For those who found my ruminations on perfect games interesting, I will answer jamesd’s excellent questions later tonight back in that post.

I think I have been fantastically impressed with Walt Weiss‘ managerial stint. Naming him was a little controversial, but it has worked out spectacularly well.

BUT… I find two things in the last week completely baffling. First, I am completely confused as to why, on calling up Ha-Seong Kim, the Braves DFA’s Jorge Mateo and kept Jim Jarvis on the roster. I realize that many of you never wanted Kim called up at all. I think you are wrong about that, but what I cannot understand is why bring him back if you aren’t going to play him.

To me, the obvious move was to call Kim up, send Jarvis down and give Ha-Seong Kim three solid weeks or so to show whether or not he was a major league shortstop. The only reason to cut such an experiment short is if the cushion over the Phillies narrowed sufficiently. I was so certain that this was going to happen, I got ahead of post-Deadline events in the comments and had to walk this assumption back.

By not sending Jarvis down:

  • (a) you lose Mateo, a genuinely useful piece who has taken his talents to Camden Yard who has neither reported to Gwinnett nor been cut by the Braves, but I presume will be cut soon if he doesn’t report. Whereas if you send Jarvis down, you lose no one.
  • (b) You now commit yourself either to a rookie shortstop, one whose defense has deteriorated in the last two weeks (might be a blip, might not) if Kim sucks, or to losing Dubón’s versatility by making him play shortstop a lot.
  • (c) by platooning shortstops, you only get to see Kim when leftys start, pretty much guaranteeing that Kim won’t get a sustained chance to prove himself. That’s not fair to Kim. If that was your plan, just cut him and keep Mateo.

So it just seems to me to have a lot of disadvantages and an advantage only if you think Jarvis is both ready and battle-tested. I don’t think he’s either one. I like him, but he could do all this next year, or even in the playoffs.

I don’t get it.

The second thing I don’t get is Danny Young. I am not snowshinedog; I have no idea who is the better prospect and who is worse. But I can tell you at any given time who is the worst guy in the Braves bullpen and it’s been Danny Young for several weeks. So when we got Brent Suter, I confidently predicted Young’s return to Gwinnett. Not only was I wrong about that, here it is a week later and he’s being put in in the 8th inning of a game with a one-run deficit, turning it into a two run deficit and, ultimately, a one run loss when the Braves scored one in the top of the 9th.

I criticized Snitker in the past for having a bifurcated mindset about his relief corps, and every deficit meant the bottom half for the last three innings as a strategy to preserve the top guys. The last thing I expected the ordinarily-strategic Weiss to do was repeat it. Danny Young is the last pitcher who should have been called on in the 8th inning. Down 4? Sure. But not down 1.