Merry Belated Christmas From the Saddest Team in Baseball.

http://deadspin.com/5870256/the-atlanta-braves-wish-you-a-merry-christmas-by-performing-the-worst-rendition-of-jingle-bells-imaginable

Former Brave of the Fortnight: Marcus Giles

The younger brother of one of his era’s most unsung superstars, Marcus Giles may have been genetically predisposed to a superb batting eye, but nothing could have foretold his sudden loss of talent.  While the elder Giles enjoyed a lengthy career as a criminally underrated slugger, Marcus enjoyed just three peak seasons before an intense decline forced him out of the game far too early.

Born in San Diego, California, Giles was drafted by the Braves in the 53^rd round of the 1996 Amateur Draft.  At the time, brother Brian was a hot prospect with the Cleveland Indians, who foolishly traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Ricardo Rincon after the 1998 season.  Marcus lit up the minors, cranking an absurd 37 homers in Single-A Macon and raking all the way through to spot duty in the major leagues by age 23.  Giles shared time at second with Quilvio Veras and Keith Lockhart, and was impressive, if not spectacular, in his part-time rookie season, hitting .262 with a .338 on-base percentage and nine homers in 273 appearances.  By this time, Brian Giles was a star in Pittsburgh, putting up .300 averages, .400 OBPs and 35+ homerun seasons on the regular and spurring optimism regarding his little bro.

2002 was not kind to Marcus Giles.  He suffered a personal tragedy, the death of his prematurely born daughter, and a sprained ankle in late May.  Giles struggled greatly, hitting just .230, and was demoted for a spell upon his return from the injury.  He came back to the big leagues for more part-time duty in August.  Expectations were tempered now, but Giles immediately restored our faith.

In 2003, the Braves second base job was his alone, and Giles cashed in on his sibling pedigree.  He ripped off a .316 average, .390 OBP, 21 homers and 14 steals, making his only All-Star team (Brian himself was criminally underrepresented on All-Star squads, making just two in his career).  In Giles family fashion, those numbers were a bit overshadowed by the overall success of the bombastic ’03 team, led by Gary Sheffield and Javy Lopez’s exhaustive supply of Homerun Growth Hormones.  Giles was one of the few Braves who kept up the pace in the first-round loss to the San Francisco Giants, hitting .357 with a homer and three RBI in the short series. 

Though underrated among the team’s plethora of bats, Giles still excited fans – with proven production, his brother’s gaudy numbers, and youth on his side, Giles looked to join upper class of second basemen for a long time coming.  He came out gangbusters in 2004, raising his average to .339 by mid-May.  Alas, on that ill-fated May 15^th , a pop-fly led to a brutal collision with centerfielder Andruw Jones.  The crash actually looked worse than it was, which is saying something, considering Giles broke his collarbone and right wrist, and suffered a concussion.  Watching the play live, it seemed impossible that both players would actually get up; Jones, in the midst of his trademark ball-tracking sprint, inadvertently decked the drifting Giles like an unpadded linebacker cheapshotting an overthrown receiver.  Giles missed 52 games, and was never quite the same afterwards, though he did finish the year with a .311 average, .378 on-base percentage, eight homeruns and 17 steals. 

2005 was a fine year, statistically, for Giles, but it marked the last time Giles spent as an upper-tier second baseman.  He hit .291 with a .365 OBP, 15 homers and 16 steals; those numbers were great for any second baseman, but slightly regressive after his past two campaigns.  Braves fans weren’t necessarily worried; even if Giles’ ceiling was lowered a bit as he entered his prime, getting that kind of plus production for the next 5-10 years was plenty to help cushion the blow of a soul-crushing 18-inning playoff lost at the Houston Astros.

Here’s where things get curious for Giles.  The Braves lost Rafael Furcal to free agency after 2005, and plugged Giles into the leadoff spot.  This was a pure Moneyball move – Giles was not a typical leadoff hitter at all, but his high walk rates made him an appealing table-setter.  As the Oakland A’s found out, baseball is still more than a numbers game, and intangibles still inhibit the consistency of plug-and-play lineup-tweaking.  The stats suggested he should have been just fine even with atypical leadoff speed and plate approach, but Giles never really worked out of the spot.  He stated openly that he was uncomfortable in the leadoff spot – for whatever reason, this discomfort affected his play.  Giles’s numbers took a big hit – his average dropped to .262, his OBP to .341, and his homers and stolen bases dropped to 11 and 10, respectively.

Giles complained of chest pains that September.  He was hospitalized and tested for damage to his heart valve; fans were concerned about the livelihood of their slumping second baseman for several days, until he was diagnosed with acid reflux and cleared to play.  The incident was isolated and strange; foreshadowing the weird demise of his playing career.

Following 2006, Giles’s still relatively hefty price tag, declining numbers and attitude/discomfort about his lineup spot caused the Braves to let him walk as a free agent.  A soon-to-be 29 year-old middle infielder with solid defense and a track record of prime offense was a big draw on the free agent market despite a subpar walk year, and the San Diego Padres reached out to Giles, uniting him with his older brother, who had been a mainstay in San Diego since a mid-2003 trade that sent Jason Bay and Oliver Perez to Pittsburgh.  The tandem didn’t deliver; Brian remained a consistent hitter despite declining power, but Marcus could not adapt to the spacious bat-zapping Petco Park.  He hit .229 with a .304 OBP and just four homers in 476 at-bats.  Giles was hugely disappointing and the Padres released him following the season.

He was scooped up by the Colorado Rockies, in what seemed like a career-resurrecting opportunity.  Scores of hitters have risen from baseball’s ashes in the thin air of Coors Field, and 30-year old infielder who should have been in the tail end of his prime was the perfect candidate for a big return.  Alas, whatever was zapping Giles’s talent could not be ailed with the change in altitude, and he never even made it onto the field at Coors.  He bailed on an agreement to terms with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and bided his time until the season was out.  The Philadelphia Phillies gave him one more shot in 2009, but again, Giles couldn’t even get out of spring training.  It made no sense, but Marcus Giles turned out to have played his last major league game at only 29 years of age.  His brother finally fell of the cliff as well that season; Brian retired in the spring of 2010, at age 39. 

Revisiting Giles’s legacy, it’s odd that his sudden disappearance from the sport was viewed so nonchalantly.  Position players in baseball tend to have some of the longest careers of non-specialist athletes.  Their primes typically fall in the ages of 27-29; Giles was done by 29.  His bloodlines even suggest longevity, as Brian lasted a decade longer than the younger Giles.

One guess that might be hazarded speaks to the current state of sports medicine – perhaps Giles suffered long-term effects from concussions?  He had two diagnosed during his playing career.  The first, the result of a baseline collision with Mark Prior, kept him out for a week; the latter, from the Andruw Jones explosion, was treated alongside the broken bones that kept him out for over two months.  He did not appear to show post-concussion symptoms, but neurological attention to brain injuries was light years behind where it sits now.  Could Giles’s rattled head have permanently affected his performance?

Another potential culprit, as is always the case for players in his era, is steroids.  Access was certainly not a problem for a player coming of age in the Lopez.Sheffield era.  Though he was never linked to ‘roids directly, Marcus’s sudden decline (and Brian’s exceptionable longevity) can be a seen as a signal of juice usage.  It’s quite possible that he rode steroids to early fame, then peaced out when drug testing went into effect.

 Maybe not.  Perhaps Giles just one of many players to lose it suddenly for unknown reasons - or possibly no real reason at all.  Whether Giles should have still been an impact player from his 26^th year into his 30s does not dispel the fact that he wasn’t – Giles was involuntarily retired from baseball because three different teams saw no salvageable talent left in him.  A non-violent domestic abuse charge leveled against him in San Diego didn’t help his cause, but lesser players have been forgiven for far more egregious offenses.  Giles inability to find a team willing to pay him to play baseball was almost singularly because of his diminished ability to hit baseballs.

Marcus Giles’s career felt like a cautionary tale, yet it is impossible to say exactly what his story cautioned against.  His precipitous decline made so little sense that is made perfect sense.  He was enigmatic in the least compelling way, and left baseball with barely a whisper.  We’ll remember him for the sweet-hitting Furcal/Giles double-play combo, his spot on the best offensive Braves squad of our generation, and for stepping out of the shadow of his older brother in a big way, for a short time.  Over time, we’ll continue to forget how unnatural his departure from the game was, and that we ever even envisioned Giles as a long-term lock in the middle-infield.  His name was just big enough, his looks just good enough, his talent just short enough of elite, and his early-career tragedy so “bigger-than-the-game,” that little misfortune could ever garner him the sympathy of fans.  We took no schadenfreudic pleasure or attached pain in his demise; he merely left the Braves and went out-of-sight, out-of-mind.  His skills may have eroded prematurely, but, as a Brave, Giles gave all he had, then fought no more forever.  Don’t stop the Chop.

Former Brave of the Fortnight: Fred McGriff

           His Atlanta debut was stuff of forced mythology, a coincidence turned canon by circumstance and fate.  The story would instantly become his legacy; that the preordained tale held true is only reaffirmed his place in Braves lore.

            Fred McGriff was born in Tampa, Florida and drafted in the ninth round of the 1981 draft by the New York Yankees.  He was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays as a minor leaguer; he debuted with the Blue Jays and provided immediate power.  McGriff hit 20 homers in a partial 1987 campaign, then launched 34 in 1988, his first full year in the Bigs.  McGriff led the league the following year with 36, and didn’t slow down.  After the 1990 season, he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays , along with Tony Fernandez, for Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter.  McGriff continued to rake in San Diego, but the team’s potent offensive weaponry (McGriff played with Gary Sheffield, Tony Gwynn, Bip Roberts and Benito Santiago) weren’t enough to overcome holes in the lineup and suspect starting pitching, and the Padres meddled just above .500. 

McGriff arrived in Atlanta on July 18, 1993.  For his services, the Braves sent the Padres prospects Vince Moore, Donnie Elliott and Melvin Nieves.   This trade would become one of the Braves biggest coups, as Vince Moore, Donnie Elliott and Melvin Nieves all turned out to be terrible at baseball.  McGriff, however, ignited the Braves. Following the stadium light fire that coincided with his debut, McGriff led the slumping team to a division title, hitting .310 with a .392 on-base percentage and 19 homers in the final 68 games of the season.  The team went an absurd 51-19 during this stretch, eventually losing the National League Championship Series 4-2 to the incorrigible 1993 Philadelphia Phillies.

            McGriff continued to hit with Atlanta, forging his place in the heart of the lineup and the fans.  Tall, sleek, lithe and powerful, he became entrenched at the clean-up spot.  The chiseled lefty, with his big, shallow Motown mustache and era-perfect close-cut flat-top, looked less purely athletic than highly refined at distinct baseball skills.  He was the big robotic lefty, a power guy with a long carved swing.  When it was on, we salivated at replays of his longball shots, all ending with McGriff - bat artfully slanted in one hand - almost taking a scissor-step towards the mound.  At the plate, his perfect posture and robotic motions made his stance perhaps the most instantly recognizable and imitated on the team, as well as practically a template for video game first basemen.

When balls didn’t leave the park, McGriff was notorious for his slow speed on the bases, but the phrase “pretty fast when he gets up to speed” was an oft-used and apt descriptor.  McGriff ran the bases like an 18-wheeler coming out of an interstate stoplight, churning and jerking as the engine revved before finally coasting along at a seemingly unstoppable rate.  Watching him try to stretch a stand-up double into a triple was one of the rarest and most exciting experiences a Braves fan could ask for.

Following the 1997 season, in which the Braves fell to the mercenary Florida Marlins in the NLCS, McGriff’s contract was purchased by the expansion Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  His power had been dipping slightly already, and he hit just 19 homers in his first year with the team.  But he soon experienced a resurgence, hitting 32 in 1999, with a .310 average and .405 OBP.  In 2001, he was traded to the Chicago Cubs, but had just one more productive year, hitting .273 with 30 homeruns in 2002.  After a largely unproductive 2003 with the Dodgers, McGriff, at 40 years old, played 27 games with the 2004 Devil Rays.  It would be his last season in the big leagues.

            McGriff’s power was potent, but not quite prodigious.  He homered in throwback fashion, regularly if not immensely.  McGriff was among the last of the old-school sluggers, at a time when McGwire and Canseco were already pumping themselves full of pick-me-ups in Oakland men’s rooms.  McGriff led each league in homers, with 36 in the ’89 AL, then 35 in the ’92 NL; by the end of his career, those totals were achieved by a handful of middle infielders.

            McGriff’s Braves legacy makes Atlanta one of the few places he will be remembered more for his play on the field than his endorsement off it.  McGriff was the celebrity spokesman for one of the longest-running commercials of all time, Tom Emanski’s Baseball Training videos.  With an un-bent foam trucker’s cap so comically placed it seems almost intentional, McGriff (introduced as “Major League Super Star" Fred McGriff) deadpanned his endorsement of the video drills used to produce back-to-back-to-back AAU champs.  The video was unavoidable during ballgames and weekend cartoons.  McGriff appeared between low-quality cuts of horrifying amounts of children identically completing specific drills – hitting balls of tees with a disjointed swing, throwing a baseball in a plastic tub from the outfield – and made every little leaguer fear his coach would actually subscribe to the successful tactics and make summer baseball practice even more boring than it already was.

            In Atlanta, McGriff’s firestorm arrival at least equaled his Emanski notoriety.  Symbolic and absurd, it set the stage for a memorable run.  In the aftermath, McGriff’s nomenclature was so similar to that of basset hound/detective/children’s safety advocate McGruff that no one could find a nickname for McGriff that didn’t end in dog.  Crime Dog and Fire Dog both floated about, with Fire Dog particularly relevant and unfortunately less catching.  At some point, the distinctive ring of ‘Fred McGriff’ proved enough to quell the search for a more fitting nickname, and Fred McGriff went eponymous.

            McGriff’s baseball legacy finds him alongside Jose Canseco and Rafael Palmeiro - company he’d surely just as soon not keep, for myriad reasons - on the borderlands of a milestone and on the outside looking in at Cooperstown.  McGriff finished his career with 493 homers, begging for a contract but ultimately shut out, retired against his will on the cusp of 500..

            Five hundred home runs was once an instant ticket to the Hall of Fame, but McGriff fell just short of the marker.  As demonstrably unfair as this fact is, it has enveloped McGriff’s legacy.  Though McGriff seems to feel that seven more bombs would have punched his ticket, it’s more likely that even 507 wouldn’t get McGriff to baseball’s Ragnarok.  He was the first case study in an era of re-examination for the 500 Club; his candidacy suffered under the closer scrutiny of raised standards, just prior to the mandatory contextualization of steroid enhancement.  Shortly after McGriff retired, Jose Canseco tested the Hall of Fame concept to its limits with his failed admittance and bitter exposal of baseball’s deepest secrets.  McGriff has avoided steroid scrutiny, but he remains linked to an era in which power numbers are graded on a scale.

            Ironically, McGriff was both overrated and underrated statistically as the result of his tweener-era status.  He retired with a .284 batting average and .377 on-base percentage.  The average was respectable, but the on-base percentage was wildly underappreciated in the pre-Moneyball era.  Had McGriff retired five years later, his on-base percentage would have been a key point of discussion; five years sooner, his power numbers would have been more appealing.  As it is, McGriff was born at the exact wrong time and, over 19 notable seasons, fell just short of his Cooperstown dream.

            McGriff will always be remembered as one of the most unintentionally hilarious Braves.  The fire, the Fire and Crime Dog nicknames, the Emanski hat, the baserunning, and even his tragi-comic career curtailment; all emotionally endearing, especially for a man as consistently stoic as McGriff himself.  But his public perception never entered into his play, where he gave Atlanta power and [atience in the heart of the order, at the team’s loftiest heights.  Whether he was ever in on the joke or not, McGriff’s affective comedic stylings only enhanced the memory of his time in town.  Though the Hall of Fame may never find him, he will live on infinitely on a smaller scale, in the hearts and souls of die-hard Braves fans.  Don’t stop the Chop.