Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!Theoden’s battle cry
Once again, our best and most important player goes back to the IL with a leg injury. Once again, it’s exacerbated by his desire to hide his hurt because he felt guilty about all the time he’s missed. There are so many things to feel angry about – a clubhouse culture in which Acuña feels like he can’t be honest about his health; a set of team trainers and doctors so asleep at the wheel that Acuña actually suffered the injury on Monday and no one noticed – but fundamentally the anger and apathy struggle in me and the latter wins.
Last night, the newest member of the team, Erick Fedde, threw a mediocre game, giving up four runs in 4 2/3 innings. It wasn’t good, but quite frankly, we need the innings, and we could do worse, and indeed we have. The offense came to life once more – they’re averaging five runs a game since the break. But it all fell apart in the 6th, as Aaron Bummer and Enyel de los Santos oversaw a five-run inning by the Royals.
Getaway game today at 2:10pm, followed by a trip to Cincinnati.
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I’d something more to say
This one is tough. Acuna feeling like he needs to play through the injury is one thing but the manager allowing him to play despite knowing about it would be the worst thing Snit has done this season. And I am no Snit hater at all. Admittedly, he has a rough year but nowhere near as bad as “the internet” likes you to believe.
But this is real bad if true that he knew before the game. You protect your generational star at any cost. ESPECIALLY if you are out of the playoff race.
I don’t hate Snit, but I do think he is mentally checked out and should’ve retired already. He could’ve been fired after the Kelenic issue made his level of engagement obvious in light of the team’s overall struggles. At this point, may as well let it play out and just let him go with dignity after the season.
Good God. Clean house. Enough is enough.
I cant see them doing it now, but this organization needs to look very different next year. How on earth do yoo let Acuna play with a tight achilles after just having ACl surgery?
Because we’re in a pennant race by god
Hate to be a contrarian, but if your player tells you he’s good, you play him. Ok, he has a tight Achilles. Which player on the roster doesn’t have something tight somewhere? If you start making every player with a tight hammy or Achilles or lat day-to-day in July, you won’t have a roster.
Unfortunately, with that said, because of how many times it’s appeared that Snit is asleep at the wheel, he’s not going to earn the benefit of the doubt. And he gets no sympathy.
“It’s either a leg thing! Or a spiritual thing! Or a psychological thing! Or a heeeeeeart attack!”
Acuña, like so many other players, is a total gamer who possesses a deep love of baseball and a desire to excel in every facet of the game. Players like that are almost never going to voluntarily take themselves out of the lineup and will almost always say that they’re fine, that they can play through whatever injury or ailment is bothering them. That’s apparently what happened here — Ronald said he was feeling some discomfort but lobbied to still be in the lineup on Tuesday, and Snit acquiesced.
The problem, as I see it, is that managers shouldn’t necessarily take statements like that at face value. They should work with trainers and doctors to assess the player’s medical situation and should always err on the side of caution, especially when dealing with a star player who has dealt with two torn ACLs and plenty of other issues as well. We’re in the midst of a lost season, and in such a season it’s imperative that the coaching staff protect players from themselves to (hopefully) ensure they’re healthy heading into the offseason.
“There are no egos underwater.”
–Col. Bruce Hampton
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I see Rob’s point from above, too, that it’s a long season and everybody’s beaten up a little bit, but this particular example has allll the bad things coming together to synergize. We’re out of the playoff picture, so you gotta be careful with your generational superstar. Generational superstar can be a little injury prone, specifically to his legs, and this is a leg issue. The specific leg issue is one that can, if not handled carefully, escalate into the kind of major injury that could ruin Generational Superstar’s prime.
Sometimes you gotta listen to your players, but this is a time where you gotta be careful instead.
This 100%. Protecting the players from themselves is one of the most important things a manger can do. Snitker was apparently unaware when AJSS was hurt on the mound and Strider had to be the one to point out the issue. He is no longer entitled to the benefit of doubt.
Here’s the problem with shutting Acuna down when he specifically says he’s sore but fine: other players will stop telling you about their nagging injuries because they have a family to feed and they need to produce for their next contract. So do you really want a culture of players not speaking up about their injuries because the manager’s going to err on the side of caution and shut you down? There’s no way you want that. Acuna’s going to be standing in the dugout doing jumping jacks and saying he’s fine. Acuna ain’t above those kinda shenanigans.
If the clubhouse/organizational culture thing is real and it led in even a small way to Acuña making this call, this has to be the last straw. I cannot say “Fire everyone” enough. AA and baseball operations, gone. Snitker and his staff, gone. Burn down the whole thing and start over. My goodness, this is a diseased organization. Sometimes you have to just euthanize the horse.
It seems now that the 2025 derailment is fairly complete… and it’s only July 30.
Moving forward, I sure hope that RAJ isn’t turning into Byron Buxton.
And amen to the Colonel.
This is why we need to shut Strider down soon, at the end of August at the latest. Any of the core that has any type of injury/discomfort needs to be sat as well. I think we all get that these are highly paid, competitive players but there is no reason to have another generational talent have something go south in a lost season and sometimes we need to protect players from themselves.
Jesus Christ. He told them he was feeling it yesterday, and he reports they said “take the day off if you want; it’s up to you.” That is unacceptable.
Someone in the organization has to be the adult and save the player from himself. Not one person was.
Burn. It. Down.
On another note – here’s an excerpt on Ozzie from a Newsweek (??) article:
FanSided’s Christopher Kline recently suggested the Braves could cut ties with second baseman Ozzie Albies in a deadline deal. Albies’ name hasn’t been mentioned in very many trade rumors to this point.
“We cannot know the future, but Albies looks like a shell of himself. He’s batting .219 with a troubling .617 OPS and nine home runs in 393 at-bats,” Kline wrote. “There is some bad luck involved, but Albies’ analytics are in the toilet across the board. He’s bottom-15th percentile in expected average and slugging, hard-hit rate, barrel rate, exit velocity — the list goes on.
link: https://www.newsweek.com/sports/mlb/braves-blockbuster-ozzie-albies-involved-shocking-trade-deadline-buzz-2105877
Newsweek isn’t much of a news outlet any more, and it looks like that’s a repackaging of a repackaging of someone else’s unsourced musings. We’ve all known for a while that Ozzie’s been doing so badly for the past two years that there’s an open question of whether the Braves would exercise their team options. And it should be obvious that Albies’s value is higher to the Braves – who signed him 12 years ago, and where he’s been a fan favorite in the majors and minors for a decade – than to any of the other 29 teams. If his value to us is rock bottom, his value to other teams is, too, and the only deal would be a dump.
The more important question is why? Why has he totally collapsed, offensively and defensively, at the age of 28? It wouldn’t be totally unprecedented — something similar happened to Carlos Baerga. The question of why is important because it would give some clue as to whether he could ever again have a productive season.
But at this point, that feels vanishingly likely. At this point, he’s a backup infielder, and he should probably start platooning with Nacho. And for a broken-down middle infielder who can’t hit very well, can’t play great defense, and can’t play shortstop, there’s as as robust of a trade market as there is a free agent market.
I think I’ve posted this article before, but second basemen don’t age well. Ozzie is very small, he swings very hard, he’s been hurt a lot the last few years, and it’s one of the few positions the team can realistically upgrade. If they pick up his option it tells me they aren’t a serious front office anymore.
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/4464/lies-damned-lies-a-new-look-at-aging/
Wow, I had no idea Carlos Baerga cratered so bad. He was pretty much done as a productive regular by age 26 but somehow was allowed to hold on in the league 9 more seasons with a net total of -1.3 bWAR. Man, that would never happen nowadays.
Second basemen do break down early, it’s true. Roberto Alomar’s one of the best of all time and he was finished by age 33 or so! (That Alomar and Baerga both went from Cleveland to New York and instantly became terrible upon arriving in Queens continues to be funny to me.) For that matter, Dan Uggla was basically done by 31 or 32, too.
Second basemen tend to be undersized and they have to torque their whole bodies really fast, really frequently, and all those momentum shifts are clearly hell on the joints. And Albies came up really young, so he has a lot of miles on his odometer.
It could well be that he’s simply finished, which would be a sad ending for such a wonderful player. I don’t know whether we know that for sure, but it’s starting to look that way.
The logical thing to do here is to raise season ticket prices (again) by massive amounts, and to revoke A-list memberships who have dared to try to resell too many of their 2025 seats. This whole org is a giant joke and it’s gonna crash down hard in the coming years. Not a whole lotta people on that wait-list that were looking forward to seeing a team that has no chance to come within 20 games of the division next year. Or the year after. Or the year after. The organizational purge is gonna happen whether ownership plans it or not…
https://x.com/Feinsand/status/1950598688033681798
Looks terrible on the surface, but he does have a 4.14 FIP.
Enyel De Los Santos DFA’d.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/07/braves-designate-enyel-de-los-santos-for-assignment.html
Anyone who has been hanging around here from March-Mid July who predicted that Michael Harris II would be batting cleanup on 7/30/25 should identify themselves promptly.
Joey Wentz has been a pleasant surprise, I’ll give him that. Five scoreless. Who’d a thunk?
Ideally, they would trade Bummer and his $9 million 2026 salary, and Wentz takes his spot as a second or third LH option.
The ole 10 inning, 9 pitcher, bullpen day shutout. Just like those Monarchs from Kansas City drew it up.
What a joke. Dead team walking. But hey, maybe Wentz is actually a starter, and at least Johnson and Iglesias improved their trade value.
Recapped, if anyone cares