Greg Walker Hired (Again) by the Braves

The announcement was brief and a bit surprising this afternoon:

“One of these things is not like the other”, as the old kids song goes.

Ffirst off, we really like Fred McGriff.  Heck, if nice guys got into the Hall of Fame, he and Dale Murphy would be going in side-by-side.  He’s forever associated with some of the best teams in Atlanta history.  And there’s those videos, too.  Hire the Crime Dog?  You bet!

But Greg Walker?

Don’t Panic

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You might be tempted to pull a hammy with the knee-jerk reaction that I expect most of us might have here

.  But yes, this

is

the recently deposed hitting coach of the Braves… and he’s been given a job with the team.  But before anybody starts thinking “Wait a second, didn’t we just trade the world so that we can get a bunch of contact hitters for

?”, let me pull you back from the ledge a bit.

First off, the team is being nice to Walker… perhaps to try and make up a bit for the fact that he was more-or-less made out to be the scapegoat for the team’s offensive woes in 2014.  It goes with the territory.  But, as some have suggested, it probably wasn’t really his fault.

Fact is, Walker inherited a roster that was already striking out a ton and heading in bad directions with bad habits.  If you want to suggest that nobody improved their hitting in 2014, then you’d probably be close.  Justin Upton was a maybe a little better; Jason Heyward was also a little better – despite being asked to lead off.  Evan Gattis hit for a better average as well.  But the glaring weaknesses (Dan Uggla, B.J. Upton, Andrelton Simmons, Chris Johnson) – combined with a total meltdown in the Summer months – doomed the season… and Walker’s job.

The Role

The Disney World Spring Training complex is about to be descended upon by roughly 120 (+/-) hitters at every level from Gulf Coast League rookies to major leaguers.  The idea that Kevin Seitzer will be able to successfully mentor every one of them is a bit ridiculous.

Yes:  it will be Seitzer’s job to establish the hitting model for the organization.  He will then direct the minor league instructors – and special instructors such as McGriff and Walker – in how he wants them to get his message across.  It’s still Seitzer’s ship to run – this is not going to be a case of having a competing voice undermining his authority.

Different players are going to respond differently.  What the presence of additional coaches does for the Braves is that there is a means for the workload to be spread out, and for players to work with the instructor that they are most comfortable with.  This is not a case of “too many cooks in the kitchen” with multiple coaches each advising the same player in different ways.  That said, the major league roster hitters will likely work with Seitzer directly.  Once the season begins, they have his full attention, and he is to be focused directly on them.  But having additional ‘roving’ instructors allows more players – especially the minor leaguers –  to get the attention they might need.

In fact, this is pretty common.  Last Spring, Crime Dog was brought in for a week as a special guest instructor.  Javy Lopez as well.  The significance of this particular announcement sounds like the roles of Walker and McGriff may extend at least through the Spring Training season… and perhaps even into the regular season, if they see fit.

But don’t panic.

The results are going to be on Seitzer’s shoulders.

11 days until pitchers and catcher report!