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Home > Terence Moore > Archives > 2009 > February > 20
Friday, February 20, 2009
Something’s wrong with Braves’ business approach
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OK, I’ll give you one. Maybe two or perhaps three. But when the list of those opting not to join your baseball franchise during a given winter flirts with reaching double digits - ranging from the significant likes of A.J. Burnett to Ken Griffey Jr. - it’s not them.
It’s you.
Something is obviously wrong with the way the Braves are doing business. Just ask John Smoltz, among those significant likes who will play somewhere other than Atlanta next season.
“Well, I think it’s a philosophy,” said Smoltz, speaking over the phone from Ft. Myers, Fla., the spring home of the Boston Red Sox, his new team. “It’s a philosophy for the Braves that worked for 14 seasons in the middle of a run to division titles. I just think that, now that it isn’t their automatic right to go to the playoffs anymore, it’s not as attractive to people to always take less. Ask yourself: Why is it that (players) always leave for more money?”
Good question. Added Smoltz, “I didn’t leave the Braves, by the way. You leave when you’re given a choice.”
Although the Braves say otherwise, Smoltz contends that his old team just didn’t want his Hall of Fame arm after more than two decades of excellence. As a result, Smoltz used his free-agent right to ignore what he said was a lesser deal with the Braves to join the Red Sox.
Whatever the case, Smoltz isn’t here anymore. Neither is Mike Hampton, who bolted for the Houston Astros once he got healthier. You also had that endless Jake Peavy tease. Then Burnett jumped to the New York Yankees at the last minute for their free-agent offer. And what was that Furcal thing about? He was returning to the Braves, and then he wasn’t.
The same goes for Andruw Jones. He even wore a Braves cap at a Georgia Tech home basketball game last month. Instead, he signed a minor-league deal with the Texas Rangers. That was before the Griffey soap opera this week.
So we’re back to Smoltz, a master at putting things into perspective.
“All I can say is that I made a conscious decision to stay with the Braves through the years, despite becoming a free agent four times, and that’s when nobody else who had become a free agent (with the Braves) had gotten re-signed,” said Smoltz, referring to Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Javy Lopez, Gary Sheffield, J.D. Drew, Jones and Furcal, among others.
Added Smoltz, “The same kind of statements were being made by those players as to why they left. By the numbers alone, when you’re talking about that many people leaving, you’d have to think that somebody has to be really far off for it not to work out.”
The problem isn’t Bobby Cox, especially since Smoltz joins a slew of others in praising the Braves manager. The problem also isn’t the city of Atlanta or its fans, which Smoltz hugged, too.
That leaves Braves ownership and management. “If I was a different person, and we had a different manager, I would have left the first time I became a free agent,” said Smoltz, referring to the winter of 1996, when the Yankees offered Smoltz “23 million” more than the Braves. “I’ve had so little communication with [Braves officials] over the years, I have no idea what it is [they’re doing].”
Here’s what they’re doing: Little, when it comes to closing a deal. They’re anti-Smoltzes out of the bullpen.
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