Your unpopular baseball opinions

[California Creme Puffs]

Though most Cards/Braves/Dodgers/Red Sox/Phillies fans beg to differ, I think J.D. Drew was an underrated player. He had a career line of .278/.384/.489 with a 125 OPS+ (the same as Bernie Williams, Edwin Encarnacion, Ron Santo, Robinson Cano) and 44.9 career WAR (ahead of Nomar, Delgado, Matt Holliday, Gil Hodges (who gets a lot of HOF love) and Adrian Gonzalez. It's not unfair to criticize his durability (or lack thereof), he had only 6153 plate appearances and only had 5 seasons with 500+ PA. He also drew comparisons to Mickey Mantle, which is just an unfair standard for any player to live up to. Overall, I think he was a very good player who showed flashes of Hall of Fame ability (2001 and 2004) but had trouble doing it over a full season.

J.D. Drew played for the Braves?????

Also, fuck J.D. Drew.

 

[Chewbaccer]

The 1994 Montreal Expos say "tiens ma bière"

Another unpopular opinion of mine:

Braves were gonna catch the Expos and win the East. Also, 1994 would have been the first season of the wildcard era, and if the Braves didn't catch the Expos, they were still a virtual lock for a playoff spot.

 

[Chewbaccer]

J.D. Drew played for the Braves?????

Also, fuck J.D. Drew.

JD Drew's best season of his career was with the Braves, but it was just one season, and we traded Adam Wainwright for him.

 

[California Creme Puffs]

JD Drew's best season of his career was with the Braves, but it was just one season, and we traded Adam Wainwright for him.

I looked up his career stat line after reading @navamind's post. It looked like '04 was his best season in baseball, and I was shocked. I started really following baseball/the Phils in '06, so I completely missed that. Really, all I remember of Drew (in terms of actually seeing him play) is his time with the Red Sox. There was an interleague series in June or July of '08 where he was on a fucking tear and just killed us at CBP. I'm pretty sure we got swept.

Also, Adam Wainwright was in the Braves' farm system??????

 

[Chewbaccer]

I looked up his career stat line after reading @navamind's post. It looked like '04 was his best season in baseball, and I was shocked. I started really following baseball/the Phils in '06, so I completely missed that. Really, all I remember of Drew (in terms of actually seeing him play) is his time with the Red Sox. There was an interleague series in June or July of '08 where he was on a fucking tear and just killed us at CBP. I'm pretty sure we got swept.

Also, Adam Wainwright was in the Braves' farm system??????

We probably traded away a chance to be a real WS contender in the early 2010's with the JD Drew and Mark Teixeira trades.

2010/2011 rotation could have looked something like:

1. Adam Wainwright
2. Tim Hudson
3. Matt Harrison
4. Jair Jurrjens
5. Tommy Hanson

Then have Neftali Feliz coming out of the bullpen, and Elvis Andrus at short. Could have been something for a few years there.

 

[California Creme Puffs]

We probably traded away a chance to be a real WS contender in the early 2010's with the JD Drew and Mark Teixeira trades.

2010/2011 rotation could have looked something like:

1. Adam Wainwright
2. Tim Hudson
3. Matt Harrison
4. Jair Jurrjens
5. Tommy Hanson

Then have Neftali Feliz coming out of the bullpen, and Elvis Andrus at short. Could have been something for a few years there.

Damn, that would have been a great rotation. As it was, JJ was your number 1 for a lot of years, right? I guess you could argue Tim Hudson was the number one instead, but I thought Jurrjens was the better pitcher by that time (without looking it up).

As it stands, this is how 2011 went down for the Bravos (please don't post the 2011 NLDS results between the Phils and Cardinals):

 

[Chewbaccer]

Damn, that would have been a great rotation. As it was, JJ was your number 1 for a lot of years, right? I guess you could argue Tim Hudson was the number one instead, but I thought Jurrjens was the better pitcher by that time (without looking it up).

As it stands, this is how 2011 went down for the Bravos (please don't post the 2011 NLDS results between the Phils and Cardinals):

JJ had about a 3 year stretch where he was arguably our number 1, but at no point was he an ace, other than possibly 2009(though, Javier Vazquez was probably our ace that season, and was really, probably our best rotation since Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz at that point, but our offense was anemic, and bullpen was mediocre so we had to settle for 86 wins and no playoffs)

 

[navamind]

I looked up his career stat line after reading @navamind's post. It looked like '04 was his best season in baseball, and I was shocked. I started really following baseball/the Phils in '06, so I completely missed that. Really, all I remember of Drew (in terms of actually seeing him play) is his time with the Red Sox. There was an interleague series in June or July of '08 where he was on a fucking tear and just killed us at CBP. I'm pretty sure we got swept.

Also, Adam Wainwright was in the Braves' farm system??????

Probably June. Drew had an insane June in 2008 where he OPS'd over 1.200, and that was right around the time Ortiz had hit the DL. Drew had a solid 2007 (capped off with the 2007 ALCS grand slam), but he hit very well in 2008 (though he missed a good chunk of the season) and had a very good 2009 season. Was solid in 2010 and was washed up in 2011.

EDIT: He hit .337/.462/.848 with 12 home runs and 27 RBIs in June. Was 5-12 with 2 home runs against the Phillies.

 

[navamind]

Yeah I think he'll end up being both overrated and underrated. Some casual fans will overrate him because of the Hit King status and stuff. But some younger fans that focus on stats and never saw him play will probably underrate him if they just look at his OPS or whatever. He was never the best player (definitely not the most talented) on any of the teams he played on but he was good at winning.
Not really a good defensive player but always good enough that if you had someone you needed to get in the lineup he could switch positions at any time to make the team better. And I don't remember him ever complaining about it and it never seemed to affect his hitting.

On those big red machine teams he was in his mid 30's and they just switched him from the outfield to third base (I guess because Griffey and Foster were coming into their own) and he never missed a beat.

Forget about all the gambling and other bs about him, just as a baseball player he's one of those guys where you probably both admire him and hate him. Unless he goes to your team then the hate goes to "thank God this guy is on my team instead of the guys we're playing".

Yep, he's in that same territory as Kevin Youkilis/Paul O'Neill/Dustin Pedroia.

 

[California Creme Puffs]

EDIT: He hit .337/.462/.848 with 12 home runs and 27 RBIs in June. Was 5-12 with 2 home runs against the Phillies.

Yep.

Fuck 'em.