A Big Deal

Andruw Jones for Tim Lincecum



Surprise, surprise, the blog lives on.

Now I report on my NL-only team and it's latest happenings.

We Have won a game and are now sort of out of the cellar. The team is tied for last place, though it is 7th out of ten teams in overall points scored.

The Fearsome Foursome remains. For the sake of refreshing all of our memories, it is

Cole Hamels
Ian Snell
Aaron Harang
Chris R. Young

and I have two semi-established closers

Kevin Gregg and Dan Wheeler

plus three other starting pitchers

Micah Owings
Jon Lieber
Brad Thompson

and one other relief pitcher

Angel Guzman

to compete for my sevnth and final pitching spot each week.

So why oh why would I do This?

Andruw Jones (pick #11 overall in the draft) for Tim Lincecum (undrafted in the draft)

A walk on the wild side, a risk, dumb fanmanship. All good reasons.

But no. I did it because I think Andruw Jones will get hurt.

Take a look at his picture above. If you have seen him swing recently, feel free to skip ahead in the post. Please, be my guest.

Otherwais, check out the pic. Tell me that is a good way to swing, just tell me that. You're wrong. Andruw Jones is desperate to hit the ball out of the park is what's happening.

I'm sure you've herd he's in a contract year. That's one of the main reasons I got him.

I started to get a little concerned a few weeks ago (maybe a month or so actually) when I tuned into the Braves game on TBS to hear the broadcasters talking about Andrew's 30th birthday. They said they asked him what it felt like to be thirty, and basically his response led me to believe that he felt like his best days were behind him. Not exactly the sort of thing a guy in his contract year is supposed to say. Maybe he was drunk.

So anybody who has Ben Following his stats this year knows that his BA is even below his career average of .266

BTW, Jones has only eclipsed that total twice four times in 12 major league seasons. He did three times between 1998-2000, then again in 2003, when he hit .277 for the whole season. The explanation for the high average (what a relative term!) is that he hit .303 in the year 2000.

Otherwise he has never sustained a BA above .277 for an entire season.

But of course I got him for the home runs. Of which he has eight. If he was to hit sixty, as some have suggested, then he would have twenty by now. And I saw one of his homeruns over the weekend. It barely cleared the fence.

Now I could get all into trajectory here and explain how his new swing is going to mostly result in flyouts, okay essentially I have just done that. Basically, line drives usually turn into homeruns when the hitter gets the bat just slightly under the ball and cranks it. What Andruw Jones is trying to do with this new swing is to hit fly balls *hoping* that they will leave the yard. That of course is not the *proper* way to hit gopher balls. It's like Jones just read Moneyball and realized that he is not a good singles hitter, therefore he must try to hit as many homeruns as possible, thus the change in his swing. What Jones hasn't realized yet is that he's retadred. Sucks for the Braves. I liked em better when they had Maddux and Glavine anyway.

It's really too bad, cause the Braves have gotten better, what with the comeuppance of Kelly Johnson, Willie Harris, Kyle Davies and friends.

Oh yeah, I forgot (almost) to explain why I think Jones will get hurt. Well if you still want to know, then ask me. I'm going to bed.