Braves third baseman Chris Johnson is expected to miss three to six weeks after receiving good news from his MRI, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman reports. Because his hand fracture was “preexisting,” per the report, Johnson will not be out as long as originally feared.
Here’s more from New York and the rest of the NL East:
- Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard will qualify for ten-and-five rights tomorrow, as Ryan Lawrence of the Philadelphia Daily News reports. Howard downplayed the importance of that fact as regards his contract status, though he rightly noted that it was a worthwhile achievement standing alone. As Lawrence notes, there is little practical effect, as a modification to Jimmy Rollins’ contract before his trade left Howard with virtually complete no-trade protection regardless.
- Despite a troubling start to the year defensively — he tacked on a seventh error tonight — Mets shortstop Wilmer Flores is in no danger of being replaced, as Rubin reports. The club thinks that the youngster will return to making the routine plays that are giving him fits right now, with GM Sandy Alderson saying that Flores has “plenty of room” to get back on track.
- Dilson Herrera did not do much in his first appearance of the year for the Mets, but New York is already considering what will happen if he’s as good as advertised during his call-up, Andy Martino of the New York Daily News reports. The present alignment will feature Herrera at second and Daniel Murphy at third. But when David Wright returns from the DL, something will have to give. GM Sandy Alderson would say only that “the plan” is for Murphy to return to second, adding that “at the moment” there is no movement toward keeping Herrera there. But sources tell Martino that the Mets would be increasingly willing to move Murphy, even for a lesser return and even well before the trade deadline, if Herrera seems ready.
- The Mets will soon face another decision on Cesar Puello, the outfielder whose outright was rescinded earlier in the offseason when he was found to have a back issue that required a DL stint. As ESPNNewYork.com’s Adam Rubin explains, Puello is likely to hit the waiver wire again once his rehab stint is finished.
Get rid of Nieuwenhuis and replace him with Puello. He can’t do as bad.
He could be worse.
And Puello is not left handed., doesn’t play CF, and makes boneheaded plays on defense at times. If you want to dump Kirk, there are other guys at AAA who are better bets than Puello.
The decline of Ryan Howard over the years has been heartbreaking to watch. From RoY to MVP to this. It just goes to show that eventually MLB pitchers and clubs will expose and exploit a hitter’s weakness and not every hitter is able to adjust. I believe eventually it takes a mental toll on some hitters and they are never able to recover.
I think it shows how vulnerable players are who start their careers late, who offer no defensive value, who are awful base runners, and who rely on power to counter troubling strike out rates.
There are a lot that hang around MLB by hitting foul balls to coax walks, thereby getting their OBP up. For some reason, being a LOB negates the lack of skills you brought up.
Defense and baserunning don’t seem to matter much to most front offices. Only a handful require it from their players – although that number has been going up recently as some figured out that due to parity, those skills can make a big difference to a teams record over the course of a season. The Yankees have moved in that direction when acquiring position players the past few years. Although the team has always played solid fundamental ball under Girardi, Cashman is now getting players that have the skills as opposed to Girardi and his coaches having players do the best they can.
I have no idea what you mean by the first part.
Almost every team (except for San Diego/Arizona, perhaps another) values and appreciates defense/base-running deeply.
Don’t forget his injuries. Very productive until 2012 when he had the achillies problems and knee problems the next season. Plus, there is an historic drop in production of players by players in their 30’s. Albert Pujols, for example, is nursing a hammy right now and missed a lot of time a couple years ago with heel problems. I don’t understand why teams run after these players with long term contracts after the age of 30. Prince Fielder is another one….hit age 30 last year and had the neck injury. He’s hitting over .300 right now but providing little power.
Howard was on the decline long before he was even offered his contract extension. He had a very short career, and with a better GM, he likely would be playing on very short, cheap contracts right now, not this ludicrously large one. People point to injuries with him, but the fact is, he was bad before the injuries. It happens, not everyone has a long peak. Some guys peak one year, some two or three, some five. His was short and then he was finished. RAJ foolishly gave him that contract, years after he already began declining, and then he suffered injuries to rub salt in the wound.
Don’t feel bad for Howard, feel bad for Phillies fans who have to live with the consequences of RAJ.
Why do people say “fact is” then give an opinion? RAJ gave him an extension way too early; April 26, 2010 with 2 seasons left on current deal. But Howard went on AFTER signing that extension to have productive 2010 and 2011 seasons.
His decline phase started in 2008. He had a good 2009, but that was more due to luck than true ability. His 2010 and 2011 showed the same downward trend that his 2008 season showed. Then 2012 and on was a disaster. The guy started losing his skills in 2008. When you start losing skills, you get worse slowly at first, and then suddenly. As you’re getting worse you might have a good season here and there, but that is largely statistical noise. There was a clear downward trend that RAJ completely ignored, and it came back to bite him.
Yea, I’m sure the Baseball Writers Association were amazed how lucky he was in 2009 when they voted him 3rd in the MVP award with those league leading 141 RBIs.
Sure, RAJ gave him an ill-advised extension in 2010, but there is no need to distort the record to make your point.
Decline is not a synonym for bad.
After 2014, I said “Ryan can’t do any worse than this next year”. Sadly, I was mistaken.
It also speaks to how the Phillies never really seem to help their players make adjustments over the long haul. Rollins never got away from hacking at the plate when they desperately needed him to be better at working the count at the top of the order. Howard has never worked at laying off pitches down and away. Domonic Brown has developed no baseball instincts despite being a “top prospect” for years now. It’s a problem throughout that franchise.
Mike Schmidt wrote a great piece a few years back about how today’s players are not that coachable and don’t listen to advice. How much that is more prevalent on Phillies is a good question.
I like Schmidt, he’s an all timer, but I question how much insight the guy could have in that regard. He shows up to Spring Training for a couple weeks every year and more or less isn’t around baseball for the rest of the year after that (with the exception of now announcing Sunday games).
Furthermore Schmidt has raved about how Domonic Brown specifically has sought him out for advice when he is around.
Turns out article was posted less than a year ago; August 7, 2014. Mike Schmidt: Today’s hitters don’t want much help. You can read it yourself.
I found and read the article. He lists a few anecdotal experiences and draws broad conclusions from it. He also neglected to mention that his “personal service agreement” primarily means he spends a couple weeks with the team in Spring Training. So it is not exactly like he is spending a ton of time coaching up these players.
There is an article from Psychology Today from about 5 years ago entitled “The Best Players Rarely Make The Best Coaches.” See the problem is greatness. Most players don’t have those exceptional gifts that allows players to achieve greatness and that makes it difficult for those great players to be able to communicate their knowledge to their players.
It is entirely possible that today’s players are no less coachable than past players, just players of Brett’s or Schmidt’s caliber are not the right people to reach them.
That’s not entirely true. Rollins for example saw his plate discipline improve throughout his Phillies career. His walk rates improved by about 40% from the early years until the last few years.
Rollins’ K% dropped while his BB% really didn’t change all that much. From ’00-’04 Rollins walked in 7.4% of his PAs. From ’05-’09 he walked 7.1% of his PAs. From ’10-’14 he walked in 9.4% of his PAs. I’m not willing to call that much of a noticeable change especially when his BA was a career .277 after his MVP season and he never surpassed that in any season after 2007. You can’t argue he was getting on base at a better rate either as he went from a career .331 OBP at the end of ’07 and posted a .322 OBP in all seasons since.
Thank you, you actually just debunked your own argument about Rollins plate discipline. His strikeouts went down, his walks went up as his career progressed. That would be considered an improvement at the plate. It is funny though you point to OBP decline yet dismiss walk improvements.
Lets put them on the same scale for a moment. Since it is called On Base Percentage, lets display it in the form of an actual percentage. Rollins’ OBP dropped from 33.1% to 32.2%. Given that going from 7.1% to to 9.4% is not a noticeable change, would you not agree that 33.1% to 32.2% is an even less noticeable change?
And yes, of course his Batting Average and OBP have dropped since the prime of his career. He is 36 now, short of Barry Bonds, virtually nobody improves their rate states from their prime. It is called aging.
Furthermore, since 2010, there has been a significant drop-off in offensive production throughout all of baseball. Back in Rollins’ prime, the average OBP was typically around .340, today it is around .320. So as Rollins stats decline, they actually we declining at a similar rate as league averages, meaning his production while down from his own numbers earlier in his career, was not actually declining very much if at all relative to his peers.
Now we are very off topic from my original point which was that while I do have significant questions in the Phillies ability to develop young players, Jimmy Rollins’ plate discipline is not among their failures. He did demonstrate improvements throughout his career in that department.
Now on the other hand, if you want to hark on Howard for lack of pitch recognition, be my guest it is absolutely true.
How did Rollins contract effect Howards?
Click on the link for the explanation. It has to do with “most favored nation trade protection” among teammates that was abolished in previous CBA, but those players were grandfathered in.
Thank you.