I kept putting this off, but it really looks like the Braves, barring some NRI playing out of his head in spring training, really are going to go into the season with this guy as the backup shortstop and only real backup infielder. Hurrah. Hernandez has had 103 career major league plate appearances (83 in 2009, 10 last year) and hit a robust .138/.190/.234. Last year, he was 1-9, though the one hit was a homer. There really was no evidence that he could hit major league pitching. All he really has going for him are his AAA numbers, which are fairly impressive for a shortstop in a batting-average-heavy kind of way, .300/.344/.398, hitting .319 over the last two years (in just 84 games thanks to injuries and time on the major league bench). His overall minor league numbers, however, are worse, and as noted he hasn’t hit in the majors. If he could hit even an empty .280 and play good defense, you could live with him as a bench player, but (a) he hasn’t hit, and (b) he hasn’t fielded that well either. The Braves have some other options, but they’re all minor league lifers with even more suspect gloves, plus Brandon Hicks, who simply cannot hit.
Most of Hernandez’s career has been marred by injuries; he played regularly in 2007 and 2008 but hasn’t played more than 90 games in six other minor league seasons, and he missed the first half last year… Terrible percentage basestealer, 68 steals, 54 CS in his career.
As much as I hate to admit it, Clay Travis hits it on the head here:
http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/2011/02/23/tennessee-makes-special-delivery-to-ncaa-lane-kiffin/
Wow, Smitty. Most clarity I’ve ever seen re: NCAA v. UT. Thanks for linking.
I just find it hard to see how Hamilton keeps his job.
Watching Diory Hernandez get playing time is enough to make me want anti-depressents.
If they were gong to fire Hamilton, it would have already happened.
I would understand if Hamilton was let go, but he is a good guy. He and his wife have adopted children from 3rd world countries and stuff.
The Kiffin hire blew up in his face and there are a lot of the Fulmer lovers who have been pushing to get rid of him for a while (they want Fulmer as AD, which would be a giant mistake)
I think he is on a short leash and all of his eggs are in the “Dooley has to pan out and Pearl has to wlak the line” basket.
I hope both of those things happen, but who knows. The “Nick Saban Bump” thing was a very, very, very stupid move by Pearl.
What I think may get Hamilton in the end is, at UT (like most SEC schools) it is all about football. Under Hamilton the football program has gone south. Is that all his fault? No. There are a lot of people who would have kept Fulmer for ever, but those people were wrong. It was way past time for Fulmer to go and Hamilton made the right call.
While I see why he hired Kiffin (bringing his dad and a good coaching staff…) it really turned ugly.
Firing Buzz Peterson was the right call and bring in Pearl has been a great hire. If Pearl hadn’t been dishonest with the NCAA, this would have been nothing more than a secondary violation. I really don’t understand why Pearl has made these poor choices. He is a very smart guy and a great basketball coach.
Diory Hernandez: Sigh.
How come the Braves, with ostensibly such a great farm system, end up having all these holes and going into the season with guys like this on the team? I realize you can’t have 9 all stars, but shouldn’t they be able to do better than this? The Nats have more infield depth than the Braves.
I wish I knew. I really wish they could find even a modicum of defensive talent for their empty bench positions–this seems neither hard nor expensive, from the looks of it.
5 — I was thinking the same thing. But I figure that they traded in their depth (Omar) for an upgrade at a regular spot.
What do other teams throughout the league look like on their benches? I haven’t taken a look yet.
Via DOB…
Chipper had knee swelling yesterday, but feels ok enough to participate today. He also hopes to be able to DH on Sunday.
#1
Thanks for that.
Lane Kiffin is always good copy. He’s like the sleazy fratboy you can’t take your eyes off.
The Giants weren’t a great team, but it seems that they were able to collect enough not terrible players so that, at least later in the year, they were good enough for their pitching to dominate.
The Braves probably had a better team for most of the year, but were destroyed by injuries and by having absolutely horrible play at at least one and probably two positions. And, while the Braves have obviously upgraded to some extent, CF is still a question mark and the depth is, if anything, worse.
Frankly, I don’t know about this team. It is potentially capable of being very good, but also could be not so good. The pitching is obviously the best part of the team, but when you look at it there are a lot of questions–Lowe, Jurrjens, even Hudson to some extent, and will Hanson stay healthy. They are just hoping that McLouth becomes a major league caliber player again and that Chipper has something left in the tank. And AAG, whatever you may think of him, better not get hurt.
Of course, all teams-even the Phillies–have questions.
Why is a basketball writer writing the Bobby Cox book?
In the Time of Bobby Cox: The Atlanta Braves, Their Manager, My Couch, Two Decades, and Me
I would think that a utility IF type will be available on waivers before the start of the season. What about this guy Lucas?
via DOB on Lucas…
“Ed Lucas is getting a lot of work at infield and outfield positions, and he looks solid. Interested to see how he and Matt Young do in the games. Lucas and Diory H. are both options for middle-infield backup who can play SS. Hicks is outstanding defensively at SS/3B, but just hasn’t hit.”
Wow, what a terrible subtitle.
Can’t hit. “Can’t”.
“Bad Books, Worse Titles: My Toilet, His Book, My Bowels and the Tale They Tell About Hygiene.”
@ 5-7 – Except for some good pitching prospects in the pipeline, most of the farm is in Atlanta now.
That’s a title only John Feinstein could love.
I don’t think John Feinstein can love any title that doesn’t begin with the words “The Last.”
The Last John Feinstein Book. Imagine.
Diory will be the starting shortstop for the Royals come 2012. Somehow the combination of Melky, Francoeur and Diory will yield the game’s first ever quadruple play. Count it.
@ 10 – Marc, you’re right that the bench strength is weaker than last year, Omar gave us depth at multiple positions. And CF looks like a black hole to me. I always worry about health and a decline in overall performance in any year, but I’d take our starting five over anyone but the Phillies. The (valid) criticism of Lowe is that he’s not worth $15M a year, but he’s still a high quality #2 pitcher.
20—LOL.
@19
It’s not perfect, but the colon and three commas should distract him for a while.
His next book should be called:
“Sloth: Letting Yourself Go
with contributions from Rich Eisen and Shelley Smith”
Never read any of the golf books, but I did read 3 of Feinstein’s college hoops books:
“Forever’s Team” was basically a love offering to the 1978 Duke squad. It was first good Duke team that I remember (Gene Banks, Jim Spanarkel, Mike Gminski) & I saw them play a lot, so I was kinda interested.
They had a great run, but lost in the national final to a terrific Kentucky team. Can’t imagine being interested in reading anything about Duke now.
“A Season on the Brink.” The Bobby Knight book. The takeaways: Bobby Knight is a hoops genius with a really bad temper, the lord of his fiefdom, a real whipcracker in practice, and he really hates having to recruit (his other fatal flaw).
But it was the first book to get that close to him, so at the time it was pretty intriguing.
“A Season Inside.” The Knight book follow-up. Feinstein spends the season hopscotching several progams. All I really remember about it is that he liked Rick Barnes, then at George Mason. And, somewhere in the book, I recall a veiled swipe at UGA coach Hugh Durham. (Although I kinda liked Hugh, I kinda nodded when I read it.)
But it occurred to me that, unless he actually sees the bagman make a delivery, a book like that can only scratch the surface of a pretty shady sport.
barring some NRI playing out of his head in spring training
Or at least better than Diory, which shouldn’t be that hard.
@26,
I was at UGA when Dominique Wilkins came and it always seemed strange to me that a kid from North Carolina, who was being recruited by ACC schools, would choose Georgia, a school with, at that time, no basketball tradition.
Maybe Dominque liked the library at Georgia.
#28
The story at the time (reported in a lotta places, like SI) was somewhat similar to something else we’ve heard recently (Cam Newton & father).
People close to NC State, the school ‘Nique supposedly really wanted to attend, claim that UGA won over his mother, and not just with sweet talk.
Nonetheless, Durham’s pitch, apparently, went something like this: “Why go to State, where you’ll just be the next David Thompson, when you can go to Georgia and be the one and only Dominique Wilkins?”
I was a freshman at UGA for ‘Nique’s last year there. Never did see him at the library.
Chipper went to a lighter bat this year according to DOB. I know that’s not a lot of news, but it’s interesting because he’s been so outspoken about keeping the heavier bat.
Why not invite give this guy a minor league deal and see if he can beat our Diroy?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/greenkh01.shtml?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker&utm_campaign=Linker
He sucks, but he has a good glove and hits about as well as Diory.
I had no idea Khalil Greene was a free agent. I’d gladly give him a minimum salary major league contract. He’s plainly better than Diory.
Seems that he didn’t play last year because of social anxiety disorder, taking the year off a bit like Greinke did a couple years ago. So while I’d be happy to take a flier on him, there’s always the possibility that he isn’t in a condition to play.
I have no idea why the Braves haven’t already done that.
I don’t remember all the details, but I recall Greene not exactly being thrilled with being a utility/backup player and that’s a big reason why he left the Cardinals. Perhaps his feelings have changed. I agree that he’d be a lot more worthy of a major league deal than Diory or Proctor.
The real story was that Durham told Dominique Wilkins he could be next Kenny Carr at NCState, not DT.
@30,
I saw an interview with Chipper last week where he talked about having to make concessions with age by going to a lighter bat and not letting ego stand in the way. I think it’s consistent with the way he has approached his career–i.e., doing what’s necessary to help the team–but I never realized it was such a point of pride for a hitter to use a heavier bat. Interesting how athletes think.
I don’t think using a heavy bat is generally a point of pride; after all, Barry Bonds was basically using a toothpick. Chipper has always used a heavy bat, one of the heaviest in the majors, and he’s obviously a bit unhappy that he can’t anymore.
I always thought with a lighter bat you could swing latter and hit to opposite field better
A lighter bat probably helps with bat speed. But Bill James has long decried the radar gun mentality that has come into baseball, in which speed is everything — the fastest fastball and the fastest bat speed above all other considerations for a player, leading to the virtual elimination of the “scrappy” contact hitter of yesteryear, the slap hitter with no power who never struck out and walked a lot. Your Johnny Peskys and Eddie Stankys. Ichiro would be an example, I guess, because he’s never really bothered with swinging the bat as fast as possible.
A light bat might be more helpful for pulling the ball, and a heavy bat might actually be helpful for hitting to the opposite field. Julio Franco swung the heaviest bat in the majors and almost never pulled the ball.
Chipper’s at the point of his career where he needs to just do what he can to slow the inevitable erosion of his skills. So he probably won’t swing any faster with a lighter bat — he just won’t swing much slower. That’s all you can ask.
Kalil Greene is out with a head.
Actually he has social anxiety disorder. I doubt he will be playing anywhere. He was supposed to go to s.t. with texas, but did not report.
http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/mlb/news/story?id=4935447
#35
http://tinyurl.com/6y4hwsc
Check the last paragraph.
Carr was a really good player in a great era of ACC hoops, although he became an NBA journeyman. Wilkins was an SEC player of the year & eventually became a Hall of Famer.
Re: Chipper and the lighter bat- I remember reading about Ted Williams using a lighter bat, I think it was in his amazing ’57 when he slugged .731 at age 38. Could be wrong about the year, but anyway, he wrote something about grabbing another player’s bat out of the rack- said it was light, he called it “punk wood” or something to that effect- but he started killing the ball with it and didn’t stop all season.
Chipper’s not quite Teddy Ballgame, but here’s hoping his choice has a similar salutary effect!
My office is creating a pool to pick the Mets pitcher who will have the most wins by the all-star break.
My pick: RA Dickey.
Not a scary rotation, of course, but I’ll go with the SEC guy. And I think his arm should remain attached.
How ’bout we beat them, like, 13/14 times this year?
Hurrah!
Stpup, that news story is from a year ago — do you see anything about how he’s doing this year?
NY Times reports that MLB gave the Mets $25M in secret this past fall.
Guess the Wilpons really were tight with Selig.
http://tinyurl.com/5taxm5t
That’s BS. They should have to give us Reyes and Wright.
Unrelated question:
What’s the benefit to using tinyurl for links? I’m not a fan.
Longer links often get screwed up by reformatting in the comments. So if people aren’t using HTML code (which is a task) I encourage the use of shortening services to avoid this.
Also, with Twitter, people are often picking up short URLs anyway.
I just realized that the Braves sending Kawakami to Double A (instead of Triple A) if he stays is just meant to make him more miserable. I recall him owning a home in the Gwinnett area.
Maybe Furman Bisher is advising Frank Wren.
Thompson geaduated in 1974, Carr the #6 pick in 1977 was a star at NCState when Wilkins was in high school. At 6’7″ his game was closer to Wilkins and played in shadow of Thompson at NCState. I stand by my story, SI is known for sucking.
heavier bat more centrifugal force at the head? Larger sweet spot? More mass striking the ball? Any physics majors out there to explain why anyone would use a heavy bat as opposed to a lighter one that you can swing faster?
51,
Very nice.
My problem with tinyurl is that I like to know where I’m going before I click on a link. I trust links that ububba posts, but if I don’t know someone and I don’t know where the link is taking me, I’m not going to click on it.
Agreed.
man, i’m really glad we didnt hire ned yost, the most obvious man on the planet.
http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=13117611&c_id=kc
Francouer appears to have lost some weight. he looks thinner in that film.
Billy-jay, if you ever want to know where a tinyurl is going to take you, just insert the word “preview” in the URL, where “www” might normally go.
In other words, for Ububba’s NYT link above — http://tinyurl.com/5taxm5t — if you want to see where it’s actually going to link you, just type in http://preview.tinyurl.com/5taxm5t.
Today’s Braves lineup:
1.Jordan Schafer, DH
2.Nate McLouth, CF
3.Jason Heyward, RF
4.Brian McCann, C
5.Eric Hinske, LF
6.Freddie Freeman, 1B
7.Brooks Conrad, 2B
8.Brandon Hicks, 3B
9.Diory Hernandez, SS
And not on TV, which is just cruel after 4 1/2 months…
@61
it is on mlbtv though. not the one on the actual television, but the one on the internet.
Have done something incredibly arrogant. More later.
@62
Guess that’ll have to do.
Wow, I can’t wait to so what Mac did that was incredibly arrogant.
JJ Done.
2 IP; 2H, 0R, 1K, 0BB
Okay, i just setup the MLB.TV app on my Samsung Blu-Ray player to my LCD HDTV,
so far…
nothing, spinning dots for 5 minutes…
Did something happen to don over the course of the offseason to make his speech slurred? He sounds drunk.
@67 called MLB. They are having technical difficulties with their video feeds. Mclouth just got plunked. Then Schafer gets plunked by a pickoff attempt. The mets hate our potential CFers.
@67
I have the mlb.tv app for my playstation 3, and I’m pretty sure it only plays games once the regular season has started. I wouldn’t be surprised if the app on your blu-ray works the same way.
Kimbrel is getting knocked around.
Didn’t we give Kimbrel a nickname last year?
Kimbrel with 2/3 inning pitched, gave up a double and a homerun. Brooks has already made an error and bobbled another.
Ontop of the poor results, Kimbrel threw his FB at 85 max. Do pitchers take something off early or is this reason for concern?
I can only get the Mets feed on MLB. Is there a way to hear the Braves announcers?
i tried the Yankees too and it did not work, it may be because they are my local teams and are both being televised.
Wait, do you have to have their product already just to watch the ST games? That’s dumb. Talk about a perfect time for them to give people a preview service and hopefully get ’em hooked for the regular season….
Well, ST games are actually the time when they have the biggest advantage, since they’re less likely to air in local markets, they’re mostly day games, and there’s much less TV coverage.
@77,
MLB give you anything for free? Yeah, right.
True enough, Mac, but on the other hand, no one cares enough to go out and spend money for ST games. And if they are willing to do that, they’re probably the same people who would be willing to buy the whole package anyways. At least that’s my impression.
It’s good for the Braves to see Manny Acosta in mid-season form.
I hope this guy doesn’t make the MLB roster. I don’t know how many Chip Caray “Hu’s on first” jokes I could take.
Ben,
That is the post of the day.
So, Freeman 3-for-3 with 3 doubles?
Not bad.
Ed Lucas, my favorite to make the roster, had an interesting day: 2 for 2 with 2 rbis, 1 error, and got called out an appeal for missing 3rd.
I didn’t catch any Schafer ABs. How did he looks?
@84, One to left, one to center, one to right. Gotta like that.
I know it doesn’t count, blah, blah, blah…but whoo-hoo, baseball!! It was pretty much a perfect day for me. Braves on the radio, working in the garden on a gorgeous sunny day, birds singing, random beater motorcycle drag racing up and down the street. As a man once said, I like it me.
Saw a little bit of the game… while the snow was coming down. Hurry up, spring.
College basketball refs suck. Especially the ones in the SEC
Kotchman and Marek for Mike Trout anyone?
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/02/top-100-prospects-drafted-with-compensation-picks.html
Tough results for UT & Bama today.
Looks like next weekend’s UGA/Bama game is gonna have some juice.
I’d trade damn near anyone not named Teheran for Trout, but he isn’t going anywhere. He’s the best position prospect in the minors.
Can anyone explain the UT basketball team to me? Lion-hearted against Vandy, disinterested and mentally lazy against MSU.
Weird year for nearly all of us.
And I’m really trying to get over my Duke hate. But their non-stop flopping makes it impossible. Duke flopping is the equivalent of Dean Smith’s stalling – an insult to the game.
Oliver Perez just walked Gonzalez, Ross, and Mather on 12 straight balls. Spring training games are meaningless, obviously, but we should all take a moment from our busy days to do the important things, like laugh at the Mets.
86,
He bunted.
92—I don’t think anyone would argue with that. The point of 90 is that, had we kept Teixeira instead of trading him for Kotchman and Marek, we’d have gotten the compensation pick which the Angels got, and we’d have been in position to draft Trout.
the best thing that could have possibly happened in ST just occurred: proctor royally sucked in his inning of work giving up 3 runs on 2 walks, a single, and a home run.
As a spokesman for Topps baseball cards, Bad Henry’s making the rounds these days.
Here’s a pretty decent & relatively lengthy Q&A with “Hank” Aaron by Steve Serby in the NY Post today:
http://tinyurl.com/4goo5jo
RIP, Duke of Flatbush.
I believe this means that Willie wins. Too soon?
I was amazed at the first pitch swinging today by the Braves. i think those guys the Mets call pitchers got 27 outs with about 70 pitches.
Proctor – I have never understood the signing. For a system stocked with relief arms, there is not point in a relatively expensive reclamation project.
Hoping Vandy finds a way to pull off the sweep against Stanford. Is that too greedy?
New post.
Okay, smart baseball people. I have a rules question. I was skimming this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304173704575578281000498578.html
In the article, an MLB spokesman says that no player besides the pitcher can wear a jacket while running the bases.
My question: How do the umpires know who the pitcher is? Does the player have to act as the pitcher for at least one pitch? If so, what about the top of the first? What if a player pitches, then plays the outfield before running the bases (e.g. Resop)?