LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Dan Uggla doesn’t know if he or anyone else could have done anything differently for a vision problem that he says wasn’t diagnosed until September, two months after the Braves released him while still on the hook for more than $18 million left on his contract, and a month after the Giants dropped him.
The veteran second baseman is just glad the problem with his “motion vision” was eventually diagnosed and that he’s back feeling good at the plate. He says he’s seeing the ball like he did before getting hit in the head by pitches in 2012 and again in spring training 2013.
Uggla, who turns 36 next week, signed a minor league contract with the Nationals and faces a tough battle for a roster spot, with Yunel Escobar expected to be the starter and Danny Espinosa also competing for a job. Uggla took a good step Friday when he returned to Champion Stadium to face the Braves and went 1-for-2 with a single, bases-loaded walk and a groundout.
It was the Nationals’ second spring-training game and the first action for Uggla, who started and batted fifth.
Asked before the game about his vision, Uggla said, “So far everything is kind of the way I remembered it before the last couple of years. But I’ve only had seven pitches in live BP. Spring training will be either like, OK, there it is. Or, there it isn’t.”
Facing Braves left-hander Alex Wood, Uggla lined the first pitch he saw to center field for a one-out single in the second inning. With the bases loaded in the fifth against hard-throwing but erratic right-hander Juan Jaime, Uggla lined a 3-1 pitch down the third-base line that looked like it might be a three-run double, but was ruled foul. He then walked to bring in a run.
“We’ll see,” Uggla said. “But everything we’ve done to this point, all the testing and everything up to this point, has been a huge, huge improvement.”
Coincidentally, it was former Braves outfielder Marquis Grissom who recognized symptoms in Uggla’s rapid career decline that were similar to what Grissom experienced after Grissom was hit in the head by a pitch years ago. Grissom put him in touch with Dr. Robert Donatelli, who had Uggla come to his Las Vegas sports rehab and performance enhancement clinic.
Donatelli and his staff put Uggla through a battery of tests and determined that he had oculomotor dysfunction, which prevented him from seeing clearly when in motion. For Uggla, this seemed to explain why he could have 20/15 vision after corrective LASIK surgery in August 2013 and yet still not be able to pick up the rotation of pitches the way he once did.
He was told that his vision was reduced to 20/100 when he moved his head or body. And after two weeks of lengthy, twice-daily sessions of exercises, Uggla was told that his “motion vision” was back to normal.
The Braves are paying him $13.2 million this season, minus part of the major league minimum $507,500 salary that he gets for time spent on a big-league roster with the Nationals or another team. The Braves are paying Uggla a higher salary this season than anyone on the team except Melvin Upton ($14.45 million).
Uggla hit .209 with 79 homers, a .317 OBP and a .391 slugging percentage in 499 games in his nearly four seasons with the Braves, after hitting .263 with 154 homers, a .349 OBP, and .488 slugging in five seasons with the Marlins.
He said he developed an astigmatism after being hit in the head by pitches during the 2012 season at Miami and the back of the head and neck during 2013 spring training, and that the LASIK was done to correct that.
Some stories written about his experience said his offensive performance declined beginning after a June 2012 beaning against the Marlins. The problem with that narrative is that Uggla wasn hit by a 92-mph fastball from Miami’s Chad Gaudin not in June 2012, but on July 24, 2012.
In the 39 games before he was hit by that pitch, Uggla hit .118 (15-for-127) with two homers, nine RBIs and 52 strikeouts. He missed one start after the beaning, then in his next 18 games after returning to the lineup he hit .226 (14-for-62) with three homers, 16 RBIs and 19 strikeouts.
Uggla’s decline started long before he was hit by Gaudin. Uggla hit .377 with 15 homers during an Atlanta Braves-record 33-game hitting streak July 5-Aug. 13, 2011, in his first season with the Braves. After that streak ended, Uggla hit .201 with 52 homers and a .323 OBP in his remaining 380 games for the Braves before being released.
