I woke up today and realized I haven't made fun of Jeff Francouer or Furman Bisher lately. I also have NEVER made fun of Tim Tebow and I was wondering how can I fix this. Fortunately good ol' Japanese hating Furman has given me an opportunity to fix part of this and I will fix the Tebow part myself. Francouer failing as an Atlanta Brave was an especially hard hit for Furman because Francouer is white, from the United States and came from the Braves farm system. It is like the Armageddon of failures for Furman. Let's see how he is holding up.
Sad to say, that in this fairy tale, nobody lives happily ever after.
Oh no, the Braves got some type of value for Francouer, they are living quite happily ever after. He's actually hitting better for the Mets and they still hate him.
“The Natural” has been cast off by the team that brought him in from the suburbs, gloated over him through those first two seasons when he was a steady producer, and then, suddenly, when he lost his game, there was no one to help him.
They used him dammit! When he was no longer of use to the team, or was actually hurting the team just by being in the lineup, they traded him. How dare a team look to win games and not keep a player that is dragging the team down with his inability to do his job halfway effectively! This is America dammit...people should be able to keep their job even if they suck at that job, especially if they make millions of dollars in return for sucking.
So Jeff Francoeur went searching on his own. I don’t understand how it came to that.
When there is no one in an entire MLB organization that can help you hit the ball better, that should tell you something about your prospects as a baseball player.
Neither do I understand just why a hitting slump can’t be cured like the common cold.
Apparently Furman is not aware there actually is no cure for the common cold either. I wouldn't expect him to know this, he is young and impressionable, he probably just forgot.
Mark DeRosa was one, rejected by the Braves, signed by the Rangers and under Jaramillo, as the story goes, found a swing that eventually led to a $13-million contract with the Cubs. Then Mark Teixeira passed that way, and need I say more?
Actually yes, you do need to say more. Like get the timeline correct. DeRosa started playing for the Rangers in 2005 and Tex started playing there in 2003. Not to mention Tex was the 5th pick in the draft and was a guy who got a huge bonus to play for the Rangers. He didn't need Rudy Jaramillo's help in any fashion. Mark DeRosa was also a good hitter prior to going to Texas, I think being able to play full time allowed him to get more at bats and get comfortable at the major league level, which allowed him to hit the ball better. Atlanta did not sign him, not rejected him, because they knew they could not offer him an everyday job.
So yes, you could have gotten this all much more correct.
So the season opened, Francoeur’s swing still showed some lack of discipline and his average hovered around .250.
That doesn't sound too bad, but what was his OBP Furman?
2007- 0.338
2008- 0.294
2009- 0.282 (with the Braves)
Yes, he took hitting lessons and his OPS dropped to a pathetic 0.634. How would he have hit without the hitting lessons? He was awful. Just awful and if Rudy Jaramillo and the Braves organization can't fix him, why keep him?
He became a target.
Yes, he was a victim of the organization looking to rid itself of bad baseball players.
Meanwhile, back in Atlanta, you wonder. How would Cox have reacted if Francoeur had told him of his Jaramillo plan? What if he had come back to the Braves hitting .300 with a generous sprinkling of home runs? Would he ever have been traded?
If he hit .300 and had home runs he probably would not have been traded. This is an incredibly stupid point to try and prove the Braves did not stick with him or should have done more to help him.
The Braves traded him because he did not have success as a hitter in the major leagues, if he had success then he would not have gotten traded most likely. I don't think the organization would have cared if he sacrificed kittens to hit the ball well, just as long as he contributed to the team in some other fashion other than playing above average defense.
Frank Wren, of course, handled the deal, but it had to be approved by Cox. And there went the hometown hero, who could have been a Clemson Tiger, but chose the Braves and their sweetened pot of $2 million or so. Now, all that remains of that class of golden prospects is Brian McCann.
Furman is still bemoaning the "golden days of the Braves minor league system," which was 2005 apparently. You can't just keep players around because they are from Georgia and came from the Braves' system. I know this is a difficult principle for Furman to accept, but it's true.
So Francoeur was dealt to the Mets and his name is misspelled on the lineup card.
Those fucking New York Mets, insulting Francouer for last the time by misspelling his name.
Big deal. I once walked into the Milwaukee Braves clubhouse and Henry Aaron’s name was misspelled. Besides, Francoeur isn’t easy to spell, anyway.
Nevermind, Furman forgives you.
Nor is it easy to say goodbye.
It was actually incredibly easy for me to say goodbye and it should have been for anyone who wasn't a horny woman or Furman Bisher.
-I am officially becoming annoyed with the media's obsession with Tim Tebow. I actually don't hate Tebow, which is odd since I do hate the University of Florida and pretty much anything that is related to the school. I don't know why, I have never liked the school. There have been two controversies this week concerning Tebow.
The first is SEC VoteGate.
The assembled media in the Wynfrey Hotel ballroom are trying to find the perp among the league's coaches. The crime against football reason: failing to vote for Florida's Tim Tebow as the first-team all-Southeastern Conference quarterback.
How dare someone not vote Tim Tebow first team All-SEC! Tim Tebow is a Christian man of God, by not voting for him you are pissing God himself off. Tim Tebow delivers babies for underprivileged mothers and steals orphans from poor villages and then drops them on the doorstep of wealthy and famous celebrities...then stares down the celebrity until they formally adopt the baby. Who would dare smite Tebow and not vote for him?
Well, it turns out it was Steve Spurrier who did not vote him for him, but it was an "oversight." Damn right it was, even Steve Spurrier is afraid to piss off Tebow and God.
What is the media's fascination with Tim Tebow? Who cares if someone did not vote for him first team All-SEC?
Nobody wants to admit publicly he didn't vote for Tebow. But somebody didn't.
I thank God/Tebow that Steve Spurrier stood up and said he did not vote for Tebow...but then he bitched out and said it was an "oversight." Have some balls and say you did not vote for Tebow and voted for Jevan Snead, who is actually a great quarterback in his own right, though he doesn't smile as much or have a camera in front of him as often when he is doing good deeds.
"Will it give me a little bit [of motivation]?" Tebow asked. "Yeah, I guess. But I have enough that gives me motivation right now. I honestly think it's funny."
Yeah, the fact Spurrier thought you were the second best quarterback in the SEC should really motivate you to prove him wrong. I have always thought it was a little egotistical for a player to get offended when people don't vote that player an unanimous choice for any All-Conference team. How big can your ego be that you can't accept there may be someone as good as you in the conference?
The Tebow-mania is overboard because everyone ignores the fact there are great skill players all around Tebow who can make him look good, guys like Louis Murphy and Percy Harvin....they have made Tebow's job a lot easier in the past. Tebow is great but his great teammates get ignored.
I got my Sports Illustrated for this week and Tebow was on the cover. I don't hate him but I am over all this adulation he receives.
The second controversy stirred up almost as much heat. Want to hear something else about Tebow that makes him so great? He's a virgin. I am not sure everyone heard about it.
It doesn't matter if the question what out of line or not, my favorite part is where reporters will write an entire column saying the question did not matter and was out of line...yet it is important enough to write an entire column about. Here is what Tebow-mania turns people like Dennis Dodd of CBS Sportsline into, when he should be covering the SEC meetings and talking football:
His latest job is with AOL Fanhouse. The site currently employs some of my favorite writers. Clay Travis is not one of them. Not now, because it sickens me to be reminded again that journalism has become a hobby instead of a vocation. Radio talk-show hosts who have never set foot in a locker room call themselves "journalists." Give an out-of-work linebacker an analyst job, and suddenly he's the "media."
Yes, I am not sure this is entirely an appropriate response to the question that was asked. This sounds a little bit like an off the topic rant...but this is what Tim Tebow does to sportswriters. It turns them into angry yellers who rant off topic. Who cares if Tebow was not affected by the question, when you can use that question to go off on a tangent?
But he wasn't done:
Nice day at work. Rest up and come back fresh tomorrow, Clay. There will be plenty of chances on Friday to ask a player if he has herpes. I'm sure the public is dying to know if Lane Kiffin ever "read" Playboy or if Les Miles watches HBO after midnight?
Somebody needs to take a nap.
Dan Wetzel wants us to all know that Tebow is in fact perfect.
The gushing from the media through the years – the latest being a Sports Illustrated cover appearance this week – is well-earned.
What can anyone say though? What’s his negative – that he’s too earnest? He’s too polite? Does Tim Tebow do anything wrong?
I think Tim Tebow is 1,000 times more mature than most college students and I applaud him for making choices to help out those less fortunate and do whatever he chooses to do in his personal life, but isn't this a bit much?
I find it fascinating the media is so fascinated with Tim Tebow. I am not even going to talk about the comment Thom Brennaman made during the National Championship about how "five minutes with Tim Tebow will change your life."
There is a difference between having respect for a college football player and fawning all over him. I think it has gone more to the "fawning over Tim Tebow" side of coverage of late. What is it about this smiling God fearing guy that turns sportswriters into little teenage girls gushing over the newest boy band? Other than the fact he is perfect of course...
Showing posts with label furman bisher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label furman bisher. Show all posts
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
7 comments Furman Bisher Recalls the Good Ol' Days But Can't Recall Much Else
We have all been acquainted with Furman Bisher and his extreme hatred of the Japanese people before. Today we get to learn a little bit about what Furman Bisher does like. Unsurprisingly he likes underachieving white outfielders with pretty smiles and really old pitchers who don't know when it comes time to retire...much like someone else who may be writing for the AJC on a blog nowadays (looking at Furman, but he is eating oatmeal and reading a book about birds). I would like to add that the farm system that Bisher proclaimed not bountiful enough had enough decent guys to make a trade for an above average outfielder and to replace a Hall of Fame pitcher in the starting rotation with a younger, better pitcher. I am not hinting that Furman doesn't know what he is talking about anymore, I am actually telling everyone that he doesn't know what he is talking about anymore.
-Let's start with the pretty white boy with an even prettier smile that is among the worst at his position in the major leagues.
These are disheartening days for the Braves. For Jeff Francoeur in particular.
Yes, because no matter how many trades the team makes they can't seem to put together a team good enough to challenge the Mets and Phillies. One year the pitching sucks, the next year it is the bullpen, then it is the hitting that sucks, then it is pitching again, and we are now back to the hitting stinking. Oh, and Jeff Failcoeur is a big, big part of that problem and has been for a couple of years now.
When Mark Bowman, of MLB.com, wrote that this might be a pertinent time to consider locating another employer for him, oh, did that set off a firestorm! A flurry of conjecture.
Conjecture being defined as "pure excitement," followed by the question of who would be stupid enough to trade for him?
Here was Keith Law's response to whether Jeff Francouer would be on a major league roster if he was not from Georgia:
Did anyone see the piece that indicated that Atlanta is looking at trading him? When you have an old car, and the alternator is dead, the battery is corroded, the undercarriage is rusted through so your left foot drags the pavement while you drive, the front windshield is shattered and the back windshield is gone, the starter makes a horrible noise when you turn the key, the car gets 4 mpg when it runs at all, and there's only one working headlight, it's probably too freaking late to try to sell it, don't you think? You could probably leave it on the curb with the keys in the ignition and a sign that says "TAKE ME" on the dash and still find it parked there the next morning.
So yeah, he's not real high on Failcouer right now.
Let me take you back to those Camelot days, when the Braves’ roster was plump with bright young prospects. There was a pod of them, all seeming to ripen at the same time. A sort of an informal Boy Scout troop of them, who went to each other’s weddings, and celebrated their togetherness like club members.
Here we go. I am surprised Furman can remember anything at all from more than 10 minutes ago. Did these guys also sleep in tents together and prick their fingers promising to be blood brothers until they die?
Remember their names, for some are long gone. Francoeur, Brian McCann, Macay McBride, Kelly Johnson, Ryan Langerhans, and two Canadians, Pete Orr and Scott Thorman.
I would not call these the Camelot days because out of that list there are two average to above average players in the group. These Camelot days also led to a grand total of 0 playoff series victories and have left a ton of underachieving in their wake.
Here's the problem with Furman Bisher. He is fucking stupid. He is trying to pass this rememberance off as truth, when it is revisionist history. There was no Camelot, just a lot of players who have underachieved and were called up too early because the Braves had no other options. This group of has by my count (without looking it up) 3 1st round picks, and 4 2nd round picks in the MLB Draft...there are currently three of these guys on the MLB roster and only two are even decent players. This is not Camelot, but a complete and utter failure to develop talent.
Francoeur played the odds, and banked on going to the arbitration table calling his shots. His timing couldn’t have been worse. What followed is the season of remission.
Francoeur had a salary of $460,000 in 2008 and he is making $3.3 million this year after going through arbitration. I wish my timing were this bad. How wrong can you be in making a statement about how his timing was bad? This is why I can't Furman Bisher seriously anymore. Hang up the typewriter my friend, it's time.
He heard sounds coming from the stands at Turner Field he had never heard before. Boos and taunts, mild at first, but for a local favorite who had reaped nothing but adulation through high school at Parkview and two-and-a-half gaudy seasons with the Braves?
Why is it that Furman thinks local white kids should not be booed? Sure, he was great in high school, but he is now and has been for a few seasons now, one of the worst outfielders at hitting the ball. He gets RBI's because he has hit behind McCann, Jones, and Tex for a couple of years. I could have 80 RBI's hitting behind them.
Look at these numbers for 2008 and 2009. There were red flags before that but no one paid attention to them.
While the Braves spent all manners of time waiting for two dear old relics to return to their days of pitching glory, patience ran low with Francoeur.
So the inference here is that the Braves have patience with Smoltz and Glavine, so why not with Francoeur? A simple answer will suffice. In Major League Baseball it is a lot easier to find a corner outfielder who can produce than it is to find pitchers who can go 6 innings and pitch quality starts.
Not to mention waiting on those two older pitchers was a mistake, so simply because a team makes a mistake on one or two players does not mean they have to make the same mistake again on another player. Smart teams learn from their mistakes and don't repeat them.
Was it because he had taken off to Texas in hope that Rudy Jaramillo, the Rangers’ hitting guru, might help him return to glory? It was furtively done, and true, he also recommended Andruw Jones try the same “cure.”
I'm no genius, but we have two players here coming off horrendous years last year. Both have had similar problems with striking out and bad hitting habits in the past. They both take the advice of the same hitting coach and one improves and the other players actually manages to have his numbers get worse. Why do you keep that player who doesn't improve on the roster again? How much patience does he require since he is regressing through his career? Any smart team would cut bait and bail.
Is there not enough patience to help him work his way through it?
There are other players on the team who are affected by his struggles. It's not just him out there. Baseball is a team sport, and much like Ortiz in Boston, if a player is struggling then it is time to move him as far down in the order as possible or get him out of there. How much time does a person deserve to get to perform?
Smart teams don't let one player drag them down, but just because he is a local white boy and has a pretty smile Furman thinks the Braves should stick it out with him on the field. He has moments and has potential, but that's all there is any more. Every team has a player that just seems to drag the team down and you can't fault them for trying to replace that player.
There were no good ol' days with Failcoeur on the roster, except the ones that Furman Bisher imagines in his Japanese hating head.
-ESPN had 4 items about Tom Glavine on their bottom line last night. The Braves cut a 43 year old pitcher, I did not know it would cause this much ruckus. I don't like the entire way the whole release of Glavine was done, I thought it could have been handled better, but I can't argue with them doing it because I did not think they should have signed him again in the first place. Nostalgia only gets you so far.
This doesn't stop Furman from not liking this move either. I wish the Atlanta Braves had let Furman Bisher choose the entire roster this year and then allow the team to go 51-111 with 15 players on the DL and Furman asleep by the 4th inning in his favorite rocking chair. You know what, he should just be the Commissioner of MLB. That would be interesting as well.
Well, they led him to the altar, but they couldn’t get him to say, “I do.” Speaking here of the “Tom Glavine affair,” which is not going away, and which the Braves will have plastered across their dossier for time to come.
The way it was handled was pretty poor but this move should have been made months ago when the Braves should have never signed him in the first place. There were zero other teams willing to offer him a contract this offseason. He had no other firm offers, but he gets a couple million from the Braves (he had already netted $1 million of that before he got released) this year, after getting $8 million for the worst year of his career last year. I just don't get why any team would owe a player more than an opportunity in a similar situation somewhere else.
Coming on the heels of the indifferent dealing with John Smoltz — who tired of waiting for a commitment — we now have become witness to the end of an era:
I think I am growing to hate Furman Bisher. Smoltz got $5 million guaranteed from the Red Sox and was only offered $2 million guaranteed from the Braves. It was about money, don't let my favorite Braves player ever tell you any different through his whining.
If they were going to release him, then why this agonizing process of rehabilitation tests at Gwinnett and Rome?
This is my only problem with this decision. How it was handled.
Then someone mentioned the speed readings that had been reported. “They were not accurate,” Wren said, “just ball-park figures.”
Noooooooooo...ball parks would not inflate pitch speeds. They would never do that.
A million dollars is a pittance for this club with an extended salary cap this season. They poured out millions to sign Derek Lowe, Kenshin Kawakami and Javier Vazquez.
Stupid foreigners! Taking the money of hard working Americans to play baseball and now they are taking the jobs of white American born players. Something has to be done immediately. Furman probably thinks we should bomb Japan again.
Surely another million wouldn’t have disturbed their budget, but deep down inside, you had to feel that it was a matter of, “is it worth for a 43-year-old pitcher coming back from surgery?”
No. Not when you compare it to bringing up a pitcher literally half of his age who has incredible minor league numbers. It's actually a pretty easy decision. Put a 43 year old guy on the mound who has a ceiling of 6 strong innings and a 4.00 ERA or call up a pitcher that struck out better than a batter an inning in the minor leagues and costs less money. It's not a hard decision.
For one who has won 244 games for you, yes. And for one who has been a reputable citizen, and deserves the courtesy of ending his career here, yes.
Again, Furman misses some facts. The Braves offered to let him retire, he declined to do that, so he chose not to end his career here. It wasn't a completely one way street. You also don't live in the past and expect to win here in the present and the future. No team should keep a player because of what he did for that team in the past.
They paid him $8 million last year to pitch horribly and be injured. They owe him nothing now, though the release could have been done with more grace, but it wasn't.
Details of why he left for the Mets have never been made clear,
They offered a third year and more money. I just made the details clear. You're welcome.
Who did the scouting? Who came to these decisions?
Probably the same guys who put together the Camelot you were just talking so wonderfully about and were also responsible for the glory days that you always speak so fondly of.
Why can't sportswriters get over the past and just accept that things change? There is no loyalty from teams and players now. It's an unfortunate part of the game. Actually, the Braves showed loyalty last year by signing Smoltz and Glavine for another year in the neighborhood of $22 million for both of them and that didn't turn out well...that may be the reason there is no loyalty now in baseball because many times loyalty means a team or player gets screwed over.
Here are three opposing articles from Mark Bradley, if you care to read them. No good exit strategy in these situations. Ripping Glavine. Sort of ripping Smoltz.
Thanks for reading this blog guys and girls (are there any?) I enjoy writing here (though I miss J.S. to help carry the load a little).
I think the Lakers are going to take Game 2 tonight.
-Let's start with the pretty white boy with an even prettier smile that is among the worst at his position in the major leagues.
These are disheartening days for the Braves. For Jeff Francoeur in particular.
Yes, because no matter how many trades the team makes they can't seem to put together a team good enough to challenge the Mets and Phillies. One year the pitching sucks, the next year it is the bullpen, then it is the hitting that sucks, then it is pitching again, and we are now back to the hitting stinking. Oh, and Jeff Failcoeur is a big, big part of that problem and has been for a couple of years now.
When Mark Bowman, of MLB.com, wrote that this might be a pertinent time to consider locating another employer for him, oh, did that set off a firestorm! A flurry of conjecture.
Conjecture being defined as "pure excitement," followed by the question of who would be stupid enough to trade for him?
Here was Keith Law's response to whether Jeff Francouer would be on a major league roster if he was not from Georgia:
Did anyone see the piece that indicated that Atlanta is looking at trading him? When you have an old car, and the alternator is dead, the battery is corroded, the undercarriage is rusted through so your left foot drags the pavement while you drive, the front windshield is shattered and the back windshield is gone, the starter makes a horrible noise when you turn the key, the car gets 4 mpg when it runs at all, and there's only one working headlight, it's probably too freaking late to try to sell it, don't you think? You could probably leave it on the curb with the keys in the ignition and a sign that says "TAKE ME" on the dash and still find it parked there the next morning.
So yeah, he's not real high on Failcouer right now.
Let me take you back to those Camelot days, when the Braves’ roster was plump with bright young prospects. There was a pod of them, all seeming to ripen at the same time. A sort of an informal Boy Scout troop of them, who went to each other’s weddings, and celebrated their togetherness like club members.
Here we go. I am surprised Furman can remember anything at all from more than 10 minutes ago. Did these guys also sleep in tents together and prick their fingers promising to be blood brothers until they die?
Remember their names, for some are long gone. Francoeur, Brian McCann, Macay McBride, Kelly Johnson, Ryan Langerhans, and two Canadians, Pete Orr and Scott Thorman.
I would not call these the Camelot days because out of that list there are two average to above average players in the group. These Camelot days also led to a grand total of 0 playoff series victories and have left a ton of underachieving in their wake.
Here's the problem with Furman Bisher. He is fucking stupid. He is trying to pass this rememberance off as truth, when it is revisionist history. There was no Camelot, just a lot of players who have underachieved and were called up too early because the Braves had no other options. This group of has by my count (without looking it up) 3 1st round picks, and 4 2nd round picks in the MLB Draft...there are currently three of these guys on the MLB roster and only two are even decent players. This is not Camelot, but a complete and utter failure to develop talent.
Francoeur played the odds, and banked on going to the arbitration table calling his shots. His timing couldn’t have been worse. What followed is the season of remission.
Francoeur had a salary of $460,000 in 2008 and he is making $3.3 million this year after going through arbitration. I wish my timing were this bad. How wrong can you be in making a statement about how his timing was bad? This is why I can't Furman Bisher seriously anymore. Hang up the typewriter my friend, it's time.
He heard sounds coming from the stands at Turner Field he had never heard before. Boos and taunts, mild at first, but for a local favorite who had reaped nothing but adulation through high school at Parkview and two-and-a-half gaudy seasons with the Braves?
Why is it that Furman thinks local white kids should not be booed? Sure, he was great in high school, but he is now and has been for a few seasons now, one of the worst outfielders at hitting the ball. He gets RBI's because he has hit behind McCann, Jones, and Tex for a couple of years. I could have 80 RBI's hitting behind them.
Look at these numbers for 2008 and 2009. There were red flags before that but no one paid attention to them.
While the Braves spent all manners of time waiting for two dear old relics to return to their days of pitching glory, patience ran low with Francoeur.
So the inference here is that the Braves have patience with Smoltz and Glavine, so why not with Francoeur? A simple answer will suffice. In Major League Baseball it is a lot easier to find a corner outfielder who can produce than it is to find pitchers who can go 6 innings and pitch quality starts.
Not to mention waiting on those two older pitchers was a mistake, so simply because a team makes a mistake on one or two players does not mean they have to make the same mistake again on another player. Smart teams learn from their mistakes and don't repeat them.
Was it because he had taken off to Texas in hope that Rudy Jaramillo, the Rangers’ hitting guru, might help him return to glory? It was furtively done, and true, he also recommended Andruw Jones try the same “cure.”
I'm no genius, but we have two players here coming off horrendous years last year. Both have had similar problems with striking out and bad hitting habits in the past. They both take the advice of the same hitting coach and one improves and the other players actually manages to have his numbers get worse. Why do you keep that player who doesn't improve on the roster again? How much patience does he require since he is regressing through his career? Any smart team would cut bait and bail.
Is there not enough patience to help him work his way through it?
There are other players on the team who are affected by his struggles. It's not just him out there. Baseball is a team sport, and much like Ortiz in Boston, if a player is struggling then it is time to move him as far down in the order as possible or get him out of there. How much time does a person deserve to get to perform?
Smart teams don't let one player drag them down, but just because he is a local white boy and has a pretty smile Furman thinks the Braves should stick it out with him on the field. He has moments and has potential, but that's all there is any more. Every team has a player that just seems to drag the team down and you can't fault them for trying to replace that player.
There were no good ol' days with Failcoeur on the roster, except the ones that Furman Bisher imagines in his Japanese hating head.
-ESPN had 4 items about Tom Glavine on their bottom line last night. The Braves cut a 43 year old pitcher, I did not know it would cause this much ruckus. I don't like the entire way the whole release of Glavine was done, I thought it could have been handled better, but I can't argue with them doing it because I did not think they should have signed him again in the first place. Nostalgia only gets you so far.
This doesn't stop Furman from not liking this move either. I wish the Atlanta Braves had let Furman Bisher choose the entire roster this year and then allow the team to go 51-111 with 15 players on the DL and Furman asleep by the 4th inning in his favorite rocking chair. You know what, he should just be the Commissioner of MLB. That would be interesting as well.
Well, they led him to the altar, but they couldn’t get him to say, “I do.” Speaking here of the “Tom Glavine affair,” which is not going away, and which the Braves will have plastered across their dossier for time to come.
The way it was handled was pretty poor but this move should have been made months ago when the Braves should have never signed him in the first place. There were zero other teams willing to offer him a contract this offseason. He had no other firm offers, but he gets a couple million from the Braves (he had already netted $1 million of that before he got released) this year, after getting $8 million for the worst year of his career last year. I just don't get why any team would owe a player more than an opportunity in a similar situation somewhere else.
Coming on the heels of the indifferent dealing with John Smoltz — who tired of waiting for a commitment — we now have become witness to the end of an era:
I think I am growing to hate Furman Bisher. Smoltz got $5 million guaranteed from the Red Sox and was only offered $2 million guaranteed from the Braves. It was about money, don't let my favorite Braves player ever tell you any different through his whining.
If they were going to release him, then why this agonizing process of rehabilitation tests at Gwinnett and Rome?
This is my only problem with this decision. How it was handled.
Then someone mentioned the speed readings that had been reported. “They were not accurate,” Wren said, “just ball-park figures.”
Noooooooooo...ball parks would not inflate pitch speeds. They would never do that.
A million dollars is a pittance for this club with an extended salary cap this season. They poured out millions to sign Derek Lowe, Kenshin Kawakami and Javier Vazquez.
Stupid foreigners! Taking the money of hard working Americans to play baseball and now they are taking the jobs of white American born players. Something has to be done immediately. Furman probably thinks we should bomb Japan again.
Surely another million wouldn’t have disturbed their budget, but deep down inside, you had to feel that it was a matter of, “is it worth for a 43-year-old pitcher coming back from surgery?”
No. Not when you compare it to bringing up a pitcher literally half of his age who has incredible minor league numbers. It's actually a pretty easy decision. Put a 43 year old guy on the mound who has a ceiling of 6 strong innings and a 4.00 ERA or call up a pitcher that struck out better than a batter an inning in the minor leagues and costs less money. It's not a hard decision.
For one who has won 244 games for you, yes. And for one who has been a reputable citizen, and deserves the courtesy of ending his career here, yes.
Again, Furman misses some facts. The Braves offered to let him retire, he declined to do that, so he chose not to end his career here. It wasn't a completely one way street. You also don't live in the past and expect to win here in the present and the future. No team should keep a player because of what he did for that team in the past.
They paid him $8 million last year to pitch horribly and be injured. They owe him nothing now, though the release could have been done with more grace, but it wasn't.
Details of why he left for the Mets have never been made clear,
They offered a third year and more money. I just made the details clear. You're welcome.
Who did the scouting? Who came to these decisions?
Probably the same guys who put together the Camelot you were just talking so wonderfully about and were also responsible for the glory days that you always speak so fondly of.
Why can't sportswriters get over the past and just accept that things change? There is no loyalty from teams and players now. It's an unfortunate part of the game. Actually, the Braves showed loyalty last year by signing Smoltz and Glavine for another year in the neighborhood of $22 million for both of them and that didn't turn out well...that may be the reason there is no loyalty now in baseball because many times loyalty means a team or player gets screwed over.
Here are three opposing articles from Mark Bradley, if you care to read them. No good exit strategy in these situations. Ripping Glavine. Sort of ripping Smoltz.
Thanks for reading this blog guys and girls (are there any?) I enjoy writing here (though I miss J.S. to help carry the load a little).
I think the Lakers are going to take Game 2 tonight.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
7 comments Furman Bisher Struggles Acclimating to the 1990's...Unfortunately It Is Currently 2009
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if your grandfather was a sports columnist and absolutely refused to stop writing once he hit the age of 90? Well wonder no more, I would like to think Furman Bisher of the AJC could be a decent representative of what type of article your grandfather would pen. Furman has had a long and distinguished career as a writer and notice I used the word "had" because he no longer is lighting up the typewriter with distinguished columns. Now we get mostly bitter, angry screeds against the world and columns that may as well begin, "back in my day," much like Fire Joe Morgan profiled and mocked a few years ago in one of my favorite posts by them. I respect what Furman did many years ago...but now he is just pushing his luck with my kindness. He is the reason I have the tag "picking on old people" and so is this column.
Once upon a time, as fairy tales usually begin, the Braves were a baseball team that was home-bred, carefully incubated in the farm system, and nurtured all the way up to the major league level.
Yes, I remember the days when your glove was just an empty milk carton and the ball was actually dried sweat (provided by your parent who worked 26 hours a day at a plant that provided American made products for only Americans) tied together with rubber bands that were stolen from the local office supply store. Back in those days, there was no free agency and this was before all these foreigners started infiltrating the game. These were the days when there were separate water fountains for every color of human being and violent and gross racial atrocities were being commited on American soil. Ah yes, those were the days.
Don't mess with our American game foreigners! Just because you can beat us consistently at the sport doesn't mean you are superior to us. We want white, home-bred players on every team to play baseball the way it was meant to be played...inferiorly.
There they won championships and pennants and played in the World Series, one of which they won.
1 out of 14 ain't so bad. I miss those days. Besides if pennants and World Series were so important to the Braves, how come they aren't on the scoreboard?
Then something began to change after the season of 2005, and the once-flourishing franchise has been groping ever since.
(Furman is shaking his fist violently at the keyboard and thinks to himself) "Fucking foreigners, always screwing up good stuff. Now they take our pennants away from us in the name of equality so some stupid Hispanic kid can hit or pitch a ball and mumble a bunch of words I can't understand. Go make me a t-shirt or grow my bananas you alien looking asshole."
(Then he thinks) "Now, how can I put that in a sentence?"
Now, the Braves’ “farm” system reaches from Venezuela to Japan.
First they take our car manufacturers, then Bobby Valentine, and now they are sending foreign spies---I mean players---over here to play the sport we invented and perfected...even though they can beat us? This wouldn't happen if parents still spanked their children.
Deals are made, faces change, and only this season have they reached deep into their jeans to play a hand in the free agent rat-race. A payroll that once was held around the $80-million level, by order of the McScrooge ownership, has now zoomed to about $97 million.
So let me get this straight...It's not all right to sign young players from other countries to build a baseball team, but signing the players after they have become more expensive is perfectly fine? I bet they spent all of this AMERICAN made money on foreigners didn't they? How can you let this happen Furman? Now we are outsourcing our baseball jobs to foreigners!
I actually have no idea why Furman is mad. Is sounds like he doesn't want the Braves to scout overseas and he doesn't want them to sign free agents (yet he calls the ownership "McScrooge")...I have no idea how expects any MLB to build a winning baseball team.
They even splurged $60 million on Derek Lowe, a 35-year-old they niftily lifted from the Dodgers.
Sounds like a Canadian name to me.
They traded for Javier Vazquez, an $11-million-a-year pitcher,
Furman doesn't recall playing baseball on the streets of North Carolina with a kid named Javier, so this is just another example of the Braves selling out and refusing to draft home-bred white guys for the team and relying on foreigners to contribute to the team.
(Actually, if any team in the major leagues drafts homegrown talent fairly well, it is the Braves. Brian McCann, Jeff Francouer, Blaine Boyer (traded early this year), Jason Heyward, Clint Sammons, and they pretty much draft from the state of Georgia it feels like. This makes Furman's complaints so much dumber in my mind.)
and then they really hit the high road. They invaded Japan.
That was the final straw for Furman. He knew he would have to write an article three months after this happened complaining about it. How dare the team try to improve the team and not use home grown talent! But of all places, Japan? That is where the shitty Magnavox television he bought in 1973 came from. He will never purchase from a Japanese company again, much less cheer for a Japanese person on HIS team.
The Braves should have called up several AA/AAA pitchers who were completely not ready for the major leagues and would fail miserably...but at least they could beam with pride that all of the shitty pitchers on the team came from the organization.
I know everyone is not a Braves fan so not everyone cares but the entire starting lineup outside of Casey Kotchman and Garrett Anderson are from the Braves farm system. The pitchers...not so much, but with pitching at such a premium that is to be expected sometimes. Of course that is still not sufficient for Furman.
Kenshin Kawakami is a good-natured 33-year-old pitcher, and I say that without understanding a word he says. When you hire one Japanese player, you get two Japanese.
I like this borderline completely ignorant comment. I have always thought that if a columnist throws in a little borderline ignorance or racism it really helps to prove his point. Hey, Furman called him "good natured" so it can't be a ignorant comment, right?
Any interview is sort of an Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy act.
Also referencing ventriloquist acts from the 1940's helps to prove your point in no particular way.
"You can believe and trust what I am saying, though my references and attitude aren't relevant, it has no bearing on the message not being relevant."
"Back in my day..."
When I asked him his view on American umpires, he said (so Daiche said), “the plate seems to be narrower over here,” and illustrated with his hands. It does give us a variety we haven’t had in a Braves clubhouse before.
"Those crazy foreigners with their bizarre hand motions and funny way of dressing. I am glad they serve as a way to amuse us Americans. They are like little puppets that we can put our hand up their ass and make them do what we want them to do."
The best prospect of a leadoff man was traded to Detroit, Josh Anderson, a .300 hitter with base-stealing speed and center field experience in the majors. Jordan Schafer probably would have benefited from at least a half-season in triple-A.
But Furman, the Braves traded originally for Josh Anderson to get him on the team and Jordan Schafer is home-bred, just like you want. That doesn't jive with your original premise that the Braves don't have enough homegrown talent.
What's that Furman? You are old and senile and potentially should have retired before either Josh Anderson or Jordan Schafer were born? You are tired of me picking on you? Quit writing incoherent, incredibly wrong columns then.
There’s a problem at second base right now, but I’m a believer in Kelly Johnson.
Well as long you, the baseball expert who thinks major league teams should not look overseas for baseball talent despite the fact they have proven they are better than the U.S. in international competition, believe in Kelly Johnson they should be fine.
They’re suffering the loss of Brian McCann, which nobody has figured into the equation.
Yes, no one has noticed that the All-Star catcher and cleanup hitter the Braves have has not played because he has been on the disabled list. Why didn't someone notice this earlier? Who the hell has been playing catcher? This could really affect the hitting ability of an already weak hitting team. Thank God Furman Bisher is here to point these things out.
Hold on a second, I wonder if anyone has thought that the Yankee lineup missing A-Rod has been figured into the equation?
(Tex is doing great in New York isn't he? He will pump those numbers back up when A-Rod returns. Remember he is the best second-best player in MLB.)
The Braves didn’t simply trade Adam Wainwright to get J.D. Drew for a year, but they also threw in Jason Marquis, now a $9.8-million starter in Colorado.
There is no way Jason Marquis is worth that much money. I can give you Adam Wainwright but Jason Marquis is not worth that money.
That deal will be haunting this team for years, as will the deal that sent five golden talents to Texas for a season of Mark Teixeira — who, as a Yankee, is currently hitting more than l00 points below Casey Kotchman. Three are on the Rangers roster and a fourth, pitcher Neftali Feliz, may be the best of them all, Bobby Cox said. Right now he’s tuning up on the Oklahoma City farm.
So Furman's argument that the Braves farm system has been depleted because there is no homegrown talent is backed up by an example where the team traded 5 prospects? Is that really the best example of how the Braves don't have any homegrown talent?
Gone are the rich old farm days that gave us John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Steve Avery, Mercker, Stanton, Wohlers, Lemke, Blauser, Chipper … a bumper crop of farm products
Smoltz was actually not a Braves farm product, he came from the Tigers.
The farm system currently has 2 of the top 5 prospects in all of minor league baseball and are ranked #6 by Baseball America as the strongest farm system in MLB. Just because the farm system is not being utilized for the pitching staff and it doesn't put out a large group of white men doesn't mean the system is not strong.
Once upon a time, as fairy tales usually begin, the Braves were a baseball team that was home-bred, carefully incubated in the farm system, and nurtured all the way up to the major league level.
Yes, I remember the days when your glove was just an empty milk carton and the ball was actually dried sweat (provided by your parent who worked 26 hours a day at a plant that provided American made products for only Americans) tied together with rubber bands that were stolen from the local office supply store. Back in those days, there was no free agency and this was before all these foreigners started infiltrating the game. These were the days when there were separate water fountains for every color of human being and violent and gross racial atrocities were being commited on American soil. Ah yes, those were the days.
Don't mess with our American game foreigners! Just because you can beat us consistently at the sport doesn't mean you are superior to us. We want white, home-bred players on every team to play baseball the way it was meant to be played...inferiorly.
There they won championships and pennants and played in the World Series, one of which they won.
1 out of 14 ain't so bad. I miss those days. Besides if pennants and World Series were so important to the Braves, how come they aren't on the scoreboard?
Then something began to change after the season of 2005, and the once-flourishing franchise has been groping ever since.
(Furman is shaking his fist violently at the keyboard and thinks to himself) "Fucking foreigners, always screwing up good stuff. Now they take our pennants away from us in the name of equality so some stupid Hispanic kid can hit or pitch a ball and mumble a bunch of words I can't understand. Go make me a t-shirt or grow my bananas you alien looking asshole."
(Then he thinks) "Now, how can I put that in a sentence?"
Now, the Braves’ “farm” system reaches from Venezuela to Japan.
First they take our car manufacturers, then Bobby Valentine, and now they are sending foreign spies---I mean players---over here to play the sport we invented and perfected...even though they can beat us? This wouldn't happen if parents still spanked their children.
Deals are made, faces change, and only this season have they reached deep into their jeans to play a hand in the free agent rat-race. A payroll that once was held around the $80-million level, by order of the McScrooge ownership, has now zoomed to about $97 million.
So let me get this straight...It's not all right to sign young players from other countries to build a baseball team, but signing the players after they have become more expensive is perfectly fine? I bet they spent all of this AMERICAN made money on foreigners didn't they? How can you let this happen Furman? Now we are outsourcing our baseball jobs to foreigners!
I actually have no idea why Furman is mad. Is sounds like he doesn't want the Braves to scout overseas and he doesn't want them to sign free agents (yet he calls the ownership "McScrooge")...I have no idea how expects any MLB to build a winning baseball team.
They even splurged $60 million on Derek Lowe, a 35-year-old they niftily lifted from the Dodgers.
Sounds like a Canadian name to me.
They traded for Javier Vazquez, an $11-million-a-year pitcher,
Furman doesn't recall playing baseball on the streets of North Carolina with a kid named Javier, so this is just another example of the Braves selling out and refusing to draft home-bred white guys for the team and relying on foreigners to contribute to the team.
(Actually, if any team in the major leagues drafts homegrown talent fairly well, it is the Braves. Brian McCann, Jeff Francouer, Blaine Boyer (traded early this year), Jason Heyward, Clint Sammons, and they pretty much draft from the state of Georgia it feels like. This makes Furman's complaints so much dumber in my mind.)
and then they really hit the high road. They invaded Japan.
That was the final straw for Furman. He knew he would have to write an article three months after this happened complaining about it. How dare the team try to improve the team and not use home grown talent! But of all places, Japan? That is where the shitty Magnavox television he bought in 1973 came from. He will never purchase from a Japanese company again, much less cheer for a Japanese person on HIS team.
The Braves should have called up several AA/AAA pitchers who were completely not ready for the major leagues and would fail miserably...but at least they could beam with pride that all of the shitty pitchers on the team came from the organization.
I know everyone is not a Braves fan so not everyone cares but the entire starting lineup outside of Casey Kotchman and Garrett Anderson are from the Braves farm system. The pitchers...not so much, but with pitching at such a premium that is to be expected sometimes. Of course that is still not sufficient for Furman.
Kenshin Kawakami is a good-natured 33-year-old pitcher, and I say that without understanding a word he says. When you hire one Japanese player, you get two Japanese.
I like this borderline completely ignorant comment. I have always thought that if a columnist throws in a little borderline ignorance or racism it really helps to prove his point. Hey, Furman called him "good natured" so it can't be a ignorant comment, right?
Any interview is sort of an Edgar Bergen-Charlie McCarthy act.
Also referencing ventriloquist acts from the 1940's helps to prove your point in no particular way.
"You can believe and trust what I am saying, though my references and attitude aren't relevant, it has no bearing on the message not being relevant."
"Back in my day..."
When I asked him his view on American umpires, he said (so Daiche said), “the plate seems to be narrower over here,” and illustrated with his hands. It does give us a variety we haven’t had in a Braves clubhouse before.
"Those crazy foreigners with their bizarre hand motions and funny way of dressing. I am glad they serve as a way to amuse us Americans. They are like little puppets that we can put our hand up their ass and make them do what we want them to do."
The best prospect of a leadoff man was traded to Detroit, Josh Anderson, a .300 hitter with base-stealing speed and center field experience in the majors. Jordan Schafer probably would have benefited from at least a half-season in triple-A.
But Furman, the Braves traded originally for Josh Anderson to get him on the team and Jordan Schafer is home-bred, just like you want. That doesn't jive with your original premise that the Braves don't have enough homegrown talent.
What's that Furman? You are old and senile and potentially should have retired before either Josh Anderson or Jordan Schafer were born? You are tired of me picking on you? Quit writing incoherent, incredibly wrong columns then.
There’s a problem at second base right now, but I’m a believer in Kelly Johnson.
Well as long you, the baseball expert who thinks major league teams should not look overseas for baseball talent despite the fact they have proven they are better than the U.S. in international competition, believe in Kelly Johnson they should be fine.
They’re suffering the loss of Brian McCann, which nobody has figured into the equation.
Yes, no one has noticed that the All-Star catcher and cleanup hitter the Braves have has not played because he has been on the disabled list. Why didn't someone notice this earlier? Who the hell has been playing catcher? This could really affect the hitting ability of an already weak hitting team. Thank God Furman Bisher is here to point these things out.
Hold on a second, I wonder if anyone has thought that the Yankee lineup missing A-Rod has been figured into the equation?
(Tex is doing great in New York isn't he? He will pump those numbers back up when A-Rod returns. Remember he is the best second-best player in MLB.)
The Braves didn’t simply trade Adam Wainwright to get J.D. Drew for a year, but they also threw in Jason Marquis, now a $9.8-million starter in Colorado.
There is no way Jason Marquis is worth that much money. I can give you Adam Wainwright but Jason Marquis is not worth that money.
That deal will be haunting this team for years, as will the deal that sent five golden talents to Texas for a season of Mark Teixeira — who, as a Yankee, is currently hitting more than l00 points below Casey Kotchman. Three are on the Rangers roster and a fourth, pitcher Neftali Feliz, may be the best of them all, Bobby Cox said. Right now he’s tuning up on the Oklahoma City farm.
So Furman's argument that the Braves farm system has been depleted because there is no homegrown talent is backed up by an example where the team traded 5 prospects? Is that really the best example of how the Braves don't have any homegrown talent?
Gone are the rich old farm days that gave us John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Steve Avery, Mercker, Stanton, Wohlers, Lemke, Blauser, Chipper … a bumper crop of farm products
Smoltz was actually not a Braves farm product, he came from the Tigers.
The farm system currently has 2 of the top 5 prospects in all of minor league baseball and are ranked #6 by Baseball America as the strongest farm system in MLB. Just because the farm system is not being utilized for the pitching staff and it doesn't put out a large group of white men doesn't mean the system is not strong.
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