I'm Curious: What Do You Think of Braves' New Coaching Staff?

become a top 20 NL pitcher? how did you rank

Consider how many times the Braves had a game where a runner was thrown out at the plate, compared to how many times it was Brian McCann thrown out at the plate. There’s no statistic that can keep track of how many times a player runs through a stop sign, or how many times a player is held up, but Snit’s job is mostly to give a suggestion, and it’s the player’s decision whether or not they listen. Off the top of my head, I can remember at least twice where Heyward ran through it, and was out once, scored once. Prado not quite so lucky, but I can recall a game where he ran through and was tagged out, but McCann is still the worst; he simply doesn’t have the speed to take more than two bases, Snit learned this, and kept throwing up the stop signs towards the end of the year.

I like the staff so far, but like you, I’m still scratching my head as to why Snitker is still at 3rd. It was a great move to keep McDowell and Perez right where they were.

Like Parrish, and Tosca.

Wish Snitker and TP were gone. Correct me if I’m wrong, but when I think of the best 1B coaches in the game over the last few years, isn’t it someone who was a phenomenal basestealer like Davey Lopes or Dave Roberts? I’ll be curious to see if the new regime leads to more SB attempts (from McLouth and Heyward predominantly, since there’s not much speed elsewhere). Mostly I just think it’s time for TP and the Braves to go their separate ways, and I wonder how he’ll handle the “demotion,” as it were.

but i do have one thing to add: derek lowe had one outstanding month and almost 2 whole years of mediocrity. he needs to prove more than one month to be labeled rejuvenated. in my opinion, he’s at his peak value since becoming a brave and should be shopped.

I thought that last link was going to be the infamous Chino in a towel picture; apparently the only place that still exists is burned into the brains of those of us who were doomed to see it live.

FUPA, we’ll miss you.

when a player does well, he gets 100% of the credit, but when he does poorly, the hitting coach gets some portion of the blame (sometimes a lot of it)?

If you look at the performance of all our hitters under Pendleton, there is absolutely no evidence that he was a bad hitting coach. Every season, some guys underperform expectations and others overperform. This year, for every McLouth or Melky, there was an Infante or Prado. Why blame TP for McLouth and not praise him for Prado? Personally, I wouldn’t do either, but you can’t just focus on one part and ignore the other.

Unless there is a team-wide (year-long) hitting outage, caused by an obvious personality conflict or a lack of effort/expertise, there’s no reason to blame a hitting coach for players’ struggles. And there is no evidence that the offense as a whole underperformed, that TP had any personality conflicts (quite the opposite, actually), or that he lacked effort or expertise.

I hope the TC faithful are more realistic judges of Parrish than they were of TP.

I’m pretty happy with the changes. Let’s just see what Fredi can do with this team.

Not sure about the hitting coach, I’ll take a wait and see approach.

I love the Fredi signing. Bringing someone in who is very much like Cox and knows the organization was a smart move. We didn’t need to shake things up. I also like that Fredi brought in his own right hand man in Tosca. I loved me some Chino, but Fredi needed to bring in someone that suits him most in that position.

Keeping McDowell and Perez is a big plus. I think they do one helluva job and hope to see them around for a long time.

Terry I can live with as 1st base/fielding coach. Know nothing of the new hitting coach but will be hopefully be a breathe of fresh air.

Snitker has me head scratching, but hopefully Parrish gets our boys hitting well enough that we can overcome any misguided judgments on 3rd base. Which I don’t think were too many this year tbh.

I love the staff. Here’s to getting back to the post season!

The third base coach seems to get magnified because once runners reach him, well, they’re obviously in scoring position. And when you look at our major issues with the LOBster this year, can you blame Snitker for pushing the envelope instead of throwing up the brakes thinking “Its ok, the next guy will get a hit, no problem.”

Did Glen Hubbard take the fall for Conrad’s miscues? We should have kept Hubbard and not Snitker.

Getting the most out of young players…that 80+ win average was done with mostly youth plus a few cast off older players…a few of them ex-Braves.
I still wonder what would have happened if we still had Yunel now and he would have displayed the same attitude as the Marlin’s SS sometime next season…who would have had to leave the team? Remind me next year to laugh really loud when Ramirez gets to the plate next year…hee hee.

Anyone watching the World Series?

The Sacramento Kings are so much fun to watch. I know they play late, but you gotta check them out.