For some reason, even in a season where everybody knows a team comprised of the players that make up the 2016 Atlanta Braves should never be expected to compete with actual major leaguers, losing to a team like the Phillies still stinks. They should be the dregs of the NL. Life was much more pleasant when they were.
Six total runs scored in a game that lasted two hours and two minutes, which sounds like an astounding feat at first glance. It makes a lot more sense, though, when you take into consideration that five of those six runs came via the solo home run. Mike Foltynewicz gave up four of those home runs and a sacrifice fly to boot, while Ender Inciarte broke up the Philly shutout with a lead off home run in the seventh to score the Braves lone run. It’s hard to recover from your starting pitcher giving up four home runs, and that task certainly proved to be well beyond the capabilities of our lovable losers.
Julio Teheran is supposed to be the Braves only representative at the All-Star game next week, but his scheduled Wednesday start will not happen now due to a thigh infection he had to return to Atlanta to have examined. Tyrell Jenkins will instead get his first big league start in Teheran’s stead.
Aybar delenda est.
(From last thread)
Wisler and Folty are pretty safe bets to be #4 and #5 starters, if not 3/4. In fact, you might have 1/3/4/5 covered already with Teheran/Wisler/Folty/Gant or Perez. I haven’t liked what I’ve seen from Jenkins or Blair at the ML level, but they’re way too young to write off (cause, ya know, Glavine). I really don’t know what you need to see from a bunch of 23 year olds pitching in the big leagues for the first time to be impressed. We’re not looking for 7 José Fernandez’s here.
Wisler easily projects as a no 3 to me. Folty? could be anywhere from a 2 to AAAA.
Afternoon games are good.
Anybody know what Chief Nocahoma’s take on the Braves’ pitching-prospect situation is? I was hoping to find out, but I can’t seem to find it recorded anywhere.
By his standards, I’d say that he’s cautiously optimistic.
Kolby Allard and Joey Wentz are going to be good.
Bruce Chen, that guy’s going to be good.
@4, Happy to help!!! I copy-pasted from the last week or so’s threads, but really we should be tagging any threads with Chief Nocahoma pitching prospect hot takes in the comments for posterity.
I believe Allard is the only #1 Ace type pitching prospect that the Braves have. Newcomb is a #3/4 SP type, IMO.
Don’t know enough about Fried.
My suspicion as I’ve said, ad nauseum, is that most of these pitching prospects are suspects and will never be anything. Out of the lot of them, the Braves will be lucky to get one above average MLB pitcher and the rest are just going to be guys.
In my mind, I’d have Allard ahead of Newcomb. Allard has #1, Ace type potential, to me Newcomb has a very strong odor of #3 SP to him. A 13-11 guy with a 4.12 ERA, etc.
And I still contend there is no such thing as a pitching prospect.
Primanti Brothers (?) for a sammich…
How did that last one get in there? Whoops.
I hear that some guy named Glavine will be pretty good once he gets his change-up settled down.
The Braves signed 16-year old Bruce Chen as an amateur free agent out of Panama in 1993. He went on to have a 17-year career. He didn’t do diddly in a Braves uniform — we traded him for Andy Ashby — but I respect the hell out of his longevity.
I thought about something that could be fun to do. I don’t know how you can get multiple Braves affiliates on TV (I’m assuming there’s a MiLB.tv?), but I would pick a perfectly-timed night where I would have, say, Max Fried at Rome, Max Povse at Carolina (or maybe Soroka by then), Newcomb at Mississippi, and Ellis at Gwinnett. I’d have my beer, my nachos, and just park it on the couch. But the big picture of all of this is that half of those guys won’t work out anyway, so picking any one night could realistically mean that 3/4 of these pitching performances will be duds, so it probably wouldn’t be a whole lot of fun.
And that’s the re-build. One night Newcomb and Blair throw a gem, but Soroka gets rocked and Dansby goes 0-4. The other night Albies goes 4-4, Ellis throws 7 no-hit innings, but Ruiz goes 0-4 and Touki walks the stadium. You really have to look for the 3-4 individual performances across the levels to be optimistic because there are probably 2-3 duds at the same time.
I’m surprised no one is talking about how well the Commodore and the Curacaoan are playing together. They both have 1000+ OPS’ since Albies was sent to double-A.
Prospect optimism is usually inversely related to age/level. Right now I’m thinking this year’s draft is one of our best ever, and that’s already confirmed by several innings worth of rookie ball.
Double-A bullpen last night: 6 2/3 innings, 0 ER, 12 K’s. Akeel Morris to AJ Minter to Caleb Dirks to Jason Hursh. All top-30 prospects.
I’ve never understood people comparing guys to Glavine.
I’ve never understood you not comparing guys to Glavine.
If you let yourself get too wrapped up in the day-to-day performance of any of these prospects, you’ll lose sight of the bigger picture of who we should ultimately be trading for Evan Gattis.
@16, +1 million
I completely disagree. Every single day offers you a different collection of stiffs to package in your mind for El Oso Blanco.
@13
The bullpen seems to be one of the facets of this rebuild that’s actually going well. Hursh, who I think is one of the last vestiges of the Wren era, got off to a lousy start this year, but it seems like maybe he’s figuring things out. He has 13 Ks in his last 5 appearances (9IP) against just three hits and one walk. I saw him pitch once in spring this year and remember thinking “How is this guy not an elite big league reliever” and then I saw him two days later and he gave up a couple gopher balls….
My guess is they get creative and package Smith/Inciarte with non top-tier pitching prospect(s) to a team with hitting but values a defense first outfielder.
@20
I wish we had moved Inciarte not long after we got him. People were walking like he was Willie Mays. Turns out he is a slower Willie Mays Hays.
It’s weird with Inciarte. He’s had this huge up-tick in walks, but his contact and power have completely bottomed out. He strung some hits together in early June, and since that point, he has been hitting .280/.340/.409, which is almost identical to last year. If he can keep up a .750 OPS for the rest of the year, then I think we can package him with some other pieces for something decent.
The pen is deep at this point, and as Stu predicted based on his contract, I think we see JJ traded here soon. We’re currently 6-deep on sub-3 ERA relievers, and I think we hold auditions and start trading some of those guys out.
EDIT: My bad, I missed Withrow’s unsightly 3.68 ERA. 5-deep.
Anyone know why Max Fried went to the DL?
I think he’s hurt.
Aybar breaking up the nohitter. We should re-sign him.
Erick Aybar is belatedly trying to make up for making me look like an idiot when I wrote this.
Yeah, was gonna let that one slide, but hey, since you brought it up, yeah, idiot.
Unlike the rest of you yokels, I actually like Nick Markakis. But if we could possibly get someone to take him off our hands and get anything of significance of return, that would make me happy, too.
@23
It’s being reported as a blister. I am sure Dr. Andrews will need to take a look.
23 — Blister.
Jason Heyward bWAR: 1.2
Ender Inciarte bWAR: 1.3
The first player makes $22 million more then the second player
Hey, John, get your own schtick. Who are you, Amy Shumer?
Originality was never an attribute of mine. But did you figure out my trivia question?
Inciarte is a legitimately great defensive CF, but a slap hitter without any power and isn’t hitting for average this year.
We can carry Inciarte just fine if we fill the black holes at the corners.
More background on the Cobb County Parking Follies…
http://deadspin.com/the-atlanta-braves-borrowed-their-parking-scam-from-dan-1783149400
“This appears to be another case, like the Washington Redskins pedestrian ban, where public safety is used as a cover to force fans to park in stadium lots. I hope that the adjacent property owners find an advocate to fight for their rights.”
Jeff Francouer HOF watch:
In Braves annals, Jeff French-heart (or en Franglais, Le F’art) is about to (these are franchise, not ATL):
Pass Martin Prado for 47th in total bases (1106)
Pass Klesko and Chambliss for 33rd in doubles(139)
Needs 4 HR to pass JHey for 28th (81)
Needs 5 XBH to pass Prado for 38th (232)
NEEDS 14 Ks to pass both Uggla and Klesko for 17th (should happen this week I guess)(521)
Needs 2 GIDP to pass Andres Thomas and TP for 26th (65)
Needs 1 HBP to break tie with Henry Aaron for 20th (31)
Keltner List?
Sorry, what trivia question?
Trivia questions my not be my forte either
@28, @29
Like I said.
Frenchy!
And this is why I wont be sad to see Snitker go away
pulling jenkins an out away from qualifying fr his first win? BS
not like he was getting hit hard either, and at 64 pitches too
EDIT: and on one pitch, Krol blows it
F U, Snitker
Pitcher wins should have nothing to do with bullpen decisions. We’re past that now.
sure, but the pitch limit was 75, and herrera had been retired twice by Jenkins.
don’t tell me you agree with constant use of three relievers to get through an inning?
Snit happens.
They aren’t really used in evaluating pitchers anymore, but it’s still cool to have a won a big-league game.
I have no idea whether it was the right decision all things considered. I just know one thing that should not be given the slightest bit of consideration, but of course which Joe and Chip immediately whined about, was how Jenkins now couldn’t get a “win.”
If it’s a decision for his development that takes precedent, but, if you’re debating whether to play match-ups in inning five of a July game in a hopeless season, it’s not nothing.
Erick Aybar is en fuego.
Sure, if you throw out caring whether or not you want to win, you can take any damn superstition into account. I’m starting with the assumption that the goal is to win games. If it’s not, then do whatever you want.
ugh, not this snit again
here we go again, bases empty, pitching change in the friggin’ 6th inning
For his career, righties are OPSing .924 against Krol; lefties are at .698. I think you kind of have to play matchups with him.
you were saying, Alex?
thats twice now that a pitching change has led to a tie, and on the first pitch, twice!
I’m more a fan of “go with what’s working, until it stops working”
I’m not saying Withrow was the right choice. Just that letting Krol face Maikel Franco is never a good idea.
@49, I’m not watching the game so don’t have an opinion on Jenkins’ removal, but player morale isn’t exactly a superstition.
@4 I cackled. Well done.
About these pitching suspects… LMAO.
Disagreed. Making your players happy is a part of managing. Personnel decisions aren’t always dictated by what you think makes you most likely to win today’s game.
Not a big deal either way, but I’d have taken a different route
One could argue (convincingly) that bolstering Jenkins’ confidence is far more important than winning 55 games instead of 54 this season. In fact, I’d prefer winning 54 just in case it matters in draft position. If we were in a pennant race, I wouldn’t give two stools about his first “win”.
Vizcai-oh no….
and there goes vizcaino’s trade value
Arodys has given up runs in three of his past four performances.
Why was Viz brought in for the 8th inning? He’s been struggling. Was Snitker wanting 2 innings from him?
I wanted it to go extras and watch Snit run out of pitchers. This season is a fail unless I see Francouer pitch at least a couple of innings.
Whew, the last 2 days Giancarlo Stanton has turned Citi Field into an artillery range.
Recrapped.