Fredi Gonzalez says Braves’ autopsy over — he’s moving on
It took a while for Fredi Gonzalez to let go of last season's collapse. (Curtis Compton/AJC)
Four months after the last game, the last loss, the 20th loss in 30 games, it still doesn’t make sense. Players get hurt. Players slump. But does one get one’s mind around the worst collapse in franchise history and one of the worst ever in sports?
“You go over it in your mind a million times. You ask yourself, ‘Is there something I could have done better?’” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “After a while, it drives you crazy. This is really the first time I’ve talked about this, although I’m sure I’ll be asked 200 times at spring training. But we tried things. We had meetings. We had meetings for everything. We had meetings to decide about meetings. After a while it’s like, ‘How many times can I perform an autopsy?’”
Four months after the last game, the last loss, the spiral that crushed a team and its fan base, Gonzalez is going to struggle to convince anybody that he’s really over it. But he knows the calendar gives him no choice. The Braves open their annual prespring pitching camp Monday at Turner Field. They head to Florida in a few weeks. Before the first full-squad workout, players can expect to hear a positive message from Gonzalez — not about how they let a playoff berth slip away, but rather how they dealt with the aftermath.
For at least one month after the season, Gonzalez tried to avoid all media references to the Braves’ late-season drain-circling. But he was curious what was being said by his players, so he asked one of the team’s public-relations people to sort through articles. He was looking for player quotes that conveyed some sort of fractured clubhouse. There weren’t any.
“One thing I’m proud of is that nobody on this team did any finger-pointing,” he said. “There were no quotes about it being this guy’s fault, that guy’s fault. We all took ownership of what happened. That tells you a lot about these guys. You don’t see that in sports all the time. Look at what happened to the Jets. Oh my goodness — they lost two or three games, they didn’t make the playoffs and then they went after each other.”
When Bobby Cox passed the baton (or ball) to his former coach, Gonzalez seemed like the obvious choice. (AP photo)
OK. So the Braves can lose and still hold hands and sing Kumbaya. That’s not a bad thing.
But Gonzalez also knows the reality of 2011: What happened is unacceptable.
Good teams – and most would consider the Braves just that – can’t lose consecutive series to East Division clown acts like the Nationals, Mets and Marlins in a playoff race. Good teams don’t blow 8½-game wild-card leads in 23 days.
Players were injured. Players slumped. But Gonzalez, being the manager, was assigned blame. It was his first season after taking over for Bobby Cox. He was handed a playoff team, a potential World Series team. The Braves failed, so he failed.
“Our goal is to win a championship, and we didn’t do that,” he said.
It’s that simple.
What would he do differently than a year ago? He’s not sure. But something. Because if the Braves go into a similar funk in 2012, he said he will try anything. “Maybe I tell them to come to the park late or we skip batting practice,” he said. “I can’t really say right now.”
The Cox-to-Gonzalez transition was expected to be a smooth one. Gonzalez had coached here. He knew many of the players. There was a new vibe in spring training. Players were doing more running, working more on fundamentals. But it seemed the Braves never fully hit their stride, whether it was Dan Uggla flopping out of the gate, or Jason Heyward’s sophomore slump, or Martin Prado getting shelved by a staph infection. Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson were dented by injuries, and by the final month of the season the rest of the pitching staff – starters and bullpen – was toast. Something always was off.
After the season, Gonzalez went kind of numb. He didn’t watch a playoff game until Game 6 of the World Series, and he turned that off after five innings.
“It was one of the worst games I’ve ever seen, so I went to sleep. I TiVo’d the rest.”
The next morning, he learned that St. Louis rallied to win in 11 innings over Texas and the Cardinals. The Cardinals, who reached the postseason largely because of the Braves’ fizzle, went on to win the Series.
Gonzalez went to Sea Island for a few days with his wife. He spoke to friends, in and out of baseball. He had several conversations with his long-time buddy, Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy, as well as Bill Parcells and others.
Van Gundy and Parcells didn’t provide any wonderful insight, unless you count this: “They all said if you’re at this long enough, things like this will happen to you.”
Gonzalez knows this: It can’t happen again, but he’s fine with that pressure. He says he’s looking forward to the first day of spring, the first game of the 2012 season, because that’s the easiest way to move on.
“After something like last year happens, the first thing you want to do is get back on the saddle,” he said.
He said he’s happy that management “didn’t blow up the team,” adding, “We have a good ballclub, but I’m not going to blow smoke either. We have some guys who need to do better than they did last year.”
A gentle jab. That can’t hurt. Something has to change for the ending to change, even if you can’t quite figure out what went wrong last time.
By Jeff Schultz
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224 comments Add your comment
Fredi who?
January 28th, 2012
6:46 pm
‘Is there something I could have done better?’” You are kidding right?? I think Sonny Clusters,and Detroit Braves said it very well. The best said by Hershel Talker. The really sad part of this collapse is they are bringing fredi back to do it again. I am not over the last monumental collapse, and I wil not watch another game fredi “manages.”
drew
January 28th, 2012
6:48 pm
to bad it wasn’t Fredi who “moved on”…to another team.
What a joke of a manager.
dre
January 28th, 2012
6:50 pm
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz – the sound of crickets – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz – snore – zzzzzzzzzzzzz – yawwwwnnnnnn – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Felix
January 28th, 2012
6:54 pm
Most of you guys are right on the mark about Fredi and what happened last year. It is absolutely amazing that the only one who lost a job was the hitting coach (i.e. FW’s scapegoat). These guys have convinced themselves that everything is still allright and this bunch of losers can win a WS. It is a classic case of group think.
Like Clint Eastwood’s character says in ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’: “There ain’t no forgettin’……………
That’s how most of us feel when it comes to what happened in September 2011. I’ve never seen such a pitiful case of choking by an entire team, including the manager.
bulldogbubba
January 28th, 2012
6:57 pm
WoW!!!! SONNY CLUSTERS
bulldogbubba
January 28th, 2012
7:01 pm
WOW. Sunny Clusters has been in hibernation too long.H e has put it to everybody but the batboy.The truth hurts though.Glad Sonny is back.It has been a silent winter.Thanks for putting a smile on my face. Love, Chipper.
Fredi who?
January 28th, 2012
7:04 pm
Have the Braves hired anyone that knows CPR? For when they choke again?
Dan Uggla
January 28th, 2012
7:05 pm
Okay, maybe I was distracted by porn stars for awhile, but at least I didn’t choke. I don’t want to poke fingers, but it was the other guys that gagged.
BUCKHEADMETSFAN
January 28th, 2012
7:06 pm
NEW YORK METS= 2 WORLD SERIES BANNERS AT CITI FIELD
ATL BRAVES= 1 WORLD SERIES BANNER AT TURNER FIELD
DO THE MATH IDIOTS!!!!!!!!!!!
LET’S GO METS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BUCKHEADMETSFAN
January 28th, 2012
7:08 pm
LARRY LIMP IS HOLDING YOU GUYS BACK!!!!!!!!!!
BASEBALLS BRETT FAVRE
Sonny Clusters
January 28th, 2012
7:14 pm
Thanks for the nice words. We was nice when we was playing ball but we was never a cap tipper. We know it’s nice to tip your cap but a winning team gets mad when they get beat and instead of tipping caps they should be grumpy and scratching and spitting. Instead, these guys are huggers and fanny patters. Have you ever seen so much hugging? We was thinking we would be afraid to hug Dan Uggla because you don’t know where he’s been. Oh? We guess it’s best not to hug him because we DO know where he’s been. Take down those little flags and start over again. We will not forget the EPIC Collapse. EPIC.
Seeer
January 28th, 2012
7:14 pm
Can’t wait to get the 2012 season started! No matter what those stupid polls say Baseball is still America favorite sport! Look at the number of kids that play baseball compaired football! Sorry, buts it’s not even close! Baseball rules! Go Braves!!!
cmc
January 28th, 2012
7:14 pm
Dont think the team needed to be blown up but we needed to add some offensive pop with some players who can hit on a consistent basis….and to be frank the Braves need that type player like Allan Craig of the Cards who can give us an intangible we’ve been missing since the great playoff run ended in 2005. Just have never gotten over the hump since then and unless Frank Wren is relieved of duties and a general manager with some common sense is placed in tow to get some PLAYERS and not ones with “great potential” we’re not getting out of second division this year. I’ve heard “well he has a lot of potential and we’re banking on that” so much this past off season I’m going to puke. Baseball is a results oriented game and if you’re paying a player to produce and he’s not producing you move on and get someone that is. Having said that I think most fans don’t enter 2012 with the same enthusiasm as we did in 2010 or 2011 with a new skipper so if the Braves are slow to get out of the gate not sure what type of sentiment baseball in the South has. As they say “we’ll wait and see how things go.” Seems that what Fredi’s doing.
Fredi who?
January 28th, 2012
7:15 pm
The more I have thought about this sorry article, the more I know fredi is oblivious. What kind of fool says things like, “Maybe I tell them to come to the park late or we skip batting practice,” he said. “I can’t really say right now.” Or, “It was one of the worst games I’ve ever seen, so I went to sleep. I TiVo’d the rest.”
Guess he never watched the Braves play, or hes dumber than even I thought he was. I hope the collapse haunts him the rest of his natural life, and I also hope thats not in Atlanta.
smallmouth6
January 28th, 2012
7:16 pm
dre: The most boring and lazy of all comments: ZZZZZZZZZZ to your ZZZZZZZZZZZZ. What’s next: First!
Sonny Clusters
January 28th, 2012
7:20 pm
Lowe and Kawakami are gone. Proctor and Linebrink are gone. Even little Conrad is gone. That means the player with the best chance to end up in the Homer the Brave costume is Jason Heyward. He’s going to lose his position if he doesn’t improve that ridiculous swing that rolls the ball to the second baseman.
bulldogbubba
January 28th, 2012
7:23 pm
Sonny I suggest when Chipper retires we give those little ’signs” to him and let him take them to the hunting camp.He could place the in strategic areas to help his friends find their way back to camp.I think its only fair since he won most of them. Just sayin’
Sonny Clusters
January 28th, 2012
7:29 pm
Yep. Those signs need to come down. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Those signs signify nothing and the fans need to rebel against them. Those signs are a trick to make people think the Braves won something. What you win in the National League is the pennant. If you don’t win the pennant, you didn’t win. Somebody else did. Don’t celebrate not winning the pennant and act like the division is anything. Last year they were coasting, confident they would win the wild card and then . . . an EPIC Collapse. Is there a flag for that?
Sonny Clusters
January 28th, 2012
7:29 pm
Yep. Those signs need to come down. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Those signs signify nothing and the fans need to rebel against them. Those signs are a trick to make people think the Braves won something. What you win in the National League is the pennant. If you don’t win the pennant, you didn’t win. Somebody else did. Don’t celebrate not winning the pennant and act like the division is anything. Last year they were coasting, confident they would win the wild card and then . . . an EPIC Collapse. Is there a flag for that?
Sonny Clusters
January 28th, 2012
7:31 pm
Whoa! Twice the Clusters for the money. We apologize for the double post. We lost it in the lights like Chipper.
extremus
January 28th, 2012
8:33 pm
I agree with Sonny Clusters regarding the signs (at least the Wild Card ones; division pennants have been displayed by teams for a long time and that’s fair, I guess). Posting a banner for a Wild Card berth is akin to your Little League giving out little trophies to every kid on every team so that nobody feels left out. Sorry guys, but you don’t win pennants, trophies, or respect (especially for what these guys get paid to play) just for participating. It’s time we got back to a proper definition of winning and losing (not to mention a whole LOT of other things that have gotten “politically corrected” in our society).
Playoffs!!!
January 28th, 2012
8:43 pm
Does anybody remember Fredi deciding to pitch to Matt Kemp, early in the season with the game on the line, with first base open. BOOM! Base hit, game over!
Or how ’bout this one. Fredi walks Ty Wiggington to pitch to Carlos Gonzalez (reigning batting champ) Boom! Game winning hit.
Didn’t we miss the wild card by one game?
hy tronya
January 28th, 2012
8:49 pm
http://www.firefredihonzalez.com
Leon
January 28th, 2012
8:54 pm
The Braves needed a Pascual “I-285″ Perez moment and didn’t get it.
Frank
January 28th, 2012
8:58 pm
April 5th. That’s not right around the corner. Still plenty of time to listen to this mediocre team’s players and coaches yap on and on about absolutely nothing. This could be the year I put mlb in the same category as the nba. Unwatchable.
Dan Uggla
January 28th, 2012
9:07 pm
The Braves are making me take a bath in chlorox before I can go in the clubhouse. I don’t get it, a little dose of crabs never hurt anyone–except you do have to scratch your crotch a lot. When you get the itches down there, it can distract you when you are at the plate.
not a pitching coach
January 28th, 2012
9:35 pm
With the roster that this Braves team has, I don’t expect them to finish higher than 4th in the NL East. Other teams made some moves to improve their team, but the Braves…
alex
January 28th, 2012
9:39 pm
WElcome back sonny c.,always a pleasure. Chipper is TOAST,the legs don’t have it, you don’t need the money, be a man,posada-like….as for thw rest… fire freddie and frankie
Sonny Clusters
January 28th, 2012
9:57 pm
It’s going to take a lot of caravans and free autographs to make people forget the EPIC Collapse. In fact, we don’t think people will forget it at all. We think they will tag this team with the EPIC Collapse. How about LaRussa deciding to retire after the job he did with the Cardinals? That was some pretty good managing as far as we could tell. As bad as the Braves fell, the Cards rose.
nostrabridgesdamos
January 28th, 2012
10:27 pm
Stand idle brethren while competition opens up the wallet to spend for Championships.
billy bob
January 28th, 2012
10:55 pm
Who gives a RATS A$$ about the Braves, Frank Wren, and Liberty Media!!! Willbe the same $hit different year.
nostrabridgesdamos
January 28th, 2012
10:58 pm
You must Mr. Thornton or ya wouldnt be bloggin! Go get a snip of whiskey and bow to Mr.Wren.
TechRon
January 28th, 2012
11:03 pm
Clusters, Stooges and a few others above have it right. Wren and Gonzalez suck and the fact that they still have their jobs is testimony to the incompetence above them. Fredi was SUCH a horrible manager in September that it might have set a record. I have been a serious Braves fan since 1957 and at this point I am apathetic about them. Why invest emotional capital when the owners don’t even care? Screw them. They aren’t going to be selling ME any tickets to that nonsense.
DawgTripp
January 28th, 2012
11:16 pm
TechRon: Ditto. It all starts at the top brother!
Busch Leaguer
January 28th, 2012
11:19 pm
It’s too bad that MLB won’t be adding the DH to the NL until next year. It would help the Braves tremendously to be able to play Ross 70 to 80 games behind the plate and let McCann DH half the time. You can take advantage of a superior defensive catcher Ross and keep McCann fresh for the entire year. The DH will be here next year when the Astros move to the AL and there will be an interleague series going on every night.Maybe the Braves front office can show some foresight and extend Ross’s contract again.
Murf
January 28th, 2012
11:21 pm
Easy now gentlemen-give Freddi some time.
Auggie
January 28th, 2012
11:23 pm
Busch- haha..dh in NL..go down to the brewery for your free Bud!
Busch Leaguer
January 28th, 2012
11:47 pm
Auggie
You may laugh now ,but after they realign the leagues next year they will either have to put the DH in both leagues or do away with it all together. And the player’s union will not let that happen.
Clemson Fan
January 28th, 2012
11:52 pm
April is not “around the corner” from January. The Cards are finished without doughboy and LaRussa. Braves win the division this year and all of you geniouses who believe you could better manage this team should send your resumes down to Hank Aaron Drive.
Busch Leaguer
January 28th, 2012
11:55 pm
Clemmons Fan
Too bad the Braves are in a division with the Phillies ,not the Cardinals.
Jammed on a 3-1 fastball
January 29th, 2012
12:05 am
Well – Gonzalez has much to prove. Can he keep from burning up the best bullpen in baseball. Better yet, can he learn as rock-headed as he and his Hall of Fame predicesor refuse to admit, that a .240 BA team that refuses to work the count, steal bases and manufacture runs puts undue pressure on even the best pitching staffs?
The 2010 Braves got it. I only hope Walker/Fletcher and Chipper can convince these jack-legs that being a professional hitter does not mean hitting a 7-run jack every AB. It means hitting the gaps opposite field and scoring these rarely seen mythical creatures called runs.
Furthermore, moneyball concept aside, a runner has a greater chance of crossing home plate from 2nd base than he/she does from first.
dave
January 29th, 2012
12:07 am
go braves,,,,,,,,,
Jammed on a 3-1 fastball
January 29th, 2012
12:09 am
By the way…Kudos to Sonny Clusters who has the dunce in the dugout pretty well locked in.
Jammed on a 3-1 fastball
January 29th, 2012
12:13 am
Gonzalez is mentally overmatched…..Hire Hanley Ramirez!!
Todd A.
January 29th, 2012
12:26 am
“Chipper is just getting by on pure guts and passion.” LOL. Did I really just read that?
man and dog
January 29th, 2012
1:05 am
Fredie’s decision to play a ineffective Lowe and and a hurt McCann cost the team a spot in the playoffs. Nothing more needed to be said.
Stinger2
January 29th, 2012
5:34 am
Most everyone agrees that FG is not the manager the Braves need. I don`t disagree but I do not believe a change will be made anytime soon. So what can be done to help the team with him managing should be the question. I don`t have an answer. Does anyone?
Let's Be Honest
January 29th, 2012
6:09 am
“Chipper is just getting by on pure guts and passion.”
I’d hobble out of that dugout everyday if there was $15M at stake.
Let's Be Honest
January 29th, 2012
6:17 am
“But the unforgiveable move was pitching Lowe again and again when he had demonstrated he could or would no longer compete. That was some UGLY baseball and one of the last and most important games was in front of an almost full house at the Ted. That one game lost Fredi a lot of good will. We was watching people file out in the 4th inning. That game gave us a bad taste for Fredi and dare we call it FrediBall? BobbyBall to FrediBall. And all those SILLY little flags in the outfield need to come down. They are intended to make us think the Brave won something. They really serve to point out how miserably they have failed in post season.”
Exactly right. But you can’t convince thsee people who swear Cox was a great manager. When the great pitching went away, the franchise was exposed from top to bottom. These fans preach patience, but the rest of this division (save the Mets) is about to hit the gas.
Dozer
January 29th, 2012
6:47 am
The Phillies added Paplebon, the Marlins added Reyes. So what – we fired our hitting coach!!! Braves fever – catch it…….