For twenty years, Chipper Jones played third base for the Atlanta Braves. With him at the helm, they won a World Series, attended two others, stayed a solid team throughout, and held a standard as a consistently strong roster with great pitching, home run hitters, and fielding beyond compare. In 2012, Jones finally hung up his spikes, on a definite route to Cooperstown. He left the keys to Turner Field in the hand of a successor...a first baseman, named Freddie Freeman.
In Jones' absence, Freeman figured things would be exactly the same as they were when he resided over Atlanta. He was quite mistaken.
Since 2012, the Braves have won a single division title...and since then, they've been sinking deeper and deeper into the earth, giving up more and more star players, and signing more and more aging stars to try and take their places. And Freddie Freeman, despite being excellent at the game, despite being the best in average and homers every year...cannot...frigging...leave.
I feel bad for him, because if he hadn't had 'anchor of the team' status from the second Chipper left, he'd be tending a corner in San Francisco or something, someplace where there's titles. But he just can't seem to get out, mostly because of the contract, but also probably because of some blood pact he signed with Chipper and Bobby Cox that we don't know about.
The Braves are doing slightly better than last year, but...I mean, honestly, they could have set the whole stadium on fire and done better than last year. People are sort of hitting, Ender Inciarte's having another nice season, Julio Teheran's doing what he usually does, and Freeman, as usual, is unstoppable. But it's kind of all-for-naught, knowing that there's gonna be an outcome in the NL East that won't really include them.
At this point, Freddie Freeman should keep doing what he's doing. Not sure it'll get him anywhere but Atlanta, but he's at least still among the best.
Coming Tonight: Surprisingly well-hitting outfielder for a dilapidated Chicago team.
No comments:
Post a Comment