Gonzalez Can’t Explain Last Year’s Finish; Wants More Pitching
As hard as he tries Fredi Gonzalez still can’t explain last year’s season-ending fizzle that saw the Braves nosed out for an NL wildcard spot on the last day of the season—after holding an 8 ½ game lead over the eventual World Series champion St Louis Cardinals.
Gonzalez spoke at the Atlanta Press Club noon luncheon on Tuesday at Atlanta's 191 Club and said that he and his staff “went over everything that last month” trying to find a solution, but the losses kept coming. He added that the “game is played by human beings and sometimes you just can’t explain what happens.”
Gonzalez was happy about one thing. No one pointed fingers. He had Braves PR director Brad Hainje look at news media clippings for the last month of the season and said he could not find a negative comment coming from the players. “Think of the New York Jets,” he said. “Everybody was blaming each other. That was not the case at all with us.”
On the coming season…
Gonzalez sees Tyler Pastornicky starting at shortstop. The highly touted rookie (a .365 average in 27 games at AAA Gwinnett last year after a solid season in AA) will bat toward the bottom of the lineup to alleviate some of the pressure he’s bound to feel as a first-year man.
The skipper thinks Martin Prado is still the answer in left field despite all the off-season talk of trading for a big bat outfielder. Prado will again back up Chipper Jones at third base. Pastornicky can play third if needed.
The manager said he thought Chipper had an outstanding season last year and expects the same in 2012, barring injury. Right now Chipper is healthy, but Gonzalez cautioned that injuries are part of the game—not just for Jones—but for the entire lineup, and that “the healthiest any team will be is right now before the season starts.”
Gonzalez expects Dan Uggla to get off to a much better start in 2012 (how could he not?). Historically he’s been a slow starter and in 2011 hit under .200 for a good part of the season. After going hitless on July 4, his average dropped to.173, the lowest in the National League. Gonzalez said things got so bad last year that he asked “the powers that be to not post Dan’s batting average on the scoreboard”—a request that was denied. The manager attributes Uggla’s adjusting to his new team in Atlanta as the reason for his exceptionally slow start.
Brian McCann should return to form after struggling in the latter part of 2011. According to Gonzalez, he will continue to be an All-Star and Silver Slugger and his season-ending slump was no different than what his teammates went through in that dreadful last month.
“Jason Heyward needs a bounce-back year,” said Gonzalez. “When you’re hurt,” continued the skipper, “you do things that mess up your swing.” Gonzelez is hoping the Braves two new batting coaches, Greg Walker and assistant Scott Fletcher, will help improve Heyward --and the rest of the offensive attack.
The Braves skipper says he would like more pitching help and has told GM Frank Wren as much. While he hopes Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson will return healthy and Tim Hudson is fully recovered from surgery, he contends that you never have enough arms. Hudson, he adds, should be ready for the opener. Meanwhile Chris Medlen, coming off Tommy John surgery, will work as a starter in spring training so he’s ready if Hudson can’t go. Long term Medlen is ticketed for a relief role.
On more general topics, the manager said he is thoroughly behind the Braves philosophy of building through the farm system. In fact, he adds, “very few teams can afford to spend multi-millions of dollars in the free-agent market.”
He also said he is totally against more intra-league games, which will be a consequence of the new realignment with Houston moving to the American League in 2013. Said Gonzalez, “interleague games would be played throughout the season, setting up the possibility of a season-ending series whereby an American team, the Yankees, for example, could be playing for the championship in an American League park without their DH.” Not that a whole lot of tears would be shed if that were the case.
Quick take…David Stern held a press conference prior to the Hawks-Indiana game on Wednesday. Nothing ground-breaking, but he did say he has confidence in the Atlanta ownership. On the possibility of another All-Star game in Atlanta, he simply said, “The NBA is open for business.” Whatever that means.
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