And here we had been led to believe, via conventional wisdom if not complete accuracy, that the Braves lack the requisite “sense of urgency” to win in October. The same Braves just benched $21.3 million in ballplayers. Omitted from the Division Series roster were:
- Second baseman Dan Uggla, who's the highest-salaried Brave at $13.1 million and who was the biggest acquisition of winter 2010-11.
- Starting pitcher Paul Maholm, who's making $6.5 million this season and who was the biggest acquisition at the 2012 trade deadline.
- Reliever Scott Downs, who's making a pro-rated $1.7 million and who was the biggest acquisition at the 2013 trade deadline.
For a team with a payroll of roughly $90 million — $130 million less than the Braves’ opponent in this Division Series — that’s a pricey chunk of idled manpower, which isn’t to say it isn’t a price worth paying. None of the three was apt to make things more difficult for the Dodgers, which is the only consideration that should matter.
Said Braves general manager Frank Wren, speaking during Wednesday’s workout: “You put 25 guys together who give you the best chance to win. This is purely a decision made to set our Division Series roster.”
Said manager Fredi Gonzalez: “Salaries or length of contract never came into it. We just looked at it in baseball terms.”
Maholm is a soft-tossing starter who would be of little use in relief and whose spot was made redundant by the arrival of Freddy Garcia. Downs faced 24 batters in September, 15 of whom reached base. Uggla has been a disappointment since becoming a Brave, but never more than this season, when even laser eye surgery proved unavailing.
“It’s tough,” said Freddie Freeman, an Uggla confidante. (Uggla himself didn’t meet the media Wednesday.) “We talked about it. He’s rooting for us, and that’s all you can ask.”
Maholm and Downs will be free agents at season’s end and didn’t figure to return. Uggla is another matter. Even with two years remaining on the $62-million extension he signed in January 2011, he could well have played his last game as a Brave. If the team doesn’t believe he’s even its 25th-most-essential player in October 2013 — and that’s with only 11 pitchers on the NLDS roster) — why would it want him in 2014?
Asked about Uggla’s future with the Braves, Wren said: “This has no impact on tomorrow.”
That, it was gently suggested, wasn’t quite an answer. “There isn’t an answer,” Wren said.
Gonzalez: “(Tuesday) was a difficult day. Danny and I have had a relationship for seven years (dating to their days as Marlins).”
That relationship has surely frayed. Gonzalez gave Uggla chance upon chance until finally the manager couldn’t in good conscience keep — as managers say — running him out there. The Braves now have two choices: Bring Uggla to spring training and again hope against hope, or dig even deeper than with Derek Lowe and pay some team to take him.
An aside: The second-highest-salaried Brave (B.J. Upton) might have made the 25-man roster because of contractual years remaining. The likewise flailing Upton has four left at $62 million, Uggla two at $26 million. That’s less money to eat and more reason to placate one over the other.
But these are matters for fuller discussion another day. A postseason is at hand, a postseason the Braves have tried to game-plan. Why not Downs? “I didn’t want to carry three left-handers in the bullpen,” Gonzalez said. Why David Hale, who has made two big-league appearances? “He’s stretched out. He’d be the guy if we get into a crazy 13-inning game.”
This isn’t to say the Braves haven’t been pragmatic in postseasons past, but the 2013 roster is particularly cold-blooded. (And not, we say again, in a bad way.) Downs didn’t like it — “It seems like it came down to a two-week audition at the end of September,” he said, “and I gave up a couple of hits” — but he wouldn’t, would he?
There’s a chance he, or Uggla or Maholm, could be activated for a later series. As much as teams try to crack the code of October, imponderables inevitably arise. Said Gonzalez of Elliot Johnson, the Kansas City castoff whom the Braves preferred over Uggla: “He can make a difference in a postseason series. … A guy who hit .190 in the regular season might win MVP in postseason.”
Uggla didn’t even hit .190. By shelving him, the Braves have essentially declared him their least valuable player. In a way, he’s in the clear. Whatever happens this next week, we won’t have poor Danny to kick around.
About the Author
