The Baseball Prospectus weighs in on the Braves' first base situation. They're not high on the notion that Adam LaRoche can hit lefties and, unfortunately, they have good reason to be so pessimistic, going back to his minor league stats. Fortunately, James Jurries and Matt Diaz both look like solid options as the right-handed parts of the Braves' first base platoon. Jurries can step into Julio Franco's roster spot and Diaz will hopefully step into Brian Jordan's as the right-handed outfielder. I guess the problem there is that the Braves would be carrying five outfielders unless they send Kelly Johnson or Ryan Langerhans down. My personal preference is that the Braves keep Johnson, since I developed a man-crush on his last year on account of the fact that he has emerged from the Braves' minor league system with a very good batting eye, a relatively novel concept.
Then again, maybe LaRoche simply needs to grow a mustache and that will take care of his short-comings as a hitter. The one thing I will say on his behalf is that he has been one of the Braves' few offensive stars in the last two NLDS defeats, so he may have that "clutch" gene that BP swears is a figment. (Of course, I also swear it's a figment when the subject is Derek Jeter, but that's a different story.)
3 comments:
They can't send Langerhans down because he's out of options, but I think KJ has one year left. Don't worry, he'll be back, probably by May is my guess.
Not to get too defensive (and I don't think you were mocking all that much), but I don't believe (and I don't think I wrote) that simply growing a mustache would improve the abilities of players on the Braves. I only said that it would increase fan excitement. Increased fan excitement may, in turn, translate to on-field success (as it has in many cases), but while that may have been the impression, in actuality I don't think there's any skill set derived from a mustache. And that's a sentence I didn't think I would get to write today.
Mac, why did you have to bring reality into my world? Seriously, if the Braves keep Diaz and Jurries, that means that Johnson has to go down, right?
LD, you sell yourself short. Don't stop your mustache crusade short of claiming that lip fuzz has mystical power. In fact, with LaRoche's Zane Smith chin, he might want to consider a full beard, a la Jeff Reardon.
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