re: ATL Thread 7/26: @Phillies

quote:

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When Ozzie comes back he’ll catch fire.


Where is this coming from?

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Probably the fact that you can tell they love playing together, and Ronnie seems to always be in a better mood and having fun when Ozzie’s around. And I assume the theory is that if Ronnie’s having fun, he’ll flip a switch and turn into the “real” Ronnie. There’s probably some truth to that, but I don’t know how much. And if there’s a lot of truth to it, I don’t know how much I like it. Well, actually, I don’t like it all. He’s a fricking professional—he can’t just play well when his BFF is out there with him. Cause he won’t always be.

But I think there’s a ton of other mental stuff going on with him too. He’s lost his swag. He went from being maybe the best player in baseball last year (besides Ohtani) and likely winning the MVP, to destroying his knee and watching his team win the World Series without him. And instead of him winning NLCS or WS MVP and getting all the glory, he had to watch Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler—2 OFs who hadn’t even been on the team for 3 months—win them, respectively. And he had to watch some white, Californian surfer douche—who had also just joined the team—become the “fun,” that the team and media seemed to rally around.

And now, Austin Riley has clearly established himself as the team’s current best player and an MVP candidate himself, and Dansby is having a monster season in his money year that’s about to get him paid. Speaking of, and I think this is a real thing that was—or is—inevitably going to become one if it hasn’t already, Ronnie’s about to be the 4th or 5th highest paid position player on the Braves.

And when Soto is turning down $440 over 15 years, Mookie Betts, and Machado and Tatis all have $300+ guaranteed contracts and Ronnie, when right, is better than all of them yet getting paid nickels on the dollar AND now has 1st-hand experience with how quickly an injury can happen and derail your career? I think all of that is in there somewhere, and as a relatively immature 24-year-old kid, he’s having a hard time battling through both the physical and psychological adversity he’s going/had to go through. And it’s preventing him from simply being himself, having fun, and just playing like who he is.

Maybe it’s something physical so small that we can’t see and when he figures it out, he’ll get his swag back and turn it on. Maybe it’s all mental, and he just needs to run into a couple to get his mojo back. Or maybe he really just misses his BFF. But the money thing is gonna be a thing soon, if it’s not already. Imo, of course.