It's about time. I know he has a huge contract that the team will have to keep paying, and I don't care. The team has been hamstrung by working with a 24-man roster for most of the season due to the front office's unwillingness to take this step. This is a guy that in 3+ seasons with the Braves has batted .209/.317.391 with 79 HR and 225 RBI, oh and 535 Strikeouts. That's worth league minimum, not the $12 million they've been paying him. Aside from a couple of stretches in the first season and a half he was here the entire debacle has been hard to watch. If you really think about last season it's amazing that the Braves won 96 games with both Uggla and BJ Upton in the lineup consistently. Here's to hoping for some positive developments going forward.
I remember hearing a few years ago that none of the New York Mets outfield was the highest paid outfielder on their payroll, that that distinction belonged to Bobby Bonilla. He hadn't been an active ball player for years, but had agreed to a deferment on what was owed to him, spreading a large sum out over time to give the team some financial flexibility. In a perfect world Dan Uggla would realize that this was a business decision, accept it for that and come to terms with a similar arrangement. Hopefullly he doesn't harbor so much animosity that this is an impossiblilty.
I agree, I think it was the best decision the braves have made letting Uggla go. Since he would have only had the rest of this year and next year left on his contract it was best to just eat the loss and go ahead and get someone new in there that is actually progressing. Uggla has been getting consistently worse over the past three years although he did amazing the first year he was with the Braves. I heard 19 MILLION dollars is what we owe him for the remainder of his contract. That is a lot to pay out for someone batting .162 but we can’t take the risk still having him on the roster even. It was time to move on to someone showing up in games and practices and I think Tony La Stella is a perfect candidate to show off his skills. Now if we could only get rid of BJ Upton…
ReplyDeleteUggla shot himself in the foot when he decided to show up late to the ball park. Everyone was willing to let him polish the bench and stay quiet, but the moment he drew any negative attention to himself he signed his own pink slip. La Stella has shown that he deserves to be in the Majors, aside from a week when he looked overmatched the rest of the time he's looked like a big leaguer. No, he's not going to hit a ton of HRs for the Braves, but he makes contact and gets on base. His defense hasn't been nearly as bad as I had heard it was while he was in the minors.
ReplyDeleteBJ Upton doesn't bother me as much as Uggla...yet. There are times when he really looks like he's going to put it together. With him all fans can do is hope for the best, he's not going anywhere. Maybe he can have a productive last third of this season, look good the first half of next and they can get something for him at the trade deadline. While the amount he's owed is a lot to the Braves, who even with their reworked TV deal aren't raking in the dough, some teams can afford to throw that kind of money away on a 'maybe' There are some aging outfielders collecting checks out there this year that won't be around next season.