if the Elias rankings include defense, but offensively, he’s been easily one of the most consistent and most productive middle infielders in the league. 7th best OPS this year among 2Bs with 400 or more ABs.

lucky then.

It’s nice to know Eric spells team with an “i”. What a jerk. Gosh, I wonder if it’s okay to boo him now?

Thanks for posting this TAP. Truth be told, I was never sold on his hype anyways and don’t really need another reason to dislike him.

We’ll have our OWN parallel BBQ at the same time and we won’t invite EB. In fact, we’ll say mean things about him.

thinking the same thing

Manny wanted days off and various perks. Byrnes desperately wants to play. To compare their “demands”, or entrenched stances against management, is as silly as comparing their abilities.

This is the ‘face of the franchise’ basically coming out and saying, explicitly, that he doesn’t give a damn about what might be best for the franchise.

Gee, I missed that part. What I hear is a proud, frustrated athlete who’s a) convinced he’s the club’s best option in left field, b) gonna fight like hell to play and make good on his contract, and c) like most players, prefers not to be traded.

Eric’s problem is he’s got a big mouth, which is alternately endearing and problematic. The CoJack phone call reflects that and their close relationship. EB and Hudson have sparred publicly about their respective abilities for years, in a similarly jocular way.

I agree w/ foulpole, this particular incident isnt a big deal, but Eric’s mouth becomes more problematic when he rags on teammates competing for the same position(CJ), and/or when a player is genuinely struggling(Q). Then the “joke” isnt as funny. For example, would Eric take it in stride had a teammate ragged on his current performance? Veteran or not, Eric’s guilty of a double standard here – one he’ll be able to charm his way out of for only so long.

…a player pitted irrevocably against management

Your scenario of a healthy, expensive EB languishing on the bench is hardly in mgmt’s interests either, and I dont see that kind of war playing out. Eric will waive his NTC. As EB noted, he paid a price for it, and if the Dbacks dont want him to play (highly speculative at this point), the club will pay a price for him to waive it. Standard business.

I don’t believe that CJ is the 3rd best LF in baseball. This is simply a snapshot in time. CJ played 659 innings in LF, which is roughly half a season. Think of it in terms of batting average. It’s certainly possible for a .270 hitter to hit .300 over the first half of the season, and then hit .240 over the second half. Given a full season in LF, I think you would certainly see a regression to the mean with CJ’s numbers in LF. They may not regress all the way back to league average within a single season, but over time, they probably would.

From WATCHING him, he clearly got more comfortable with playing time. He was getting good jumps and good reads on balls. He was doing a good job of going back on balls over his head. He wasn’t getting fooled by sinking liners and was taking the proper routes to cut balls off in the gaps.

The first couple of weeks his throwing looked suspect, and in fact I commented on that, but then with better footwork on his throws, that improved too. He ended up tied for second on the team with 5 OF Asst in just half a season of PT. (Upton had 6, Young had 5)

Byrnes is a better defensive outfielder when fully healthy. I don’t think anyone should dispute that. But he’s NOT fully healthy, and at age 33 with Hamstring history now, he’s not likely to ever be as good as his career year of 2007.

Meanwhile, his career OBP is .325 vs. CJ’s career OBP of .367

So there are no easy decisions here. Byrnes is the guy they paid, and he did have two pretty good seasons in 2006-2007, (although not as good as some might suggest. ;) . We’ll have to see what shakes out going forward. One thing we learned this year is you can’t have too much depth. All it took was one injury for Chris Burke to get regular playing time. A 3 way platoon between 1b-LF for Tracy/Jackson/Byrnes might be the best way to go for 2009, with Byrnes spelling Young and Upton as well.

for developing young players? I would hope for a coaching staff which was forceful enough to make young players at least try some adjustments.

Here’s how we’ve done (in terms of OPS) since Schu joined the team in 2003:

2008 .742 (19th)
2007 .734 (26th)
2006 .755 (20th)
2005 .754 (13th)
2004 .703 (30th)
2003 .746 (18th)

Only once in his 6 years with the D-Backs have we even cracked the upper half of MLB. In his second season we even finished dead last. Why is this guy still working here?

I know that not every team can finish in the top half of MLB every year. But six years of below average performance should be incentive to make a change.

You seem inclined to question Rick Schu or Bob Melvin or Eric Byrnes’ radio show. Here’s who I’d question.

I think we’re getting close to the reason why I’m reluctant to discuss things with you. If you insist on glibly dismissing opposing viewpoints, then we won’t have many more discussions. Which’d be a shame. You have a lot of interesting things to say, but you cheapen your responses when you assume that disagreement equals stupidity.