Thinking Larry Parrish’s Days May Be Numbered
June 25, 2011 at 11:38 am by Ben Duronio under Atlanta Braves
It is no secret that the Braves have vastly under performed offensively. The run environment is down across the league, but the Braves struggles at the plate is one of the more surprising aspects of baseball this season.
A year ago, the Braves led the majors in OBP at .339. This year, only two regulars have a higher mark than last year’s team average, Brian McCann (.375) and Chipper Jones (.352). The only person with the same or higher OBP this year compared to last is McCann, who sat at .375 in 2010 as well.
Fredi sees this as well. He is not the most statistically inclined manager in the league, but his statement to Dave O’Brien last night shows that he is frustrated with the performance.
“That’s the way we’ve been hitting most of the year. If you look at our stats over the course of the year, we’re not where we want to be offensively as a team, as a club”
That’s not exactly an extremely telling quote, but it shows that he isn’t seeing much improvement from the start of the year.
Parrish is new to this position. He has managed and acted as a roving hitting instructor in the minor leagues, but he has no experience as a hitting coach in the Major Leagues. His aggressive approach to hitting has hurt this team, and it is evident in nearly every single player’s numbers. The Braves do not need to treat Parrish’s hiring as a full season sentence, and I do not think they will. With how poor the team is hitting, I think they are willing to go a different direction at the midway point in the season if nothing changes.
O’Brien is around the team as much as anyone, and I think he can sense that the Braves are not going to put up with the lackluster performance from the offense much longer. ”Don’t know how much longer they can live with this,” said DOB in a tweet last night regarding when a move will be made at hitting coach.
The Braves are still the second best team in the National League. The pitching has kept them in, but expected increases in runs allowed by both Jurrjens and Hanson are near inevitable. Along with that, the overuse of Venters and an injured O’Flaherty will likely affect the team negatively going forward. The hitting has to rebound in order for this team to maintain it’s status as the league’s Wild Card and to compete with the Phillies the rest of the season.
Most of us understand and preach that Parrish has got to go, but I think the Braves’ front office and management are beginning to realize it too. I am not saying for certain that he will be gone by the All-Star Break, but that’s the feeling I am getting.
Loading ...
Its not solely down to LP but he has to be accountable more than anyone and he should go. The question is – who do we replace him with?
I can immediately think of three good candidates to replace him…
1. Chipper’s dad
2. Brian McCann’s dad
3. Merv Rettenmund, who did a good job for us back in 2000-2001.
I’m not thrilled about this suggestion, but…TP?
Who would ever have though that any hitting coach ever could make us miss Terry Pendleton’s approach?
I hope your feeling is right Ben. Parrish should definitely be gone, like yesterday. NOT ONE BRAVE HITTER has improved on his watch and several have regressed including Heyward. The only 2 that have been decent are Chipper and McCann and both of them have THEIR FATHERS as their hitting coach. ‘Nuff said.
Parrish has never been an ML hitting coach and boy does it ever show. It is so obvious that this is where the offensive problems lie, so why hasn’t something been done already?The hitters swing at bad pitches, have piss poor approaches and fail to make adjustments from at bat to at bat [see Uggla, see AGon], thus making them easy to pitch to. Pitchers that are able to get breaking pitches and change ups over the plate just eat Braves hitters up.
Larry Parrish has not only let the fans down, but has not helped Uggla. I blame part of Uggla’s struggles on Parrish because Parrish has continuously let Uggla go up there and do the same thing over and over again, only to see the same result: a pop up.
I wonder if Parrish would just resign and spare the team from having to make an embarrassing decision. My guess is, if chipper, mccann go to wren and let it be known this just isn’t working out, it would seal the deal. Maybe that has already happened.
If you’re going to make a change, do it now. Give the new guy as much time as possible to implement a new philosophy.
Thanks for getting my hopes up.
I know it’s not a requirement for a hitting coach to have actually been a good hitter himself, but I imagine it helps a little bit. I would at least hope we try to get someone with some experience. I’d be perfectly happy with TP moving back into the role of hitting coach.
Angus Dumbledor is pretty wicked with a stick. Let him have a go.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Milt Thompson (former Phillies coach) in a Braves uniform.
I would be fine with no hitting coach over Parrish. Go socialist!
9/
haha, Angus. It’s ALBUS, dude!
Do you think it’s possible this is why they kept TP on the staff in the first place? If LP’s philosophy and approach turned out poorly the guys would already have a history with TP? I thought that as soon as it was announced he was removed from the position of hitting coach but left on the staff. He is the back up plan I think. And also, maybe Uggla should spend a weekend with BMac and Chipper’s dad’s.
Man, getting one of Chipper’s or Mac’s dads would be so cool!
Last year team led league in OBP, nuff said. I dont understand why they tried to fix something that wasnt broke. BING BACK TP.
Bringing back TP to be hitting coach would be a terrible idea. The Braves clearly need a fresh perspective from a professional hitter, and I dont know if you all have noticed, but TP has been in the dugout all year. TP has done one of three things this year: Either refused to help hitters, tried to help hitters and failed, or worst of all offered his help to sabotage hitters and make LP look bad. All of these are clearly bad options. And no, TP remaining completely silent is not an option, because the way the Braves have been hitting there’s just no way they wouldn’t at least try to get TP’s input.
There are plenty of good, professional hitting coaches out there, the Braves just have to seek out and hire someone. Of anyone in the Braves organization I trust Wren/schuerholz the most, so I’m not worried
I’ve been saying Chipper’s dad since before Cox was gone. But I’m not stupid enough to think that’s actually an option.
Didn’t Texas just fire their hitting coach? I thought the guy they had was considered a guru. When Andruw Jones signed with him, I remember talks that he could fix his swing and approach. So where is this hitting guru and why hasn’t JS and FW gotten him into the dugout.
How bout keep Parrish til the year is over with and give the job to Chipper if he calls it quits next year.
Arm the team with Mizuno Elder Wands.
Someone get pete rose back in bb and hire him
@12 sorry, JFH possibly Merrill was just running a geek test
@17 I think the guy you are referring to was Rudy Jaromillo(sp?) and he was long gone
first off, its B-Mac’s brother that works with him i think, and secondly, i seriously doubt chippers dad even wants to deal with it. sadly, TP would be an improvement at this point. in the future, when chipper retires, if he wants to be the hitting coach, give it to him. one of the best 5 switch hitters all time.
ehhh.. just give the job to Ralph Garr…
And to think all the people who bashed Terry Pendleton. I would have preferred him over this mess.
No, it’s B-Mac’s father who works with him the most:
http://www.windwardbaseball.com/our-coaches/howie-mccann.html
B-Mac’s father and brother are both hitting coaches. Howie McCann (the father) has coached college baseball (UGA) in the past and still runs his private hitting clinic for college and high schoolers.
This would be awesome, but is clearly wishful thinking
It’s discouraging that Fredi didn’t have someone good in mind for this hire. If LP was his guy, then it has been an epic fail. If he defaulted to Wren, then that is a shame he didn’t speak up and let his voice be heard.
Time to step up and earn your salary, Fredi.
@22. top 5? cmon, give him some credit, he is firmly holding on to #2
My step dad coached against Brian McCann’s dad and says he is a great coach. I would be good with that. I got a couple of guys for you… Bring back Don Baylor. heck yeah. If not him, then I will say Ken Griffey Jr. Dude had the most amazing swing of all time and he isn’t doing anything these days.
http://www.ajc.com/sports/atlanta-braves/gonzalez-no-discussions-about-988197.html
In case anyone was getting their hopes up too much.
First off, I really appreciate Dave O’Brien talking to Fredi about the Larry Parrish issue, because ultimately it’s tough for a beat reporter to ask questions like these since they need to keep relations strong with the players and coaches in order to do their job properly. Now that we’ve moved past that, the article that DOB wrote today means nothing to me.
As someone with experience in a front office, I understand Fredi’s take. He has to defend his hitting coach 100% there, even if they have had talks. Imagine if you’re Fredi and DOB asks you “Have there been any talks about relieving Larry Parrish of his duties?” If you leave the door open just a little bit with your answer, it’s going to create problems. It’s how he’s taught to answer questions.
I can assure you that the Braves front office is becoming worried about Parrish, but there could be a variety of things keeping them from relieving him at this point. If you’re going to let him go, you need to find a replacement, and that could be an issue. Or simply, they don’t feel he’s been that bad.
Most things that happen in a front office are common sense, you just have to think about them. Most baseball ops departments use a lot of the same websites and numbers that we do. They read our work. They want to know how they can improve and get the edge up on the competition.
To say that LP has failed is a gross understatement. While TP had better success, his approach had batters taking far too many pitches and getting ‘down’ in the count early. Without being player specific, a few player’s position in the box has remained unchanged being deep in the box and unable to identify and hit breaking balls. Hitting is not only physical ability but also a thinking/guessing game. When you get ‘down’ in the count early a batter’s choices become extremely limited. Both batters and pitchers should be continually adapting to conditions. That supposedly is what scouting reports are for. Sadly most Brave batters who are struggling are not adapting at all.
Returning TP to that position is certainly an option but, in my opinion, not recommended. A new, qualified face is needed.
“You go by the batting cage every day and Larry’s in there banging,” Gonzalez said.
!?