{"id":9508,"date":"2014-11-24T15:30:48","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T20:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/?p=9508"},"modified":"2014-11-24T15:30:48","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T20:30:48","slug":"a-j-pierzynski-among-catching-options-for-braves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2014\/11\/24\/a-j-pierzynski-among-catching-options-for-braves\/","title":{"rendered":"A.J. Pierzynski among catching options for Braves"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_9166\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9166\" style=\"width: 594px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9166\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/10\/ajpierzynski.jpg\" alt=\"Getty Images\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/10\/ajpierzynski.jpg 594w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/10\/ajpierzynski-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-9166\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Earlier today news broke that the Braves were considering a contract offer to David Ross. He is apparently not the only veteran that the team is considering as a mentor for Christian Bethancourt.<\/p>\n<p>Enter A.J. Pierzynski &#8211; yes, you know him.<\/p>\n<p>The Braves are looking for someone to pair up behind the plate with Bethncourt and the 37-year-old who split time between the Red Sox and Cardinals last season is another cheap option. Pierzynski hit just .251\/.288\/.337 in 362 plate appearances during the 2014 season but comes loaded with years of experience that extends into the postseason.<\/p>\n<p>Pierzynski has no plans to walk away just yet even though he will be looking at a significant pay cut from the $8.25 million he collected in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My kids want me to play and my wife wants me to play. It\u2019s hard to walk away. Whether it is to come in and help a young guy out or come in and play every day.&#8221; Pierzynski said in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stltoday.com\/sports\/baseball\/professional\/descalso-bourjos-wonder-if-they-ll-be-back-with-cards\/article_1e09d594-92a9-5e5b-997d-7155fda75839.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">interview<\/a> in October. &#8220;It is a tough opportunity to turn down. All my friends &#8230; say keep playing as long as you can. They all regret (it) once they walk away.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier today news broke that the Braves were considering a contract offer to David Ross. He is apparently not the only veteran that the team is considering as a mentor for Christian Bethancourt. Enter A.J. Pierzynski &#8211; yes, you know him. The Braves are looking for someone to pair up behind the plate with Bethncourt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[337,28,501],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":{"0":"post-9508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-a-j-pierzynski","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-mlb"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9509,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions\/9509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9508"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}