A couple of things I have learned from a long dissolute life is that Hollywood loves sequels and that they are (nearly) always worse than the originals. Thus shall it always be: Douglas Fairbanks was better than Tyrone Power (and I like Tyrone Power), who was better than Frank Langella, who was waaaay better than George Hamilton. Antonio Banderas beats the streak so to speak, but is still no Doug Fairbanks.

Anyhow, in spring training 2021 the Braves claimed a light hitting/good glove outfielder from the Mets and a legend was born. Originally signed by Seattle, Heredia spent 3 years at Safeco being thoroughly sub-average before being traded for future Hall of Famer Mallex Smith, after which he bounced around a bit mainly as AAA roster insurance. Nobody could have predicted his breakout.

Of course, that’s because the team was employing everyone from Ehire Adrianza to washed up former Mouseketeers (I’m pretty sure that’s Cubby) in the outfield after Ronald Acuna’s knee gave in and the stench of the Ozuna grew to be too much. In this reality, Heredia’s 77 OPS+ actually looks good next to Ender (57), Orlando (65) or (children avert your eyes) Christian (-6!).

Now, a rational team would bring in a whole new outfield that could actually hit (check) and make certain to do the same for 2022. In this light, bringing back the fun clubhouse guy who was good on D and didn’t actively kill you at the plate for a measly $1M wasn’t such a bad idea. Unfortunately, Acuna missed more time and everybody else decided that this was the time to put in a career worst performance. The good news is that the sequence would lead to the emergence of Michael Harris II; the bad is that it presaged the disappearance of Guillermo Heredia as he got all of 11 at bats after Harris made his debut (may I say that Snitger’s bench usage confounds me?)

Reading the writing on the wall, Heredia will take his swashbuckling to Korea this season with the SSG Landers which sounds like it has something to do with space exploration. I wish him the best and hope he says Hi! to Elon when he gets to Mars.