Parrish the thought: Braves change minds, can hitting coach
Larry Parrish, seen in his one and only spring training with the Braves. (AJC photo by Jason Getz)
It made no sense that Fredi Gonzalez would announce, barely 12 hours after the worst collapse in National League history was complete, that his entire coaching staff would return. It made no sense that such a flop wouldn’t spawn at least some measure of re-evaluation.
Today the Braves started making sense. They fired hitting coach Larry Parrish. We can only assume Frank Wren saw what everybody else except Fredi G. saw — that the hitting had been substandard all season.
To reiterate: This should not have been a bad-hitting team. This wasn’t a lineup built around the fanciful notion that Troy Glaus might revert to 2002 form. (Although Troy Glaus did, in May 2010, revert to 2002 form.) The lineup the Braves trotted out after the trading deadline was comprised of seven guys who have made an All-Star roster and the league’s best-hitting rookie. Wren stitched together a fine everyday eight.
But they didn’t hit. Or, more precisely, they hit home runs and nothing else. They were third among NL teams in homers, third-worst in on-base percentage. You can manage that without a batting coach.
The Braves hit .235 in September, a time when more hitting was needed to back up a rotation overrun by rookies. They scored seven runs in their final five games. Had they won even one of those final five, they’d have gotten to play a 163rd game in St. Louis on Thursday. The Braves led 3-1 after three innings of Game No. 162 — and worked 10 more innings without a run.
To retain Parrish would have been the height of folly. The man had never been a big-league batting coach and spent the summer proving he wasn’t one. Who among the Braves seemed to hit better under Parrish than under the hugely chastised (and subsequently reassigned) Terry Pendleton? Brian McCann stopped being as patient. Martin Prado got lost. Jason Heyward got so confused he wound up getting benched.
A hitting coach cannot actually hit for his men, but he can instill an approach. Parrish’s approach seemed to be: Swing hard in case you hit something. (The Braves had the fourth-most strikeouts among NL clubs.) This team entered September with baseball’s fourth-best record because it had hit just enough homers to buttress a stellar rotation and a lockdown bullpen, but two starting pitchers were lost and the bullpen began to buckle from the strain, and when that happened the Braves had nothing.
The Braves hit .243 as a team. The average National League player hit .253. Think about that. Think about a lineup of Uggla and Chipper and McCann and Heyward and Prado and Freeman and finally Bourn falling so far below average … and then deciding the batting coach had earned his keep.
Parrish is a nice enough man who surely knows his baseball, but the men under his tutelage performed so far short of expectations and abilities that he could not possibly have kept his job. Simply to retain credibility as an organization, the Braves had to make this move.
By Mark Bradley
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254 comments Add your comment
Hillbilly D
September 30th, 2011
8:23 pm
Sonny Clusters
I don’t know about the collapse meaning a short career for Fredi. Gene Mauch had the meltdown of all time with the ‘64 Phillies and people kept on hiring him and proclaiming him a genius. He never did win the big one.
dap01
September 30th, 2011
8:29 pm
He actually did more damage that I would have ever expected possible. We were horrible.
realist
September 30th, 2011
8:31 pm
When the Braves didn’t interview anyone for the Managers job and just handed it to Fredi, you should have known exactly what you were getting. This guy “FIT” the braves mold. That would be fine if the mold was more than mediocre baseball and marginal success. The problem is, for most fans, marginal and mediocre is their own way of life. They want… no they NEED,,, their sports teams to provide the excellence they can not. And they want to cheer the team on so they can vicariously enjoy that success. It gives them something to be proud of. If you are looking for a reason what Atlanta fans don’t seem to support the local teams this is the reason. The local teams provide nothing more than what they can provide for themselves – mediocre and average. So why do they need to drop 100$ cheering on average?
extremus
September 30th, 2011
8:32 pm
Mr. Bradley,
If I am correct, this was the final season the Braves fall under tax write-off eligibility for Liberty Media. If and when do you anticipate a sale of the team, and who (hopefully locally and HUMAN) might be the candidates to purchase the Braves? I heard that Arthur Blank may no longer be a front-runner to do so, but any chance that he could get back into the bidding now that the Braves’ stock has, shall we say, taken a hit?
Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer.
Sonny Clusters
September 30th, 2011
8:34 pm
Hillbilly, you was right about the term genius. We’ve heard that one over and over in Atlanta and our genius never pronounced the “t’s” in Atlanta. Uh-lanna. And he kept his finger in his nose most of the time. When we was thinking of somebody to call a genius it would not be somebody with his finger in his nose. As far as Fredi, he may be a genius and is just hiding it so he can slip up on somebody.
Hillbilly D
September 30th, 2011
8:39 pm
Sonny
Yeah, any native Georgian knows you pronounce the first “t” in Atlanta but not the second one. It’s amazing how often it gets mangled. Nearly as much as the newscasters trying to say “Forsyth”.
O'Brien
September 30th, 2011
8:54 pm
Fredi wouldn’t start Teheran in game 161 over Lowe, but Joe maddon starts Matt Moore (a rookie who was making only his second major league start ) in game 1 of the playoff series …on the road.
extremus
September 30th, 2011
9:02 pm
@O’Brien,
That’s the difference between the Bobby Cox we saw in the early 1990s (when he chose to start Steve Avery in a critical game against the favored Pirates) and the Cox of recent years and of course Freddi Gonzalez. I have a feeling that when all is said and done Joe Maddon will be remembered fondly by Rays fans, too. I just wish we had a manager with that type of instinct back in the dugout (and no, I’m not referring to either Cox or Gonzalez; it’s time for a serious change).
extremus
September 30th, 2011
9:03 pm
That’s the difference between the Bobby Cox we saw in the early 1990s (when he chose to start Steve Avery in a critical game against the favored Pirates) and the Cox of recent years and of course Freddi Gonzalez. I have a feeling that when all is said and done Joe Maddon will be remembered fondly by Rays fans, too. I just wish we had a manager with that type of instinct back in the dugout (and no, I’m not referring to either Cox or Gonzalez; it’s time for a serious change).
J-Man
September 30th, 2011
9:07 pm
Bobby Valentine would be a better manager than Fredi Gonzalaz and I hate Valenttine
extremus
September 30th, 2011
9:09 pm
Sorry for the duplicate posts; my screen froze up for awhile and I tried sending it through again.
slydog
September 30th, 2011
9:10 pm
Larry Parrish should have been fired, yes, I agree. In order to accomplish what the Braves hope to achieve, a first timer was a bad bad option. Sometimes they work, but not for veteran guys. However, this ranting and raving about Larry Parrish as the sole reason behind the dismal hitting because he didn’t provide his players with an “approach”, is incorrect. Did Martin Prado, a supposed grinder, need a rookie hitting coach to give him an approach? McCann? Could he field for Heyward? And McClouth stunk!!! Chipper isn’t ‘chipper’ anymore (pun intended). And how do you explain Freddy Freeman’s season overall? This was on Fredi Gonzalez.Period. Wren heard the screams of the fanbase calling for their heads because they have been there forever. So they sent a message and canned the easiest guy. Fredi failed in simple baseball strategy. Plain and simple. He should have walked Hunter Pence in order to get to a back up catcher batting .200. So maybe Roger McDowell should have been fired instead for not going out to the mound and explaining the situation (lol). You mean to tell me a Major League Baseball manager of the Atlanta Braves Franchise cannot correct a hitters approach? If Parrish wasn’t getting the job done, then why didn’t somebody else takeover, like Pendleton or Fredi himself? Or maybe they did.
P Rose
September 30th, 2011
9:48 pm
Firing the pitching coach won’t help. These hitters made it to the majors without him, and most have been all stars. They know how to hit. They don’t need a coach to teach them how. The team needs new leadership, plain and simple. They don’t need a $13 million veteran who rips the fans, provides bulletin board fodder for opponents, goes 0 for 5 with 3 strikeouts in an elimination game, and calls himself the team leader. Look to 2013 for real change.
doc
September 30th, 2011
9:52 pm
is freddi g still under review as well? as an organization this makes it look really bad that the gm and manager are so far apart that the two had such major and distinct interpretations of a guy after 162 games and it surfaced in this way. dont you think freddi g would have picked up the phone and said frank all hands are on board for next year right? it is like they didnt talk as the season wound down. to me this puts freddi g on very thin ice sad to say as i hoped he would be an improvement going forward. it rally puts a negative spin on it where freddi g was quoted to go on and on about how he wouldnt interfere and look over a guys shoulder too much nor assume it wouldnt get better as parrish learned the ropes. geez.
well said o’b, we agree again.
P Rose
September 30th, 2011
9:58 pm
They had to have a fall guy to save face. Parrish was the fall guy. This is not going to solve the problem. These professional major leaguers already know how to hit. It’s not a coach’s fault that they didn’t hit when it mattered. It’s a question of character. The losing mentality (and a third of the payroll) will go away in 2013.
LuisG
September 30th, 2011
10:01 pm
Hire Julio Franco!
doc
September 30th, 2011
10:16 pm
all frenchy and melky
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7595
had to do was put the braves in their rear view mirrors. .285 and .305 with 87 rbi’s a piece this year. solid, now where were our guys bourne not with standing? frank wren cant escape all of this either can he with lowe, kk and mclouth on his watch?
the guy that comes in better be a proven commodity.
Blurb-o-mat
September 30th, 2011
10:17 pm
I don’t read this blog, but the title caught my eye. Mark, don’t you mean “perish” the thought?
Blurb-o-mat
September 30th, 2011
10:21 pm
Now I get it. Excuse my prior comment, please. Signed, not-a-Braves-follower.
Bro
September 30th, 2011
11:10 pm
Why do we need a hitting coach. There are enough coaches on the team to teach hitting without a special coach. Maybe together the can put together a respectable coaching effort.
sports
September 30th, 2011
11:11 pm
that over paid bunch of prima donnas choked their guts out. Leading by 10 games in sept, and then just flat out choked. So, is Larry Jones coming back next year, hope he doesn’t get a hang nail…he’ll only play 30 games if that happens.
Dawg Whisperer
September 30th, 2011
11:26 pm
How about Ty Cobb as the hitting coach? If he isn’t available, maybe someone who inherited his genes.
Dubious
September 30th, 2011
11:29 pm
MB—in an earlier column about the Braves’ collapse, you chose not to take FGon to task for starting DLowe in what was then the most important game in the season, #161. You said something like”Who would you start?” How about Teheran (sp)? Lowe had been positively awful down the stretch and had given NO reason to expect him to pitch well on Tuesday. And….he did not…Why not start Teheran, one of the top 5 pitching prospect in baseball? Juxtapose FGon’s masterful decision to start DLowe on Tuesday vs. Joe Maddon’s gutsy decision to start Matt Moore today for Tampa Bay in the ALDS over other more seasoned pitchers who had been ineffective of late. Moore was lights out. Going with DLowe was a blunder.
Fan of the Game
September 30th, 2011
11:32 pm
Hire the great East Cobb coaches. I hear them say they are the best.
braves fan forever
September 30th, 2011
11:52 pm
Let’s start a new Campaign FIRE FREDDIE G. FIRE FREDDIE G. FIRE FREDDIE G. HEY LP DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU IN THE A… ON THE WAY OUT.KK GONE MCCLOUTH GONE D.LOWE AKA DUI LOWE NEEDS TO GO AND PLEASE IF WE HIRE A NEW MANAGER DO AWAY WITH THE HUGS.WE HAD MORE HUGS THAN HITS.They all need to be wearing pink ballarina outfits.Heck no wonder when Chipper said balls to wall there was none.
TNScott
October 1st, 2011
12:14 am
Bring in Terry Francona now. He has the 2nd highest postseason winning percentage in MLB history, and two World Series titles which is a heck of a lot better than Cox’s postseason winning percentage.
braveshoo
October 1st, 2011
12:26 am
WOW! I agree with Bradley. Francona for FG and you make everyone on the team better. Where else can you pick up another 6-10 games that easily. Francona is a great baseball stategist, and a great handler of pitchers. Make the move Frank before some other team does.
braveshoo
October 1st, 2011
12:35 am
We also need a new training staff. McCann, Prado, Heyward, and Moylan all came back from injury too soon, and it ruined their season along with the Braves, and cost Moylan his career. A new off-season training program would help a lot, stop all those oblique injuries, and keep players from being so tired at the end of the year.
Mr Moneybags
October 1st, 2011
12:41 am
Here’s the problem with pro sports and the US Government:
If any of us performed our jobs as awfully as Frank Wren, Fredi G., Obama and Congress we would be fired….Instantly and with no explanation. Just clean out your desk…
Instead, Wren blows 25% of the entire payroll on the likes of Kawakami and Lowe…..Fredi G. is so absolutely INCOMPETENT that his most profound insight into the reasons behind the season-end collapse is “IT IS WHAT IT IS…” Are you freakin kidding me?????????
WHAT IT IS wasn’t just a 1st year mgr having an average year. This was HISTORIC. The kind that they’ll be referring to 30-40 years from now when another NL team comes along and repeats the feat…..”This kind of September collapse hasn’t been seen in the NL since the 2011 Atlanta Braves, managed by Fredi Gonzalez who described the epic failure as “IT IS WHAT IT IS….”
WHAT IT IS is a call for the IMMEDIATE FIRING AND REPLACEMENT OF FREDI GONZALEZ, who seems to be so out of touch with reality that he refused to even recognize the massive INCOMPETENCE of hitting coach Larry Parrish, which by definition is INCOMPETENCE by a Major League Baseball Club Manager.
FREDI SHOULD BE FIRED……IMMEDIATELY AND WITHOUT REGRET. He is devoid of strategic thinking which will DOOM any club that has him as manager. He can’t even look back and see that he ever made a mistake and say he would’ve done something different if he could do it again.
That means NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE with this guy! He fails to see a single error in his decisions and thinks everything that just happened “just happened” because IT IS WHAT IT IS….
WHAT IT IS is quite possibly the WORST MANAGERIAL HIRE in Major League history and the facts just recorded in the record books fully support this…….
ubah
October 1st, 2011
12:46 am
FIRE FREDI AND HIRE FRANCONA, HIRE HIM NOW, HIRE HIM TODAY.
Greg Walker for hit' Coach
October 1st, 2011
1:11 am
Hire GREG WALKER hitting Coach. He resigned from White Sox after 9 very good years for personal reason. He is from Georgia and wish to return for family reason. Check him out on White Sox .com The man excelled at his craft just ask his player..
NO MORE PARRISH
October 1st, 2011
1:21 am
This just made my winter!!!
NO MORE PARRISH
October 1st, 2011
1:23 am
Milt Thompson who created the Phillies killer lineup should be brought in. Just my opinion.
bernard
October 1st, 2011
1:41 am
dont stop there….get rid of mini mee fredi g cox clone…wren is wrong and needs to go…ownership should sell club to someone who can afford it period and stop this bs goodwill bs…atl deserves what philly has and we will sellout every game like them when we get talent like them…keep it simple and feedind the fans of bunch of low rent baloney…one world series out of 14 is PATHETIC! im suggesting braves fans boycott until better options are made available…boycott…boycott…go watch little leaguers…its a childs game anyway and the grownups we have playing on our team need to get a real job like you and i have and they would have more incentive to play a simple game…see the ball…hit the ball…catch the ball..throw strikes…just win baby..or go sell used cars..lay bricks…drive a cab…sell insurance LLLLLLLLOSERS!!!!
BravesChicky
October 1st, 2011
2:01 am
Great article. Hurts for Parrish and FG both, but hard-hitting and no BS. Thanks!
Gerald Perry
October 1st, 2011
2:13 am
Thanks Bradley, now I’ll probably lose my job as the Dairy Queen manager. Put in a good work for me as the new hitting coach.
jed
October 1st, 2011
2:41 am
you gotta get francona while he’s available dont you?
Robert
October 1st, 2011
3:50 am
I’m not defending Gonzalez.
I’m certainly not defending Parish.
But neither squandered a massive $23,000,000 in payroll this year on Lowe and Kawakami.
Neither traded away Jeff Francoeur…he of the .280/20/87/22 SB year…FOR A PLAYER WHO IS OUT OF BASEBALL ALTOGETHER NOW.
Neither traded for Nate McLouth.
If Fredi Gonzalez and Larry Parrish were such monumentally horrible hires, why on earth would you ever let the man who hired them, hire their replacements?
Frank Wren absolutely must be fired. Period. And let the new GM make all decisions going forward about personnel.
I wouldn’t let Frank Wren hire a janitor.
Lou
October 1st, 2011
6:06 am
Fred Gonzolos is no manager-he is to blame for the team’s disgrace and he doesn’t even know it-he must be next to go.
Mike Dawg
October 1st, 2011
6:27 am
Frank Wren should be next to go he has made some gone head deals , he the problem. So when are they going to start at the top Rather than the bottom .
slydog
October 1st, 2011
6:54 am
The absolute best thing for the Braves to do is hire Terry Francona right this moment. And that will take care of this ho hum “quiet professionals” attitude. He just simply wore out his welcome in Boston. Managing in the N.L. would be a breeeze for him. But alas, it will not happen because the Braves basically gift wrapped this job for Fredi G. a full two seasons before he was FIRED FROM THE MARLINS!!! After he was fired, he attended Braves games , as a VIP, like he was an assistant G.M. or something. That “no-bid, no interview” approach is rearing it’s ugly head. Wren and the rest of the organization are too “buddy buddy” to fire Fredi after year one. If not, instead of reversing course on a “hitting coach”, they would have fired him the next day. The best us fans can hope for at this point is that the Braves hire Francona as a bench coach or a special consultant to the G.M.
slydog
October 1st, 2011
6:59 am
Let me clarify, it’s that Fredi “deserves” to be fired after year one. It wasn’t all his fault and the year was not “all” bad. It’s just Terry Francona is available NOW, and he’s better. If CMR is let go after season’s end, UGA would be foolish to not at least contact Urban Meyer’s agent. It’s just business. The business of winning “now.”
painter
October 1st, 2011
7:18 am
I still never understood why they even hired the guy. Why? Why do the Braves make so many poor decisions? This organization is not McDonald’s. “Oh, you want a job? Fill out this application. Never had experience as cashier? It’s ok, just take people’s money.” Ahhhhhh, I get it now.
WTF
October 1st, 2011
7:37 am
Ah, so we now have it from MB – Boston pays twice as much for their product as Liberty Media. It starts at the VERY top, guys, and the top is Liberty; not Parrish, Fredi or Wren.
You want a perinneal winner in ATL? PAY FOR IT! Find a ‘person’ who cares and has deep, deep pockets and you’ll have a winner. We don’t like it, but pro sports are , by defintion, a money thing. This is a strict meritocracy. The best players/managers/ GMs get the best pay. Sure, the farm system developes talent and brings it to the ‘Show’, but under today’s rules (don’t get me started on players’ unions), you can’t KEEP that talent without spending big.
You pay to play. Simple.
Gritz
October 1st, 2011
7:59 am
I actually believe that there is a bigger story emanating from all of this: With Fredi somewhat stupidly and arrogantly proclaiming that his entire coaching staff would be back for the 2012 season and Wren firing Parrish the very next day….Fredi was officially put on notice that his leash just got considerably shorter. I would suspect that Fredi has probably been told at this point to leave any official Braves announcements up to the people who actually have the power and the swag to make them….Combine Wren’s firing of Parrish with his (Wren’s) announcement of no guaranteed spots for Lowe or Heyward and I get my first Braves hero for 2011: Frank Wren.
rogeratlantabama
October 1st, 2011
8:06 am
I don’t claim to knnow much about baseball, but, having followed the Braves since ‘91; it seems we never score enough. Good pitching beats good hitting over the long run. In post season games, you have to have some offense. The baseball season is so long that what works over the long run may not work over the short run. Good pitching is a minimun, but the abiltty to get on base is required. Terry Pendelton is my favorite Brave ever. He made those teams. We are too pitching obsessed. Offense, in baseball, happens suddenly, but predictably because of good hitting. We have lost so much int the postseason because of lack of runs. End of story. We are still pretty good, just not at the end.
@sportsguru95
October 1st, 2011
8:10 am
So the reason the Braves collapsed is Jason Heywards fault! If Constanza would have played the Braves would have still collapsed! What was Constanza going 2 do, bat for everyone! Fredi was unsure of his line-up all season long! Braves had no lead off hitter, & the pitching failed down the stretch! Braves fans gotta be patient, if takes time 2 become Great! This team will be fine! We MUSTP SIGN BOURN
Packer Ed
October 1st, 2011
8:18 am
I am jealous of the Marlins, they got Ozzie, fire and passion.
I keep telling everyone the Brave Players had tee times thsi weekend, they had no interest in the playoffs. The Brave players looked like Fredi, lack luster and poorly motivated.
Fire and Passion, where was it?
the hot seat.....
October 1st, 2011
9:06 am
Hey Mark, is Parish on the “hot seat”?
dtanner
October 1st, 2011
9:24 am
chipper is such an ass,used to play golf here at a local atlanta area golf course that i manage,and everybody here hated the guy, was such an obnoxious prick