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Bill James on Steroids
By Capitol Avenue Club | July 17, 2009
If you don’t have a subscription to Bill James Online, go buy one and read Bill’s latest article on Steroids and the Hall of Fame. Easily the best piece I’ve ever read on the subject.
Topics: Atlanta Braves | 11 Comments »
July 17th, 2009 at 10:30 AM
New Poll. We’re not bringing Bobby Cox into this discussion.
July 17th, 2009 at 11:04 AM
which one is the hitting coach?
July 17th, 2009 at 12:51 PM
Pendleton. You can select as many as you want, by the way.
July 17th, 2009 at 12:56 PM
By the way, Terry Pendleton is a career .270/.316/.391 hitter. Not even league average. He had 1 career year (1991) where he hit .319 and had a career-high 8 triples and 22 HR which led him to a .319/.363/.517 line that year. He drew 70 walks in 1987, but the rest of his career his season-high is 44. What the hell qualifies him to be hitting coach? Certainly nothing in his baseball PLAYING career, because it was an extremely lackluster career. Maybe he is qualified to be a hitting coach. I don’t think he’s done a particularly bad job with most of the team (though I could cut his mouth off for the way he messed with Kelly Johnson’s approach). But it just doesn’t look good to have a hitting coach with that mediocre of a career. Either get a guy who never made it to MLB or a guy who had an awesome career.
July 17th, 2009 at 1:16 PM
one often hear that major leaguers have no respect for hitting coaches that had worse numbers etc than they have.
whether they should or not.
July 17th, 2009 at 1:41 PM
here is a good article on one of those great ones that weren’t major league hitters
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/al/rangers/2006-08-24-jaramillo_x.htm
July 17th, 2009 at 2:56 PM
Nice article.
July 17th, 2009 at 6:26 PM
allright, Gerald Perry and Jim Presley are examples of guys that didn’t not have great career numbers, and are/were successful hitting coaches.
July 17th, 2009 at 7:08 PM
I thought about Perry when I origionally wrote the comment. Good point on Presley. It doesn’t take a good hitter to make a good hitting coach. And though I’d fire Snitker and Cadahia before TP, I don’t think TP is an outstanding hitting coach. He encourages agressiveness
too much.
July 17th, 2009 at 7:51 PM
Another note….didn’t the Braves relationship with TP begin because they wanted to sure up the defense? I believe Kasten and Schuerholz have both stated on more than one occasion that they brought in Sid Bream, Terry Pendleton, and Otis Nixon in order to improve the defense and provide a “veteran presence.” None of them were expected to be offensively valuable. They just happened to get the career offensive years out of Pendleton and Nixon in ’91.
July 19th, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Yes. That is accurate. Part of the reason I believe TP would be a better fit at a different position on the coaching staff. Perhaps bench coach or 3rd base coach.