we have had more winners than losers so hats off to John however he does it.
Scouting and instinct take a front seat to statistical analysis in the Braves organization.
Statistical analysis is part of scouting, and it is something the Braves clearly use. Jeff Francouer ain’t in the big leagues yet because his stats indicate he is not ready yet. This is a 5-tool kid with all of the make-up in the world. Mondesi has been a good MLB player, except for his mental breakdown last year. Julio Franco was tearing up the Mexican League. How did JS know it wasn’t just the result of lower competition? Well, you need statistics to measure player quality across leagues. One thing that JS seems to do much better than other GMs is to identify guys who have had recent bad luck. He, like any good statistician, expects mean reversion. So, he picks up these guys on the cheap.
JC, just paraphrasing the article dude.
Johnny, just responding to your paraphrasing.