It's stupid, moronic, idiocy, and whatever other adjective you want to put in there, unless Heyward has some underlying injury concern that Fredi and the Braves aren't letting us know about. Judging by the fact that Heyward took the field as a defensive replacement in the game today, I'd say he must be fine.
Heyward is struggling this year, and he we should expect more out of him. But baseball is a funny game where players can slump for months without a seeming end in sight. It is the nature of the beast. Even despite his obvious struggles, Jason Heyward has a wRC+ of exactly 100, which is a metric that is a linear weight that sets the league average at 100. So, by this metric, and most others out there, Jason Heyward has been a league average hitter this season. Some teams would kill to have a just turned 22 year old league average hitter in their lineup.
I agree with trying to do what it takes to get Heyward out of his slump, but the one thing that can't be done is sit him, which I'm afraid is going to start happening more and more. Can you imagine what would have happened if Fredi had sat Dan Uggla or backed off using Craig Kimbrel during their struggles? Do we see where they are right now? Heck, Freddie Freeman belongs in that group as well. Baseball players go through struggles, and sometimes a day off helps. However, sitting players down multiple days in a row, especially a franchise changing talent like Heyward, just can't happen. If Fredi or Wren thinks the team can get by with Constanza manning the outfield in an every day role for a bit (I'll explain why this isn't smart in a second), then send Heyward to AAA for 10 days to work on his swing against worse pitching and out of the spotlight. Judging by his batted ball numbers (only 13.3% line drives, and over 24% of his fly balls have been infield pop ups this season), he could probably use the work and a fresh take from some other coaching. But for goodness sakes, if he's healthy, he has got to be playing, because he is a franchise changing talent and because his track record indicates that he is a much better player than what he is showing. .393 OBPs don't just happen for a full season. See Uggla, Freeman, and Kimbrel. See Hanley Ramirez of the Marlins. Throwing the more talented player going through a slump to the bench isn't going to help matters much.
As for Constanza, if the Braves think he is capable of starting in the middle of a pennant race on a consistent basis, they are going to get bitten in the ass. His hot streak coming into today's game has consisted of 1 line drive out of 16 batted balls, 13 grounders, and 2 fly balls. He also has 1 bunt attempt, which we can call a grounder. 7 of his 14 ground balls have found holes, leading to his sterling .400 batting average. He also hasn't walked. It won't last. I promise. Yesterday's results don't mean much when the process to obtain those results is flawed. In about 7 days, its going to lead to Constanza slumping with Heyward still doing the same. Fat lot of good that does the Braves in the end. Constanza is a 7 year minor leaguer for a reason, and Heyward is regarded as one of the best young players in the game for a reason. Considering they both have track records, I'm confident the Braves know this too. But why am I still worried about it? Cause Fredi Gonzalez has a track record of being unpredictable this year. Damn it.
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