Who's Sold on the Upton's??

Now that we are halfway through the first month of the season, I think there’s no better time to start asking the question, “Who’s sold on the Upton brothers?”

Coming into spring training, I’ll be honest, I didn’t like the signing of BJ or the trade for Justin. I felt the Braves gave BJ too much money and gave up way too much for Justin; Although some of this is biased since Prado was my favorite Braves player.  Kris Medlen, now you the man.

With all the information that came out stating Bourn was asking for too much money (somewhere around $70 million) and the Braves couldn’t afford him (ended up signing for $48 million with the Indians), I didn’t understand why they signed BJ for 5 years/ $75.25 million. And don’t even start with the Scott Boras talk. I know who he is and what he does with his clients; let’s keep this strictly about money and stats. Unless I was taught how to count wrong, isn’t 75 more than 70 and definitely more than 48? I know BJ is two years younger, but has 30 and 28 years old made a lot of difference to center-fielders in baseball? This isn’t a running back in the NFL we are talking about. If you want to go along with how they measure a pitchers career, check out the difference in innings. That’s staggering for a younger player.

Here are BJ and Bourns’ career stats:

Michael Bourn                                    BJ Upton

   8 seasons                                                         9 seasons

BA: .273                                                            BA: .254

OBP: .339                                                          OBP: .335

Hits: 835                                                           Hits: 917

2B: 129                                                            2B: 204

3B: 46                                                              3B: 20

HR: 24                                                               HR: 119

RBI: 217                                                             RBI: 449

R: 466                                                                 R: 543

SB: 277                                                             SB: 235

BB: 298                                                              BB: 434

K: 688                                                                 K: 1,034

Innings: 6,652.0                                                      Innings: 7,130.2

Now for Justin, what he is doing for the Braves right now is insane and who doesn’t love it, but we all know baseball is 162 games and it will not stay like this all season. We can hope though, right? Maybe for an 11 game run in the playoffs? He is going to slump and hit somewhere near .270 and at some point this season he will have terrible games and terrible at-bats where you won’t even recognize him at the plate.

Yes, we needed a third baseman to replace the great #10, but was Prado a necessary sacrifice? When was the last time you’ve seen a player willing to play any position, hit in any spot in the lineup, and be great in the clubhouse? Did you ever hear about Prado not hustling to first base and being pulled out of a game by Bobby or Fredi, not trying hard enough for a fly ball or even criticizing his ownership for not adding enough to his team to win? Let me answer that for you. NO, but other people mentioned in my rant were. All he did everyday was work his butt off to give the Braves a fighting chance at the playoffs.

Prado has gone above and beyond for the Braves since his call up in 2006. He deserves to get paid, not sent to the Diamondbacks like a homeless person being turned away from the soup kitchen. Plus didn’t Chipper’s retirement open up millions of dollars to share the wealth?

My biggest complaint, at the time, about these acquisitions was the saying, “The Upton’s add power from the right side in a left-handed heavy lineup.” By all means they do and clearly they have (Justin with 7 HR’s through 12 games), but wasn’t the signing of Dan Uggla after the 2010 season supposed to take care of that? They paid this “power hitting righty” $62 million for 5 years and what has his production looked like? Well here let me show you:

Dan Uggla’s two worst seasons (‘07 & ‘09) in Florida/ Dan Uggla in Atlanta

‘07 & ‘09 seasons combined                vs.                Two Seasons in Atlanta

                                 BA: .244                                                                       BA: .227

                                 OBP: .340                                                                  OBP:   .330

                                 SLG: .469                                                                   SLG: .418

                                  H: 292                                                                          H: 255

                                 RBI: 178                                                                      RBI: 160

                                  R: 197                                                                          R: 174

                                 HR: 62                                                                          HR: 55

                                 BB: 160                                                                        BB: 156

                                  K: 317                                                                          K: 324

So what I’m trying to say is the Braves paid for a 30 HR per year average hitter, on his down years, mind you, and what we got in return is a player whose stats look like that of a 40 year old at the tail end of a mediocre career.

While I love the Braves ownership group spending money like I’ve never seen before, I would like to see more results and higher averages. If the Braves were dead set on acquiring the Upton brothers, I feel something should have been done with Uggla. I know his trade value wasn’t/ isn’t high. Hell, there probably wasn’t any. However, I am hoping that these brothers will light a fire under ole Danny boy’s ass and he will realize he needs to either step up or get out of the way.

Granted, after all this, I am slowly coming around to the Upton’s. I am just not trying to get wrapped up in this amazing start. As the saying goes, “Every team in baseball will win and lose 60 games; it is the other 40 that decide the outcome of your season.” Both brothers are playing well and hopefully will help Heyward lead Atlanta through a great run, including the playoffs, ultimately culminating in a World Series.

References:

All Statistical information was researched and acquired from http://www.baseball-reference.com/

Some numbers were calculated on a good old fashioned calculator.