terrible news: the Atlanta Braves most happy important player has been poisoned as a result.

The most content significant player for the Atlanta Braves has received awful news: he has been poisoned.

I wrote an essay yesterday explaining why I can relate to Melvin Upton, and it was well received. Although some people expressed the opinion that because Upton is wealthy, he should not be sympathized with, the majority of people seems to understand my perspective.

But one particular remark raised what I felt was a really fair point: why is Chris Johnson, who is better and pays less, so much less than Upton, yet he gets so much pity from me and other Talking Chop writers?

Like Upton, Johnson is an Atlanta Braves player who has never brought shame to the community.
This sounded like a reasonable topic, and while though I can only speak for myself, I believe I have a decent understanding of how many Braves fans view CJ 2.0. First, there’s the obvious fact that, as flawed humans as I and others like me are, Johnson endures as much sarcastic mockery as he does. Similar to Upton, Johnson is an Atlanta Braves player who has never brought shame to the city of Atlanta by committing crimes, lying, tainting records, or engaging in any other behavior that would be seen as morally reprehensible.

All of my sympathy, in other words, should go toward Johnson as well as Upton. Compared to Upton, Johnson’s deal is less burdensome, and he is a superior player. As long as he dons the tomahawk, Johnson is a Braves player deserving of our support. My mockery of him speaks more about my incapacity to allocate my support fairly than it does about Johnson’s performance. I have backed Upton more than Johnson because I am not perfect, and the guy who made this argument is correct. As tomorrow is a fresh day, I will make an effort to better myself once more.

Although this acknowledgement of guilt is justified, it is not comprehensive enough as it does not clarify why Johnson is the player for whom my objective of providing entire support to all Braves players has fallen short. Since moving to Atlanta, Melvin Upton has been the Braves’ poorest player, while Johnson has alternated between one excellent and one bad season during that time. What is it about this somewhat unremarkable third baseman that makes him such a target for snarky remarks on Talking Chop and Twitter, but Upton, at least, makes me feel sorry for him?

One of the more recent front lines in a long-running baseball fan feud is Johnson. For sabermetrics-minded fans, Johnson is an underappreciated classic player, yet he is overrated by traditional fans. Anyone knowledgeable with the canon of sabermetrics will recognize Johnson’s shortcomings: his batting average is his primary value, he walks too little, he plays poor defense, he is a poor baserunner, and his admirers give him additional credit for being tough and tenacious. There is nothing particularly novel about Johnson in this context, and these arguments are now rather old. Old school fans adore Johnson because he battled for the batting crown in his Braves first season. In the meantime, Johnson’s shortcomings prevent the kind of sabermetrics fan I relate with from appreciating him for who he is. Long before I heard the phrase “Moneyball” for the first time on Around the Horn, there was this kind of rift among baseball fans.

When I am feeling particularly abrasive, it’s not about retracing this sodden ground that makes me want to stab people. Johnson aggravates me in a way that appeals to my intellectual insecurities and societal constraints. Johnson’s overvaluation is what makes him so obnoxious. For me, merely expressing my thoughts about the Braves is insufficient; I have a strong desire for other people to concur with me. I am genuinely incensed when people hold a different opinion, thus it is insufficient for me to create and share my own assessment of Johnson.

This shows a terrible lack of maturity. Nobody really disagrees about Melvin Upton, so I can feel safe in my opinions about him. Upton is quite bad. The only things left to consider are whether or not a person who is extraordinarily affluent is ever deserving of our sympathy and how much happiness can be purchased with $75 million.

Johnson is a very different story. When we debate about Johnson, we are debating the essential principles that determine a baseball player’s worth. Disagreements regarding fundamental concepts such as the significance of batting average arise when people cannot agree on how excellent a player Chris Johnson is. People who praise Johnson’s fiery personality or exalt his virtues as a player make me feel both intellectually superior to someone who is backwards enough to have such a mindset and legitimately angry.

Johnson is, in my opinion, a largely bad baseball player. At best, his value peaked in his first season in Atlanta, and overall, he was only slightly over league average. Johnson has a solid average, but he is a lumbering mess at bat, can’t play defense, can’t walk, should only be used in platoons, doesn’t hit for enough power, has a horrible contract, and is prone to angry outbursts. I was enraged when Braves supporters bemoaned the team’s strikeout totals while criticizing Jason Heyward and frequently giving a break to Johnson. This was true even though Heyward’s contact rate was above league average and Johnson was a heavy strikeout hitter.

The perfect baseball player, in my opinion, would be the complete opposite of Chris Johnson. I take offense at any flattering remarks made about Johnson by anyone. Because of my petty and insecure nature, I feel compelled to destroy him. I can’t allow false beliefs to endure, so I have to do it whenever I can. I’ll finally make a breakthrough and get the world to see reason if I can only talk a little more clearly and tweak my language a little. I’m right, and everyone need to pay attention.

This kind of mindset is what makes people loathe Johnson. It’s not that he’s a nasty guy; rather, a lot of Braves supporters have the wrong impression of him. Baseball fans who lean toward sabermetrics talk about the game with the zeal and conviction of the converted, and for them, praising Chris Johnson is the height of heresy. Fans of Sabermetrics are not Orthodox Jews, happy to remain God’s chosen people with no desire to rise in the ranks. We are born-again evangelists, and we won’t stop until we’ve used the sword or the Word to win over everyone on the planet to our cause. Being correct is not enough; we also need to be recognized for our correctness.

The primary distinction between a preacher of the gospel of Bill James and a follower of Jesus Christ is that proselytizing lacks a scriptural foundation. There’s no religious duty to persuade people of our perspective on baseball. Insecurity and an instinctive anger toward those who have the audacity to be incorrect are the driving forces behind the need to align all lines of thought on these matters. Even while I have a great deal of confidence in my judgment of Johnson, it is insufficient. I thus prod, sneer, and focus on all of his failures in the hopes that one day, people would finally see what I have been saying for the entire time. There is nothing admirable about this strategy.

In my post from yesterday, I begged for sympathy for Braves centerfielder Melvin Upton. In closing, I stated that all I was requesting was the same degree of empathy that each of us would desire for themselves. I’m here today to request that empathy once more, but this time it’s for myself.

I should be able to relate to and feel sorry for every Braves player who honorably represents the team on the field. I haven’t done so, and I’ll keep being unfair and capricious toward the Braves I wholeheartedly support and the ones I take down whenever I get the chance. Johnson has received unjust treatment from me, and it’s likely that he will continue to receive unfair treatment. I only hope that people would realize that I am a flawed human who consistently falls short of his ideals, which is why I have such a caustic attitude.

Few things are as pathetic as a team’s fan disparaging the players he is meant to be rooting for. Even when the truth is uncomfortable, I try to write the truth. That being said, there’s no justification for hoping for any Braves player to fail or for highlighting a player’s shortcomings excessively to support a personal opinion. Chris Johnson is not a very good baseball player in my opinion, and I wish the Braves had not granted him the extension. However, I should write about him and other athletes who are similar to him better. I don’t need to convert everyone to my way of thinking, and I’ll never be able to use someone as a prop to prove my intellectual superiority. I am not perfect. I hope to perform better tomorrow.