Surgery won’t be necessary for Jones | ajc.com
Sometimes, these “conservative” treatments wind up costing the player more time. He comes back in four to six weeks, plays for awhile, and then he goes under the knife. Moreover, the difference between the surgery recovery I heard (two months) and the six weeks outside timetable is pretty small. He’ll wear a boot in the interim, and hopefully he’ll be okay in a month. Foot injuries are tricky.
THE SEASON IS SAVED!
We’ll get through this.
As I read the article, Chipper didn’t reject surgery to come back sooner -the Dr. said surgery wasn’t necessary. From previous articles, Chipper seemed willing to have surgery if it was suggested, even if it meant he would miss more time. So I don’t see this as “conservative” treatment (which I agree sometimes cause more time to be missed) but a situtation where the Dr. simply didn’t think surgery would help.
The story actually uses the phrase “conservative treatment”.
THis is great if he gets better. We can live without him for six weeks. Andrew will have heated up and cooled off again by then, so Chipper should come back right in Andrew’s downward spiral.
If he had been out for the season, we could have written the season off today. Try to find takers for some of our veterans. This means we at least have a fighting chance.
Chipper must be hurtin bad if he thought that he’d entertain surgery to releive the pain. 4 to 6 it a lot of time. Hopefully we’ll have a 3rd base/1st Base conundrum when he gets back.
I can’t read the AJC article since I don’t subscribe. I read the article on the Braves MLB.com site, which I guess is a little different.
Use Mac’s login:
warliberal
mac at warliberal dot com
warliberal
Ahem.
The commissioner also reads the AJC.
There’s another article on the AJC site talking about the Braves’ injury problems. Here are a few passages …
ATLANTA ? It?s taken a mighty confluence of injuries and budget restraints to get them to this improbable place, but here they stand: The Atlanta Braves, youngest and least-experienced team in the major leagues.
The franchise with 13 consecutive division titles has an active roster younger than small-market Tampa Bay?s, with less experience than the rebuilding Colorado Rockies.
Atlanta has eight rookies on its 25-man roster, and seven players born in the 1980s. Only Kansas City, the majors? worst team, has more born in the 1980s, with nine.
And this …
The average age of the 25-man roster is 28 years, 11 months, which includes 46-year-old Franco, oldest man in the majors. Without him, it?s 27 years, 3 months, including 10 players 25 or younger.
Other than Franco, John Smoltz, 38, and Brian Jordan, 38, the average of the current Braves is 26 years, 3 months.
Anyone get the feeling the braves will use chipper’s injury as an ‘excuse’ to sort out their problem with Marte at third base (assuming he hits even a little) by moving chipper across the diamond and finding something to do with Laroche if there are even any takers for him?
Your right on Matt. When they had Marte give up trying to learn LF last year and put him back at 3rd you knew this was coming. He just needs to hit which he will. Is it me or does Marte have a massive Uppercut everytime he swings??
Chipper will have to move to first if his feet have gone bad. Once you start complaining about your feet hurting, you have to come to terms with reality and understand that you are getting old. I’d really hate to get rid of Roachie and his “sweet swing” but it is probably for the best. Especially if Marte (does he have a nickname yet?) gets it going in the bigs. He’s been a good guy for us, and if he moves on, I’ll still root for him.
I’m not sure about a move to first by Chipper. First, he’s on record saying he doesn’t want to change positions again. Second, when I think about it, it seems like there’s a lot more motion involved being a 1B than a 3B, isn’t there?
How about waiting to see if Marte actually hits before making all these moves? I know it’s a foregone conclusion that he will hit, but you never know and the Braves history isn’t all that great? How many All-Star teams has Wilson Betemit been on?
Well, if he played everyday he might be on one this year as the default.
Hey, speculation is fun. Especially on off-days and those that follow. And, really, if Marte does indeed prove to be a quality regular it wouldn’t be too terribly difficult to unseat LaRoche (although I would have to agree that that would be unfortunate). It is seeming more and more unlikely, though. Unless he heals faster than expected, Larry Wayne won’t be anything near a certainty before 7/31.
As far as how many all-star teams Betemit has been on, I wouldn’t know because I don’t keep track of minor league all star games. I’m sure someone would know (there’s this funny rule where only major league qualify for the major league all-star game).
Just to clarify when I said “unfortunate” that was an emotional thing. I like LaRoche. I wouldn’t find it unfortunate if, forced to choose, the better player was chosen. Just kinda sad to see him go.
What about trying the WB in left field? If he can play SS 3B and 2B, LF shouldn’t be that hard to pick up. Anyone else agree?
He was probably on the Carolina league all star team the year he broke out as a 19 year old, but I’m not sure. Smitty, I agree that if he can play SS he can certainly play LF.. hell, Ryan Klesko played LF.
The Cubs want to move Patterson, who is from GA. I would take him strait up for Furcal.
I agree Kyle, Klesko did, Chipper did, I think Tyler Houston was trotter out there once too! The WB can play left, how hard could it be. Catch the ball, throw it in. Play a ball off the wall. Get out of Andrew’s way. Andrew could be shaded twords left a little to help him and Langerhans is a hell of an outfielder he could cover right and rightcenter alone. I say go for it!
I’d love to get Betemit more time in the lineup, but nothing beats sitting Furcal. Well, I guess at some point it becomes too costly to keep sending Kelly Johnson out there for 0-fers, but I’m not sure we’re close to that yet. This is a bias towards the future, and I spose that, given the performances of late, keeping Furcal in over Johnson makes sense today. I don’t know… I still don’t like it. I want to believe that KJ can easily outhit Raffy if he just gets some more time. The one thing that worries me (and believe me it is SO painful to know that I’m going with Tom Paciorek’s evaluation because he is so damned annoying) is that he apparently has a huge mechanical issue that kills him on inside pitches. If he’s got a real problem with his approach, then maybe the majors isn’t going to be the best place to work it out.
The problem with Patterson (along with every other outfielder that seems to be available) is that he isn’t very good. He’s got a career OPS of .730 and is right at that so far this year. He’s about to get expensive, too.
Plus, the Cubs have Neifi so its not like they need another SS 🙂
The one thing that worries me (and believe me it is SO painful to know that I’m going with Tom Paciorek’s evaluation because he is so damned annoying) is that he apparently has a huge mechanical issue that kills him on inside pitches.
Yeah it’s generally not good to have only been in the majors a couple of weeks and have everyone already know where the big hole in your swing is. That could be a little rough.
I admit to being morbidly fascinated by this game of ‘how low you can go’ Johnson is playing with his average. Anybody know someone at Elias that can find out what’s the greatest 1-fer to start a career?
with all due respect to Paciorek, I cannot believe that a major hole wouldn’t have been exploited at the AAA level, making me hope that this is a temporary bad habit that TP needs to fix.
I’m not sure that Paciorek is due any respect 😉 This is the guy who recently said that back in his first run with Clevelan he though Kenny Lofton might be the best player in the game. He was pretty damn good in those days, but c’mon. But to be fair, I guess that doesn’t mean he can’t have a good idea about hitting mechanics.
I’m not anywhere close to giving up on Kelly Johnson. It just gave me additional worry. Even if he’s right about what he’s doing now, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t something like what you suggested… or simply a recent tendency borne out of frustration/pressing.
Why is Kelly Johnson hitting 3rd? He is not ready for the big leagues and Furcal right now is a better hitter than Johnson. WB needs a place to play and the weakest place in the field is left. Furcal is struggling, but Kelly Johnson is something like 1-45! I say we go with wither Marte or Johnson, but not both, right now it seems that Johnson is hurting us more than helping. He hasn’t done anything at the plate and I haven’t seen him make any great plays in the field. IF he is in the lineup he should be hitting 8th. I figure he has cost us at least two games where he has left two men on base with less than one out.
Chipper to first everyday, LaRoche to LF everyday. Works for me. Pendleton to the minors, Julio as batting coach, Langerhans can fill Julio’s old role just fine, extra gift roster spot thrown in for no charge. We can still benefit from the rookie shakedown with a free IF and a free OF spot.
Perhaps Kelly Johnson would be better if he wasn’t so darn “patient.” The guy never takes the bat off his shoulder until he has looked at two strikes. I realize that, to sabermetricians, taking walks has become more important than getting hits (unless they are extra-base hits), but if “plate discipline” means always having two called strikes before swinging the bat, then there will be no need to find a “hole” in a swing. Johnson is putting one there all by himself by his patience at the plate.
Doug, I think you are misunderstanding saberetricians somewhat. The value is most certainly not in walks over singles. The value you talk about is really two-fold, at least to a smart sabermetrician:
1) The value is really in not making outs. It’s as simple as that. That is what OBP is all about: not making outs. The stat is heavily influenced by walks because a walk is NOT an out. A hit is also not an out, and any way you post a good OBP is good. But this last thing brings us to…
2) If a hitter does not know the strike zone good pitchers will find a way to exploit that and get you out with pitches that you can’t hit. This is not always true, of course. Some guys (Vlad being the best example) can hit balls that our out of the strike zone, but most can’t. A hit-heavy OBP is good, but a walk-heavy one is generally more reassuring.
3) (I know I said two, but I forgot this one) Walks cause a pitcher to throw more pitches. Pitcher who throw more pitches will tired earlier and will demonstrate what they have going (and not going) for them that particular night. This is a benefit to the team.
Players can be “too patient”. I believe that. I think most sabermetricians would believe that. And when there are runners on base, a hit is likely to be more valuable than a walk because it is more likely to advance the runner(s) more than one base. This is obvious stuff, and I don’t think that anybody would deny it.
I honestly don’t know whether you’re right about Kelly Johnson because too many of these damn games have been on Turner South lately. But I value a lot of what sabermetricians say, and I wouldn’t listen to one who said that a walk is absolutely more important than a hit.
I realize that, to sabermetricians, taking walks has become more important than getting hits …
Ah yes another snide comment about sabermetrics. Whats next, an observation that obviously nerds who pay attention to stats hate the game? That we aren’t “manly” enough.
No one — absolutely no one — who routinely follows baseball has ever suggested that a walk is more important than a single. Never have and never will. But hey, trot out that ol’ cannard instead of trying to figure out if Johnson is mentally struggling, changed his mechanics, has a flaw in his approach, is hitting in bad luck, or some combination thereof.
No one — absolutely no one — who routinely follows baseball has ever suggested that a walk is more important than a single. Never have and never will.
Not true at all of course. In the sabermetric community, singles are considered to be heavily influenced by luck – walks, much less so. If you have players who values are about the same, one who has a lot of value tied up in singles, the other in walks, many saberminded folks would view the walk based batter as the better bet. Hence, walks are better than singles.
I don’t buy the line of reasoning, but it all over the place these days.
Better bet to improve in the future? Sure I can see someone making that argument. And I wouldn’t disagree with that line of logic in that context. But that’s not the same thing as saying that the player with more walks contributed more to his team. Based on only the factors you mentioned, there would be no sustainable argument for that. Because the actual value of a walk, in terms of contribution to the success of a team, is not more than a single.
Nyb: you are conflating two distinct sabermetric lines of though. It is true that, in general, given two players with the same on base percentage, a sabermetrician will prefer the one who walks more, because the ability to walk is more consistent year-to-year than is batting average. It is also true that, in terms of its effect on the game, a single is more valuable in terms of expected run value than is a walk, which always advances players just one base whereas runners can go first-to-third or score from second on a single.
nyb & kyle: that is an argument based on a misreading of McCracken’s DIPS by folks hanging around the edge of the sabermetric community. It has been shown that batters have substantially more control over over the results of balls in play than do pitchers. And the last few studies I’ve read seem to indicate h/pa are more consistent year to year than are bb/pa.
nyb & kyle: that is an argument based on a misreading of McCracken’s DIPS by folks hanging around the edge of the sabermetric community. It has been shown that batters have substantially more control over over the results of balls in play than do pitchers. And the last few studies I’ve read seem to indicate h/pa are more consistent year to year than are bb/pa.
That’s really changing the argument. Everyone agrees that extra base hits trump all. We are discussing singles versus walks.
If an Ichiro clone were in AA, BPro would write him a lukewarm profile saying he doesn’t walk enough and too much of his value is based on singles.
nyb, you keep substituting future projection with historical contribution. You are probably right that if Ichiro were in AA the folks at BPro would be skeptical because most major leaguers are not able to consistently put up such a high batting average. HOWEVER, someone who actually produces like that at the major league level would NOT be considered less productive and valuable than someone with a similar OBP (that stat really seems to be the focus of this discussion) by getting more walks and fewer hits. IN FACT, someone like that would be considered more valuable for the exact reasons that Kyle noted.
Would the BPro guys be wrong about Ichiro? Yes, of course. That is plain to see. But one guy (or two if you add Vlad… or even three if you add Pudge) does not make a powerful argument.
Again, there is a HUGE difference between looking at someone’s past performance to attempt to project his future performance and looking at someone’s past performance to evaluate his contribution to winning games. A walk is less valuable than a single in the latter respect. And nobody in his/her right mind would argue that.
I was initially responding to this comment:
No one — absolutely no one — who routinely follows baseball has ever suggested that a walk is more important than a single. Never have and never will.
In evaluating the type of year a player had and the type of year we expect going forward, saberminded folks frequently say that walks are more important than singles due to the alledged luck-dependents of singles. Therefore lots of people suggest a walk is more important than a single.
Obviously in determining their value within a specific game and single is better than a walk, although many Sabes think it’s pretty close due to the pitch count ramifications.