where have you gone, jordan schafer?


sports, man. *sigh

every so many years, a player comes along (i am looking at you, tim hudson, lebron, mike vick, ichiro, julio jones, jason heyward) that completely captures my imagination.

it's not prerequisite for said player to play on one of my favorite teams. obviously, it helps that i am connected with and to the braves and alabama football on a more intimate level than most other squads, but, as you can see from my list above, percentages are just as good that my man-interest will come from other places.

jordan schafer was different than most on my list, because he wasn't nearly as recognizable (if recognizable at all) to the casual fan of his sport. i caught wind of schafer about four years ago after baseball prospectus named him as the top prospect in the braves organization. so, for sure, he wasn't a diamond in the rough, but he was, at the very least, a diamond in the minor leagues, and no one has time to care about minor league baseball.

i tracked schafer over the course of 2008 at random intervals, just making sure he was progressing through the system as he was projected. sure enough, he was. he performed well enough in 2008 to get an invite to the braves spring training camp in march of 2009. the trip to camp was meant as nothing more as an introduction to "the show", expectations being that schafer would get 25-50 at-bats and they'd then send him down to triple-a to start the season. of course, a funny thing happened.

jordan schafer set the grapefruit league on fire. for the better part of the month long exhibition season, his batting average hovered just under .400. his obp was close to an unthinkable .500. after two weeks, he was playing on the "a" team of the split squads so the braves brass could see how he would perform against better pitchers. his average didn't dip. he kept getting two hits a game. every game. stole a base every other day. stories started circulating that he might be the defensive heir apparent to andruw jones (arguably the best defensive center fielder of the last 25 years). he had speed to burn. a massive arm. judged the ball well off bats and got great jumps.

as the spring neared conclusion, bobby cox had no choice. consensus was that schafer was not only the best centerfielder in spring, but put on the best display of tools and talent of any player on the team (remember, the team then and now includes two future hall of famers in chipper and mccann). with a week left, jordan schafer was named the opening day starter for the atlanta braves in centerfield. it was incredible.

i was ecstatic. baseball is littered with stories of can't miss prospects that miss. baseball is just so hard. too many things are required of an every day player to master to even make it into the big leagues, much less stay there, much less thrive there, much less be an all-star, much less be an all-timer. you can have all the tools in the world and just not get it. you can get nailed in the head with 90 mph fastball and never have the mental strength to get back in the box. you can get stuck behind a guy in your own system and waste prime years in places like birmingham or durham or pawtucket (glorious, right?). get nicked up and lose part of your timing that came natural for the first 20 years of your life and the player is never the same. so many things that can and do go wrong. obviously, the same logic can be applied to any of the professional sports leagues in this country, but the sport of baseball, especially hitting a baseball, is so much muscle memory and repetition and strategy and experience that i don't know if it's not the toughest nut to crack to become a star.

make no mistake, jordan was no star. not yet. but he had made it through the minors and into the majors with a quickness.

what happened next is documented aplenty here. first major league at-bat? home run. team wins. kevin o'kelley loses his mind. four games in, schafer hurts his wrist. bobby cox loses his mind. rather than letting his young gun heal, he keeps trotting him out there. schafer strikes out. a fucking ton. kevin o'kelley gets cancer. schafer gets sent down. the cosmos connects kevin o'kelley's and jordan schafer's redemption and recovery stories together with a string i created in my own imagination.

yada, yada, yada, (two years later) schafer gets flipping traded for a light-hitting centerfielder who steals bases (like schafer), who bats left-handed (like schafer), who covers a lot of ground in center (like schafer), who has a cannon for a right arm (WAIT A SECOND, no he doesn't. he doesn't have near the arm schafer has). the light-hitting centerfielder is considered an "upgrade" from schafer even though advanced metrics that i've seen only value the new guy worth one, MAYBE two wins above the schafer he's replacing.

schafer is sent to die in houston. given up on by the organization that once was breeding him to be a star.

other than the cancer/redemption thing, i don't know, really, why i hitched my wagon to jordan schafer the way that i did. i loved watching him play. i lived and died with every one of his at-bats. truth be told, i think it's more fun to watch sports when you are especially invested in one particular player, a "sun" for your fandom to orbit. such was the case with julio and alabama. i love alabama football, but this year has a totally different feel for me. i know that i'll root for alabama to win every game, but i also know that i don't have "that guy" that i've been tracking since he was a junior in high school who is now "my guy" that i'll root hardest for as he takes the field this fall. "that guy" who was going to be "my guy" ripped up his knee before practice officially started. i haven't recovered yet (rip, dee hart. you're likely never to be the same). jordan was my braves "sun". i tried making the heyward/julio thing work, but it turns out that heyward kind of sucks. he may still be great one day, but my fairweather fandom has turned away from him. i am okay with him not being in the line-up if it gives the braves a better chance to win. i never felt that way about schafer.

schafer being in houston now won't make me an astros fan. it'll just make me sad. i can't watch the astros every day unless i pay for the extra innings package. i am not going to pay for the extra innings package.

what it does is presses the reset button on my love for the braves in a way that'll take a couple years and a few young prospects that i can make into something bigger than they are to get back.

in the meantime, i'll keep being really mean towards derek lowe on twitter in the hopes that i can #reversejinx him into being a relevant pitcher again. i'll keep putting chipper in my fantasy line-up and cutting myself with tiny razors every time it's the wrong move. i'll keep telling everyone that will listen that jv and "billy" kimbrel are the best back-end in baseball. even though i jumped off his boat two months ago, i'll keep pointing back to my prediction that uggla was going to be an all-star, which means i totally "believed" in him all along. i'll keep hoping the phillies lose every game even though they never lose any games, because that's what a braves fan does. wish injuries and ill-will upon the phillies.

where were you when you heard about jordan schafer being traded? the answer to that question will stick with me every bit as much as "where were you when you heard about the first plane hitting the tower?" (draw your own conclusions on what you think that says about how worthless a human being i am). in an ironic kick to my crooked teeth, i was in the sanctuary during sunday morning worship, a place i had told myself couldn't get any worse. burn. (i kid because i love!)  two friends texted me that twitter was blowing up with the news. when i saw it was all true, i shared it with my pew. they frowned to mirror my frown. they tried to pick me up. "new guy" will be great, they said.

aw, shucks. maybe he will.

but he won't be jordan schafer. when the cosmos connected our narratives (in my head) in the summer of 2009, i never imagined that my letting go of my daily fear of dying would also mean i would have to give up my jordan. the universe has a cruel, cruel sense of closure. i wish i saw it coming. maybe it wouldn't have hurt so badly.

to jordan schafer, thanks for being there. i made you out to be more than a ballplayer.

you were never more than a ballplayer.

sonuva.

being julio heyward
(part nine)


well, this is disappointing and really kind of fascinating all at the same time. the thumb's been hurt since may. bobby cox keeps running him out there because "i love seeing him play". his numbers are dreadful in the month of june because, as heyward has said himself, he can't keep his thumb on his bat. through it all, though, he made such a mammoth impact on the world of major league baseball in april and may that he's going to be voted into the all-star starting line-up by the fans...

...and he's not going to play. why? because cox and the braves have mishandled another injury just like they mishandled jordan's last year. and now, his stint on the DL is going to rub right up against the all-star break. and yet, he is so freaking mature, even though he would be eligible to play, he's putting his team first and saying he isn't going to "rehab" in an all-star game at-bat or two.

bobby cox, i wish i had the words..., and i do, but i've gotta go work. i dislike you so much.

but i love jason heyward.

where have you gone, ...?
(man, the braves are terrible right now)

the next big thing?


about a month ago, i teased a forthcoming series of posts that would feature the potential future face of atlanta braves baseball, a young player by the name of jason (julio...it's not his real nickname, but it will be mine) heyward.

what i didn't realize at the time, though, was that i was already behind the curve. unlike with julio version 1.0, i wasn't one of the first on the bandwagon. about a week after mentioning julio heyward on HACAM, both ESPN and SI released their respective "top prospects in the game" list. who was number one on both? heyward. bobby cox has said that the sound the ball makes off of heyward's bat sounds a lot like it did off the bat of a pretty good player in his own right, one mr. hank aaron. my brother, ken, and i were e-mailing back and forth about heyward yesterday and he told me the atlanta media had dubbed him a wicked hybrid of ryan howard and willie mays.

suffice it to say, i will not be shedding any light on some diamond in the rough when it comes to julio heyward. the cat is already out of the bag. up until his last game on the 20th, he had reached base in his first 9 spring games. even with an 0-fer on saturday, he's batting .387 through ten games with an OPS of over 1.100. no one has come out and said he's locked up the starting job in right just yet (in much the same way my boy jordan schafer was left to wonder last spring if he had nailed down centerfield 'til the week of opening day), but the depth chart on the braves website leaves us a not-so-subtle hint that he's in control of his own destiny at this point.

so, what does this all mean?

well, really, nothing yet. as "baseball people" are quick to remind everyone that will listen, spring training doesn't mean anything. those same baseball people will try and tell you sometime mid-summer that games in april and may don't mean nearly as much as they do in august and september. as i have noted here a couple times before, that is the most retarded thing any "baseball person" will ever say in their whole baseball life.

nevertheless, making the team or starting on opening day does not change the world. we have to look no further back than opening night, 2009. schafer pounded a home run in his first at-bat of the season. the braves pound the would-be national league pennant winners. all was merry and bright for exactly two more days. having started the season 2-0 and up 8 runs with three innings to play for a season-opening sweep, schafer hurts himself and the braves bullpen gives up the game. bobby cox kept sending schafer out hurt, effectively ending his season before it even began. he mangled the bullpen more often than not. the braves brought up tommy hanson a month too late. they had a pretty good season, but still finished a few games out of the wild card.

i say all that to say this. jason heyward could be the next dale murphy or he could be the next hank aaron or the next chipper jones or the next whatever great brave you want to name or the combination of all of them, and bobby cox could still find a way to screw it up.

but one of the things that we, and by "we" i mean "i", will follow this baseball season is this. what if julio heyward can somehow manage to change the culture of the braves in the same way that julio jones changed the culture of alabama football just by signing his letter of intent?

when julio made it onto youtube by beating first-team all-sec safety rashad johnson deep in one of his first practices, he announced without having to say a word (not that he could since saban won't let freshmen speak to the media) that something had turned for the positive.

in the same way, what if all these stories of heyward's mythical batting practice sessions translate to the field during the first month of the season? sure, mccann's great. tommy hanson could be great. chipper was great. but none of them are transcendent. none of them bring the casual fan out to the ballpark to see what all the fuss is about.

what if heyward did that? what if he raked for the first couple of weeks and casual atlanta fans starting coming out to the ballpark again? what if, for the first time in a decade, the casual fans added to the already there diehards created a real life homefield advantage. and what if that homefield advantage led to four or five more wins for the braves this season.

all other things being equal to last year (and even adding my darling timmy back into the mix), what if this was enough to get the braves back into the playoffs?

what if the braves matched up with the dodgers, cards or phillies in the playoffs and had a first three of hanson, jurrjens and hudson, maybe mixing in a little lowe in a seven game series??? holy shit. i'd take that against halladay, hamels and whomever. every day of the week, i would!

you see what i mean? what if the heyward effect could last longer than the schafer effect. bobby cox broke jordan and the schafer effect lasted three days. what if julio heyward could prove everybody right and change the course of franchise's fate?

no pressure, right?

but, you know what? there was never any more pressure put on any one athlete that i've ever followed closely than a young man named julio jones. the batshit crazy thing about his hype and his pressure is that he lived up to every bit of it. and thanks to him and saban, alabama went from also-ran to champ in two years.

it can be done.

i believe in jason (julio) heyward.

do you?

good grief.

the redemption of jordan schafer


it would make my world, MY WORLD, if jordan schafer batted .450 during the spring and forced matt diaz and stupid melky f. cabrera to the bench for opening day.

according to the linked story, it was the fourth game of the 2009 season that jordan hurt himself. game four! for two months, he was left to flail and fail by his manager that "all the players love" (yeah, i am sure schafer adores him) before finally being removed from the big leagues, demoted back into the obscurity of the minors to get himself "right". well, you can't get right if you can't get healthy, and schafer couldn't get right without surgery.

now healthy and swinging without pain, schafer will resume yet another climb back up the hill to the majors. he has more sheer talent in his rocket of a left arm than diaz and cabrera have combined.

here's hoping that schafer makes them remember why he was the "chosen one" long before julio heyward and here's hoping he never gives bobby cox any of the credit when he does.

johnny damon to the braves?


say it ain't so.

i guess it's baseball season now, huh? at least, we are getting close.

in time, you will start seeing this site taking a break from all the alabama hoopla and focus in on the braves. the primary reasons? there are four storylines that i will be following as a braves fairweather fan this year, and none of them have anything to do with melky cabrera. three of them have to do with "youth" and "the future" and "potential" and the same kind of hullabaloo that i gave you with 2008 bama recruiting class.

oh, shit. i can already see this is going to be annoying as hell.

maybe. but here is the thing. why is national signing day so wonderful for every school in the country? because no matter what anyone says, you can sculpt an argument around your school's recruiting class being the best and/or most efficient/effective in the history of college football and no one can truly disprove your claim. on signing day, it's ALL about potential. not one of the high school seniors has ever played a down in college, but you can take his grainy, youtube, high school highlight video and extrapolate it into a theory of why you are looking at the next herschel walker. people might tell you that you are wrong. people might say you are stupid. people might accuse you of indulging in too much of the crack rock, but what do they know? they haven't seen anything on the field that would disprove your "herschel walker theory", so you can sit on your couch satisfied with the thought that tomorrow will bring greater things as a result of this year's signing day haul. all that being said, i sincerely hope auburn's top five class ends up ringing in a new and improved era for their team. a college football season that marches towards an iron bowl with significant meaning for both teams is a better and more enjoyable college football season, in my opinion. auburn being good incites more faux "hate". auburn being good will bring more satisfaction when alabama kicks that ass. national signing day is great because it is ALL about potential.

same with spring training. you can think that the royals will suck in 2010. you can think the pirates may never win another game. and you may think that the red sox should be really good with their starting rotation that includes three potential number one guys. you can think a whole lot, but you can't prove shit, because every team is resting comfortably at 0-0.

i say that to say this. heading into spring training, i think there are four stories that will stir my salsa heading into april. i rank their importance, bottom to top.

4) the redemption of jordan schafer - i documented here on HACAM that i believe bobby cox ruined schafer last year. he was hurt early. still forced to trot out and work through his major league growing pains on the biggest stage and couldn't get his body and mind right after the first week of the season. i hate bobby cox for this, and i will always hate bobby cox for this. schafer may not be called up until september, but i will track him every step of the way and hope that he makes nate mcclouth expendable sooner rather than later.

3) is tommy hanson a number one starter? - he won't start opening day, but that's not the point. he scratched the surface of his potential after the braves waited too long to call him up last year. he'll be pitching, consistently, against the other team's second or third or maybe fourth best pitcher every time he takes the mound. he, in theory, should win those games, win eighteen all told and set himself up as the future of the braves rotation for years. we will see if that happens.

2) the return of my love - tim hudson will be back and pitching on opening day. stay safe, my dear. let me know if you need anything. ANYTHING.

1) is jason heyward julio jones? - we'll will get more into this soon. for those of you that follow this blog, though, and have any interest in the braves, you know what i am talking about here. more to come on the existential importance of jason heyward.

do note that not one of my storylines worries about the braves chances at winning the division. i would love it if it happened. but the braves didn't add roy halladay to an already stacked team. the phillies did. it's wild card or bust, in my mind, when setting a realistic goal for the season.

pitchers and catchers report soon.

roll braves.