It’s going to be a lot easier to pitch around Freeman/Ohtani with Betts out. Especially if theyre not hitting back to back. Not a knock against Smith or Hernandez, just how good Mookie is. They had 3 for sure HoF hitting in a row.
Geoff Young in Hardball Times suggested that if four strikeouts in one game is called a golden sombrero, then four unintentional walks should be golden zapatos.
https://tht.fangraphs.com/pedro-feliz-and-the-golden-zapatos/
Braves made Freddie an offer (slightly less $ overall from his dodgers contract, but would have resulted in him making more money with the tax differences/lack of deferred money). Freddie’s agent held out for more and gave a 24 hour ultimatum, but did not inform Freddie of this or of their final contract offer. Alex Anthopolous said “okay, we don’t do ultimatums” and traded for Matt Olson so he wouldn’t be left without a 1B. Freddie was so upset he fired his agent over it. This is all pretty public knowledge.
In addition to what the other guys already corrected you on, it's not like Olson is a scrub and we lost production. We took a big dip in batting average but a huge jump in HRs. I'll gladly take one less hit per 4 games played (39 hits fewer for the season) to have 25 more HRs.
Don't get me wrong, Freddie is the better player, but don't act like it was a monumental fuck up.
We did lose production and the trade value of what was used to acquire Olson could have been used in a different way. They make roughly the same amount of money too.
Ultimately AA is the one that walked away from negotiations and pivoted to Olson. I personally think that was the incorrect decision and we should have been willing to continue negotiating to keep him around.
The blame is really irrelevant because you could say 'A only did that because of B', etc.
Easy to say in hindsight. At the time, considering the behavior of Freddie’s agent, I imagine AA saw a scenario where Freddie walked elsewhere of his own accord and suddenly we don’t have a first baseman/potential trade partners have way more leverage with Freddie officially gone.
AA didn’t have the benefit of knowing that Freddie would have the two best seasons of his career immediately after leaving or that it would take Olson a bit to settle in as a Brave.
Also maybe worth pointing out that Olson’s price tag is ~3.5milion less/year vs. Freddie (21 mil AAV vs 24.7 mil AAV).
It was a tough decision and I think given what information and options he had at the time, that it’s pretty remarkable he managed to replace Freddie with a player like Olson without getting bent over a barrel
I was saying it at the time as well, if you want to trawl through my comment history feel free.
I want people to acknowledge that everyone, including AA, makes poor decisions instead of continuing trying to justify them.
I’m glad we have AA as our GM, his moves got is the World Series in 2021. I’m beyond annoyed at the people that can’t be critical about any move he makes.
He’s by no means perfect, I just can’t look at the Olson v. Freddie decision as a “mistake” given the situation at the time. You guessed it was the wrong move at the time and happened to be right. You also weren’t involved in the negotiations or plugged into what else was going on in the league.
By all accounts, the Braves worked hard to try and resign Freddie before they felt they were in jeopardy of being left holding the bag and scrambling to fill a critical roster spot.
There are plenty of other AA decisions im happy to criticize. Smyly, Hamels, Grossman, Will Smith’s contract, etc. are some examples that I didn’t like even at the time. I think his success rate is far, far higher than most GMs in any sport though (swoons in Reynaldo Lopez).
Future HOFer Freddie Freeman is pretty good.
Dude is going to end up with some all around incredible numbers.
He has a REAL shot at hitting 600 career doubles. Only 18 players have 600 or more career doubles so rare air.
He has a REAL chance of getting into the top 60 all time for hits as he could end up around 57th or 58th most hits when he retires.
He has a good chance at 400 career home runs. Only 58 have 400 or more and so many great players have 300 something home runs, too many to list them all but players like Johnny Bench, Dale Murphy, Joe DiMaggio, Joey Votto and many more.
He has a REAL chance of getting inside of the top 50 all time for total bases. Mickey Mantle is 49th all time and Freddie has a real shot to pass him by the time he's done.
Freddie has a real chance to get to like 60th all time for RBI's. Mickey Mantle is 56th all time for RBI's and Freddie could get there too.
No, he isn't a top level superstar but he's so incredibly good.
And to this point in his career, he plays and plays.
He played 161 games last year, he played 159 games the year before, 159 the year before that, he played every game in the covid year, he played 158 the year before covid and 162 the year before that.
He has 10 seasons with 147 or more games played. He has 8 seasons with at least 157 games played.
I mention this because it takes more than being good to get numbers like these, it takes playing a lot of games too and to this point he has.
I’ll get downvoted to hell but Freddie freeman is overrated as hell. Dude is basically a slap hitter and doesn’t do shit to help win ballgames. He can sure joke around with the runner on first tho
I know walks/IBBs have been part of baseball forever but it’s always bummed me out to see the bat taken out of the hands of hitters. I’ve wondered if a 4 pitch walk/IBB becoming two bases instead of one (if we ever get robo umps) could get traction
That would defeat the entire purpose of the IBB. You may as well get rid of it at that point. It's a strategic move, and a formality because if they wanted to, any team could intentionally walk anyway, you just throw way out of the zone 4 times. Which is exactly what the IBB is.
That’s why I want to penalize a walk without throwing a single strike by awarding an extra base. I hear you- getting rid of the IBB just means a four pitch walk. It’s good strategy (just like the shift). Which is why I wouldn’t mind a rule disincentivizing it.
Coors makes taking walks easier because you can see better in the thin air
Less smog lol
Although there is a refinery 5 miles away.
But the atmosphere is so thin that the smog stays a few thousand feet high, not a mile. It's science.
The patience to not want to launch it in Coors is incredible. Team player though becuase without Betts you need base runners when you can get them.
Did you watch any of the game? Barely any of his ABs were even competitive. 90% of the pitches he saw were balls way out of the zone.
Nope.
Patience at Coors is like meditating at a temple located high in the mountain.
It’s going to be a lot easier to pitch around Freeman/Ohtani with Betts out. Especially if theyre not hitting back to back. Not a knock against Smith or Hernandez, just how good Mookie is. They had 3 for sure HoF hitting in a row.
Geoff Young in Hardball Times suggested that if four strikeouts in one game is called a golden sombrero, then four unintentional walks should be golden zapatos. https://tht.fangraphs.com/pedro-feliz-and-the-golden-zapatos/
Did the Rockies pitch around him lol
easier to do with Mookie out sadly
He scored on 2 out of the 5 walks so so far not the best strategy. He isn't Barry Bonds, the Rockies are just bad at baseball.
It's crazy that the Braves let this guy walk to save a few bucks
What a weird take away from what actually happened lol.
Not at all what happened
lol how would you explain it? Braves gave him an offer, he turned it down. Sounds like what happened to me
Braves made Freddie an offer (slightly less $ overall from his dodgers contract, but would have resulted in him making more money with the tax differences/lack of deferred money). Freddie’s agent held out for more and gave a 24 hour ultimatum, but did not inform Freddie of this or of their final contract offer. Alex Anthopolous said “okay, we don’t do ultimatums” and traded for Matt Olson so he wouldn’t be left without a 1B. Freddie was so upset he fired his agent over it. This is all pretty public knowledge.
Freddie was never told of the offer by the Braves, but I guess that sounds like what happened.
In addition to what the other guys already corrected you on, it's not like Olson is a scrub and we lost production. We took a big dip in batting average but a huge jump in HRs. I'll gladly take one less hit per 4 games played (39 hits fewer for the season) to have 25 more HRs. Don't get me wrong, Freddie is the better player, but don't act like it was a monumental fuck up.
We did lose production and the trade value of what was used to acquire Olson could have been used in a different way. They make roughly the same amount of money too.
All of that is moot though because it was Freddie and his agent that fucked it all up in this particular case, not the Braves.
Ultimately AA is the one that walked away from negotiations and pivoted to Olson. I personally think that was the incorrect decision and we should have been willing to continue negotiating to keep him around. The blame is really irrelevant because you could say 'A only did that because of B', etc.
Easy to say in hindsight. At the time, considering the behavior of Freddie’s agent, I imagine AA saw a scenario where Freddie walked elsewhere of his own accord and suddenly we don’t have a first baseman/potential trade partners have way more leverage with Freddie officially gone. AA didn’t have the benefit of knowing that Freddie would have the two best seasons of his career immediately after leaving or that it would take Olson a bit to settle in as a Brave. Also maybe worth pointing out that Olson’s price tag is ~3.5milion less/year vs. Freddie (21 mil AAV vs 24.7 mil AAV). It was a tough decision and I think given what information and options he had at the time, that it’s pretty remarkable he managed to replace Freddie with a player like Olson without getting bent over a barrel
I was saying it at the time as well, if you want to trawl through my comment history feel free. I want people to acknowledge that everyone, including AA, makes poor decisions instead of continuing trying to justify them. I’m glad we have AA as our GM, his moves got is the World Series in 2021. I’m beyond annoyed at the people that can’t be critical about any move he makes.
He’s by no means perfect, I just can’t look at the Olson v. Freddie decision as a “mistake” given the situation at the time. You guessed it was the wrong move at the time and happened to be right. You also weren’t involved in the negotiations or plugged into what else was going on in the league. By all accounts, the Braves worked hard to try and resign Freddie before they felt they were in jeopardy of being left holding the bag and scrambling to fill a critical roster spot. There are plenty of other AA decisions im happy to criticize. Smyly, Hamels, Grossman, Will Smith’s contract, etc. are some examples that I didn’t like even at the time. I think his success rate is far, far higher than most GMs in any sport though (swoons in Reynaldo Lopez).
Who?
This statline is my dream statline. 🥵
Thanks for letting us know that 5 walks is one less than the record of 6 walks
Future HOFer Freddie Freeman is pretty good. Dude is going to end up with some all around incredible numbers. He has a REAL shot at hitting 600 career doubles. Only 18 players have 600 or more career doubles so rare air. He has a REAL chance of getting into the top 60 all time for hits as he could end up around 57th or 58th most hits when he retires. He has a good chance at 400 career home runs. Only 58 have 400 or more and so many great players have 300 something home runs, too many to list them all but players like Johnny Bench, Dale Murphy, Joe DiMaggio, Joey Votto and many more. He has a REAL chance of getting inside of the top 50 all time for total bases. Mickey Mantle is 49th all time and Freddie has a real shot to pass him by the time he's done. Freddie has a real chance to get to like 60th all time for RBI's. Mickey Mantle is 56th all time for RBI's and Freddie could get there too. No, he isn't a top level superstar but he's so incredibly good. And to this point in his career, he plays and plays. He played 161 games last year, he played 159 games the year before, 159 the year before that, he played every game in the covid year, he played 158 the year before covid and 162 the year before that. He has 10 seasons with 147 or more games played. He has 8 seasons with at least 157 games played. I mention this because it takes more than being good to get numbers like these, it takes playing a lot of games too and to this point he has.
C'mon Freddie, you'll never get to 3000 hits if you keep playing like this.
On base percentage go Brrrttttt.
I’ll get downvoted to hell but Freddie freeman is overrated as hell. Dude is basically a slap hitter and doesn’t do shit to help win ballgames. He can sure joke around with the runner on first tho
I know walks/IBBs have been part of baseball forever but it’s always bummed me out to see the bat taken out of the hands of hitters. I’ve wondered if a 4 pitch walk/IBB becoming two bases instead of one (if we ever get robo umps) could get traction
That would defeat the entire purpose of the IBB. You may as well get rid of it at that point. It's a strategic move, and a formality because if they wanted to, any team could intentionally walk anyway, you just throw way out of the zone 4 times. Which is exactly what the IBB is.
Yes definitely- I want to get rid of the IBB
My point is you cant. If people want to walk someone, they will.
That’s why I want to penalize a walk without throwing a single strike by awarding an extra base. I hear you- getting rid of the IBB just means a four pitch walk. It’s good strategy (just like the shift). Which is why I wouldn’t mind a rule disincentivizing it.
Punishing a pitcher that harshly for throwing 4 straight balls makes zero sense.