Your Atlanta Braves entered the All-Star break by blanking Chicago’s Pale Hose 2-0. Mike Foltynewicz pitched seven masterful innings and struck out a career high ten.
Folty got all the offense he needed on solo homers from Jeff Francouer and Jace Peterson, as the Braves took three of four in Chicago.
Atlanta looked like a real baseball team against the Cubs and White Sox.
Go Braves!
Edward….I think I got it. Inciarte, Aybar, AJP, demigod, cakes.
How you like me now??? Drops mic…
JC’d,
Ok here’s one…
Player A: Isn’t hitting well.
Player B: Isn’t hitting well.
Player C: Isn’t hitting well.
Player D: Isn’t hitting well.
Player E: Isn’t hitting well.
Edit: Okay, JohnWDB, correct!–but it was a trick question. Could apply to lots of players. The rub is there isn’t any way to decide if they’re actually any good, or if they’ll ever hit well in the future.
Player C is Heyward
Wrong Smitty. #2 is a trick question. They’re ALL Heyward.
Split W L RS RA WP
April 5 18 75 122 .217
May 10 18 86 115 .357
June 12 16 103 131 .429
July 3 6 41 46 .333
The Braves are really tightening that run differential. We’re on pace for the best run differential of the season.
Folty looked fantastic today. That was fun to watch. With his front of the rotation stuff, his development goes a long way on the rebuild.
And great news! I heard on the Chopcast that Blair tied a record for most runs given up through first whatever starts. He tied that record with Tom Glavine! So we’re good!
EDIT: The table isn’t showing right, and I don’t care to fix it. Just take my word for it that the run differential is tightening in case you don’t care to decipher the gobbledee goop.
Futures game tonight at 7 on mlb network. Swanson should get a few ABs I hope. There was a tweet earlier in the week about Bryce Harper appearing in his 4th MLB all star game and still being younger than more than 10 players in this futures game.
@6
Harper is proving to be a true generational player. Now will be become Strawberry or Chipper?
I hate Harper’s guts. Now let’s sign his worthless carcas to a record deal.
PS and completely OT, sorry guys but Stephen Janas just gets results. At some point he has to become a prospect
Next season’s bullpen options should include a healthy Shae Simmons and Paco Rodriguez to go with Dario Alvarez, Withrow, Cervenka, and Mauricio, plus Janas, AJ Minter, Akeel Morris, and possibly a returning Vizcaino. Should be a real strength.
Dansby looked silly in his first AB in the futures game- struck out on 3 pitches- but less a commentary on him than on how filthy Alex Reyes is. Fastball up over 100, an explosive curveball, and a nasty change too.
Cards top prospect vs our top prospect was an epic mismatch. That dude can bring it.
@9
You’ve got no Hursh or Dirks. Interesting. I also figure they’ll give up on Banuelos as a starter and shift him to the pen.
That’s one cheap, cheap bullpen. If we don’t have some fellas that make money holding gloves,
I’m going to be pissed.
RE: Futures
Vasgersian and DeRo are doing a pretty good job on the broadcast. I like those guys.
Dansby sucks.
Harper’s been in four AS games, and has had the stats to be in only one. Don’t get me started. The hype machine.
Dansby looked unready for prime time.
I have intense Alex Bregman envy.
I’m not ready to give up on Dansby just yet
There was a rumored Freeman to the Astros deal last winter. I wonder if Bergman was part of it
I think we should just release Dansby. Sometimes you just have to admit when something is not working.
Dansby just missed
He needs to get a hit. He’s embarrassing Stu. But yes, he did hit that hard the other way and just missed.
Would you rather trade Teheran for Bregman or Benintedi?
I thought we were trading Teheran for Gattis. Gosh, I just don’t know anymore. This is all happening too fast.
@12 Hursh and Dirks could be there, too. Hursh I’m not crazy about, as he doesn’t K enough for a late inning role, though he’s certainly been better in his return to AA. Dirks I simply missed. He could be a player.
Gotta throw in a sweetener with Teheran to get Gattis
@24
Relievers tend to be such good buy low candidates that I’d imagine the Braves would pick up a couple options like they do every year. As a result, the understanding that you’ll have a couple of those people and a failed starter as a long reliever means that some really solid options will become trade bait.
Along those lines, I think if the Braves liked the offers for Vizzy, they’d have pulled the trigger. I think they’re hoping that a couple months of health and effectiveness will exponentially increase his trade value. The same reasons why we want to trade him (his lack of durability) are the same reasons players won’t go crazy for him. A couple more months of durability could change that considerably.
the great Gatsby
just how bad can atbats be
turning away
we meditate, there’s others pray.
Shelby Miller
must now be regarded as little more than filler
the mighty have fallen
it’s his circle change they find particularly appallen’.
The ten year vet
has shown us he’s not done yet
Chihuahua power
renewable it seems at any given hour.
the cut off man
why not put a woman there if you can?
Lorena Bobbit
she’s sure to hurl away not lob it.
Blazon has his muse working.
blazon is dealing.
And here’s something funny? from an old friend:
http://tinyurl.com/hysdkpb
Yunel being Yunel.
Pedro Moura @pedromoura
Yunel Escobar declined to speak to reporters after today’s loss. “F*** that s***,” he said when asked to answer questions.
🙂
More and more people are saying that Teheran will not be traded. We’re asking too much. The more and more you look at Coppy’s trade record, Andrelton’s deal looks like the clear outlier.
If you were on the other side, would you give up your best prospect for Teheran? I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t, but I guess it would depend on how badly I needed to win right now. But I don’t think there’s a pitcher on the trade block that is good enough to warrant “going for it”.
@35
..in the sense he got too little back?
Anyone stay up and watch the last parts of the futures game? Boston’s Moncada and Cub prospect Eloy Jimenez both hit monstrous upper-deck home runs. The World team put on quite a show.
@37
I personally don’t think so. I think we got two really good pitching prospects and a should-have-been-average shortstop for the best defender in baseball who can’t hit a lick. When I say outlier, I’m trying to communicate the point that since Coppy has mostly been pretty good on his trades, the perception on Andrelton’s deal is definitely an outlier.
@38
Focusing on the international market seems like a pretty good market inefficiency right about now.
That Reyes kid from the Cards was throwing 101 effortlessly. I’m guessing his command still needs work, but his stuff was jaw dropping.
Yeah, I remain completely fine with the Andrelton deal, although I understand why it felt like such a slap in the face to folks who watch the team every day.
The Olivera trade is the bad one, and I maintain that it’s not even that bad, in that the future performance we traded away probably isn’t going to be much better than the performance we acquired (including Rodriguez and Wentz). But it’s hard not to feel like we could have gotten more for Alex Wood at the time of the trade.
They’re both interesting, and depressing for different reasons, though I get the logic for each.
Andrelton for Newcombe/Ellis was present value for future value. We’ve done a whole lot of that, and the vast majority of those trades look really good right now.
Wood/Peraza/relievers for Olivera was present (and future) value for present value. We’ve done very little of that, unless you want to count Heyward for Miller. Given his underwhelming results in limited playing time, we appear to have had a basic failure of scouting. But the far bigger problem was one of character, and after Fredi signed off on his character, the Braves clearly felt they’d done due diligence. Given his advanced age and the not-insignificant guaranteed money the Dodgers gave him, these failures sting a lot more than they would if he were just a prospect lottery ticket.
In general, we need to do a lot more Olivera-style trades and a lot fewer Simmons-style trades: we simply don’t have much major league talent left to trade, beyond what we do with Vizcaino and Teheran. But we can’t afford to miss on more Oliveras.
Can’t hit a lick? Come on. Can’t walk? Sure. But he’s having a better offensive season than 3 of the starting shortstops in our division while making absurd defensive plays.
Come back, Shane.
Simmons is probably pretty exasperating to coach. He takes the biggest rips I’ve ever seen for someone that isn’t much of a long ball threat. I’ve often wondered if his unwillingness to change approaches led to us kind of giving up on him. I don’t think we sold terribly low, but I think we probably didn’t try all that hard to maximize the return.
Simmoms is not much of an offensive weapon at all.
Andrelton wasn’t hitting a lick until late June. In the last 17 games, he has hit .406 with 9 XBH’s. He’s even walked 4 times.
I don’t think it was a bad deal at all. If Newcomb keeps improving his control, he could be an ace
I’d agree with that, but I don’t know about “keeps.” Last year, his BB/9 and K/9 were 5.0 and 11.1. This year, they’re 5.2 and 9.0. His walk rate is slightly up and his K-rate is substantially down.
He’s got all the stuff in the world and maybe he’ll figure it out, but his progress definitely hasn’t been linear.
Whatever we did with Folty, small sample aside, seems to have had amazing results. 11 walks in 49 innings for a guy who couldn’t seem to find the zone a year ago…
Need to get Newcomb some bone spurs, stat.
Newcomb will be fine. He isn’t done yet and we don’t need him to be. Scouts have preached patience on him since before he was drafted. Progress doesn’t have to be linear, especially for a team that has legit pitching at every level.
I recall the Braves forbidding Simba to hit on the side because they felt like he was just taking too many reps without necessarily focussing on improving. IOW the guy’s response to hitting poorly was putting in tons of extra work that was not focussed on curing what ailed him, and was reinforcing the bad stuff.
As I said in his writeup for the 44, I think the guy is too smart and too athletic not to solve this part of his game.
If Flowers has to be DLed it sounds like we would call someone up and have to make room on the 40 man roster.
If that’s the case, let’s make a move for a young catcher.
@54 It will probably be Recker who has been hitting pretty well.
We should call up Christian Bethancourt. Oh wait…
Good thing we traded CB for a bale of hay
Casey Kelly’s hair looks worse than a bale of hay.
I will say, I’m pretty ready to declare the Bethancourt trade a loss.
Bethancourt was out of options, for what it’s worth, so he wouldn’t have been available for a call-up — he’d have to have remained on the team all year.
I agree that the Braves were too impatient with him, but if they’d kept him, you’d be talking about Pierzynski-and-Bethancourt tandem all year, with Flowers playing on some other team.
Too many players play at their suckiest when they are Braves.
Bethancourt may be benefiting from a change in scenery.
Of course, so may BJ Upton.
Wait, hasn’t Flowers hit better than Bethancourt? Why am I supposed to miss this guy?
@63
Because, krussell, because. Because I didn’t know Bethancourt was out of options.
Tyler Flowers would be one example of a player who is having his best season in an Atlanta uniform. Frenchy falls into that category, along with Gordon Beckham and Chase d’Arnaud.
In somewhat sad news for us, the PTBNL in the Bud Norris trade turned out to be our friend Alec Grosser. If you recall, he was a flamethrowing high schooler that I got to watch in our Little League and on my son’s high school FB and BB teams. 10th rounder (he dropped from expected 2d-4th round til the Braves gave him overslot $ in 10th) in 2013. Super kid.
After a very impressive stint at Danville (made some Braves top 20 prospects lists), he struggled last year at Rome and got sent back to Danville mid season. He got lit up in 3 short stints this year at Danville.
Hate to see him go, but given how many RHP we picked up in the last year, he’s better off elsewhere. Hope he figures it out.
There’s a guy in the HR derby this year that I have literally never heard of.
Tyler Flowers would be one example of a player who is having his best season in an Atlanta uniform. Frenchy falls into that category, along with Gordon Beckham and Chase d’Arnaud.
Yeah, but considering how much we had staked in BJ and the longer-term hole on our roster that Bethancourt was supposed to fill — to say nothing of Aybad — it’s not like hitting on some roleplayers is evening things out for us.
If I had time, I’d love to see how the Braves compare to other clubs when it comes to getting the worst out of their players.
The combined WAR of our batters is 0.1, according to bref. It is a somewhat recent development that our team is above replacement level. Several solid individual performances, namely Freeman’s 2.5 WAR, have been cancelled out by putrid performances, like AJP’s -1.7 WAR and Aybar’s -1.1 WAR.
Our pitching is +6.8 WAR, putting our total at about 7 WAR. A replacement team should’ve won 26 games so far, and we have won 31 games, so we are 5 wins above replacement by that measure.
P.S.: Our Pythagorean win total is at exactly 33 wins, tracking with our expected wins by WAR
Adam R at 67,
I always felt like during the Schuerholz era (or at least the early part) we always seemed to get more out of pitchers (“the Mazzone [Cox] Effect”), but also position players. Many retreads did well.
Mike Devereaux, Ozzie Guillen when we first got him, Julio Franco. A couple of guys who didn’t were Aaron Boone and Reggie Sanders.
But lately, almost every position player we would get seemed to underperform. Melky. Bossman Junior. Uggla (after the first couple of years). Part of that is trying to be cheap.
Let’s blame the 2-win under-performance on Fredi.
@70, You meant Bret Boone… a name seared on my brain next to Reggie “Awesome Every Other Year” Sanders. Can we add BJ Surhoff to the list?
Today, I was able to select Kevin Maitan in the supplemental (All-Star) round of my NL-only dynasty league’s taxi draft. So, if he busts, I will be crushed on multiple fronts.
John R. at 72,
Correct. Got the wrong brother. It was Bret.
And one thing about the recent guys. A lot of them seemed like bad conditioning was related. Melky. Probably early season Aybar.
Don’t forget Nate McLouth’s career imploded in Atlanta and was miraculously resurrected in Baltimore.
We also just had so many players who we signed on the backside of their career and had the pleasure of watching their decline. Present company excluded, Sea Bass and ACHE come to mind.
@74
I wouldn’t mind lumping Markakis in the group of under-conditioning. He just doesn’t look athletic at all.
@75, don’t forget the Garret Anderson era. Backside of career, didn’t seem to want to be here, didn’t look like he was trying, and so on. We’ve put up with a lot of total crap as fans of this team.
Sea bass wasn’t bad for us, with 3.1 WAR over a season and a half. He was just a horrible offensive player for the bulk of his career, and we traded for him bc he hit a few fluky dingers on a stacked Toronto team.
@77, I thought ACHE was Garret Anderson, and in his defense, he was washed up and continued to play that way after he went to the Dodgers the next season
What does ACHE mean? I must’ve slept through that part of the nickname assignments.
Anderson, Cleanup Hitter Extraordonaire.
That 2009 team was just chock full of some of my least favorite Braves. Kotchman. Frosted Tips. Nate McOut.
@75, Bobby Bonilla, Ken Caminiti, and Raul Mondesi come to mind, too.
@79, it’s here: http://bravesjournal.us/?page_id=2497
Chipper Jones really underperformed.
Right, so my question is: do our players who we actually expected something out of bust more than other teams’ similarly counted-on players? Or better yet, pull a Melvin by busting and then completely recovering after leaving?
I’m sure that’s tough to answer because it requires a team’s fans to separate the Ugglas from the ACHEs, and in some cases I’m sure there’s a fine line.
Farther back, Reggie Sanders. Guy still makes me angry … bum.
Let’s not forget the dizzy man, and the guy who was so bad he quit midseason.
@85
I think that’s a difficult question to answer because expectations are difficult to set. Sometimes we enjoy the benefit of history that someone was in the twilight of their careers.
@88, I guess, but then there are the Pablo Sandovals that will stand out as exactly what we’re looking for.
Nobody said Derek Lowe! I can’t believe he was a 2 WAR player until the end.
Really, how did we not mention Mike freakin’ Hampton?
Allard was dealing tonight. Should see him in Rome soon.
Are Albies and Swanson a package deal? How long will Albies need to hit .400 at AA before he moves again? Another 2-5 night for him tonight. He’s got a 1.049 OPS at AA this year, including 1.140 since he returned to AA.
I’d be kinda pissed if I were him. Why is his progress tied to this other guy?
The hits were flowing for Meneses at Carolina, but since his promotion they seem to have dried up.
Joey Wentz struck out 6 in 3 ip against 1 BB, 2 h, no runs
@90, As I recall, Mike Hampton’s problems were mainly his propensity for injury starting in 2005. He had to nearly full years for Atlanta before that, and he was effective. Then he didn’t pitch for most of the next four years.
But wouldn’t the Braves kills to have a hitter like Mike Hampton in the middle of their lineup right about now? It feels like so long since we’ve had someone of that caliber…
Joey Wentz is quickly making a name for himself.
@91, His first three starts this year were in Rome. His first two were terrible, his third pretty good. Then he got sent to Danville, where he’s had two pretty good starts, and two lights out starts. I do wonder if he’ll return to Rome before the year is up. It’d be a big confidence builder if he was able to slip in a few pretty good to lights out starts there.
I just saw the video of the kid Reyes from the Futures game last night that hit 101. The K pitch on the first strikeout may be the nastiest pitch I’ve ever seen. Literally.
That kid barring injury is going to be a mega-star.
When will Ian Anderson pitch?
99—Pitching suspect, IMO.
Anderson will debut tomorrow I think.
Reyes should net Gattis plus a PTBNL
Think we could get Gattis this winter for 10 years $3 billion?
Julio’s still a Brave, as is Markakis and Frenchy. What’s wrong with Coppy?
Yes, most troubling with Albies. He seems to have outgrown AA. Obviously it’s hard to tell how they feel about his defense, so maybe that’s the reason he’s still down there.
Teams think our asking price for Julio is too high. They’re probably right, but they’ll get desperate as we approach the deadline. Coppy’s doing the right thing.
I don’t know why anyone would want Markakis or Francoeur.
Julio is a safe bet to generate 20 WAR over the life of his contract for the team that acquires him, and there’s a fair chance he’s even better than that, given that they’re getting his late 20’s–typical prime seasons. If Julio were a free agent this offseason, he would get at least a $150 million contract offer with $200 million possible.
What is fair value for such a player, at his age, cost, and controllability, in trade? Especially to a team that needs him for a championship run this season and next when we have no pressure on us to make a deal? Someone’s #6, #12, and #25 prospects? Evan Gattis?
The Astros do need pitching…
No reason to move Julio unless we are blown away. Trading for guys like Julio is what we should be doing.
I don’t want to move Julio.
Me either, timo, but I didn’t want to move Andrelton either. My wants don’t carry much weight.
@108 has it right, I think. The combination of talent, relative youth and affordability that JT would bring a buyer means the Braves, to me are NOT overvaluing him as much as many say.
However, a case from recent seasons stands for me as a warning to the buying clubs: namely a couple of years ago when Billy Beane and the A’s really went for it, generated all the buzz at the time by trading for Samardzija and–if memory serves–John Lester… I mean a little bad luck and something like that really blows up on you!
Mike Hampton was a pretty damn good pitcher when he wasn’t suffering injuries at the hands of moths and doilies.
@112
hi coop!
what’s this ‘me either’ then?! typo or transatlantic grammatical putsch?
you are confirming a negative so ‘me neither’, surely?
we seniors, the bar is high.
or i could be completely wrong, it just didn’t sound right.
these off days, the mind wanders. Fun. Cheers!
Glad we didn’t draft Jason Groome.
Peter Gammons:
“If David Price were in this market or Jose Quintana or Chris Sale were available, would Boston move Benintendi? Probably; in time, Moncada could play the outfield, or Betts could go back to the infield. But there are no 1-2 starters on the market. Julio Teheran is, in the judgement of every GM I talk to, a back-end starter whose three game history at Camden Yards, Fenway and Rogers Centre is a run an inning.”
Right, a “back-end starter”. Freddie Freeman is more of a backup first basemen, too. There are only a dozen 1-2 starters in the whole MLB. I have no idea what all 30 teams do to fill the 60 spots for #1-2 pitchers.
It is also clear to me that teams value a half season rental about the same as they value 5 years of a player (idiotically). In that case, we should keep Teheran until 2019 and then ask for just as much.
http://www.gammonsdaily.com/peter-gammons-red-sox-bright-future-and-more-from-san-diego/
Always remember: Peter Gammons is almost never right about anything. Been true his entire career.
Regarding Groome, the Braves wouldn’t have had any trouble signing him. They wouldn’t have had as much money for the rest of their draft class, though.
#117
Yeah, I heard Gammons on the radio the other day repeating the same stuff about how AL East GMs don’t trust Teheran & the 3 games he’s started in division ballparks.
Of course, as long as the Red Sox, for example, are putting so much faith in such a small sample size, maybe they should’ve looked closer at David Price’s ugly post-season numbers. They could’ve saved a lotta money.
This is good. The Red Sox are trying to bring Coppy’s price down.
Fine. Keep sending Clay Buchholz and Eduardo Rodriguez out there, and then we’ll see who’s a back-end starter.
Yep. The less stock you place in Peter Gammons’s opinions, the better off you’ll be.
I also love this: “Julio Teheran is, in the judgement of every GM I talk to…”
lol, lemme guess, the name of every GM Peter Gammons talks to rhymes with Tike Blazin’.
To quote Peter Gammons:
“B
T
Nf
Thtnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
N b
Bntg”
I think that just about says it all.
Teheran’s more of a spot starter, mop-up guy
There was a time a few years back when Teheran was giving up like a run per inning in AAA, and if you had asked anyone here if they would trade him for a few decent prospects I think the consensus would have been yes.
Takeaways? Year over year performance variance can still be quite high. Don’t give up too soon.
Tyler Flowers broke his hand and is out for at least 6 weeks. Sigh.
One look at Peter Gammons’ timeline and it’s all Red Sox stuff. No bias there, I’m sure.
I hate the Flowers injury. Not sure what the data says, but I think he’s been doing a good job with the young pitchers. He’s also been hitting well. He’s a big loss.
I hope this doesn’t break the no politics rule, but messing with the Canadian national anthem to promote the all lives matter thing was not cool.
Lucas Sims is dealing tonight. 5 K’s, 0 R through 3.
128 — It seemed like the change of scenery was doing Flowers some good. This has been the best season of his career. Hate it for him.
Now we get to see more of AJP and his -1.7 WAR.
Hate to hear that about Tyler Flowers. Was/is a real bright spot on the year, and certainly someone deserving a continued role on this team at his level of performance.
I was wrong. I told my son that Tehran was definitely giving up a HR this inning. Good for him.
As was mentioned, Lucas Sims was dealing and he successfully dealt. 6.2 IP, 6 H, 2 BB, 7 K, 1 R. And every night in AA features another guy who may be a strong reliever as AJ Minter had another scoreless inning. Check out his line across three levels: 18 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 5 BB, 21 K. .59 WHIP. .48 ERA. He is absolutely mowing them down. He struck out the side in 1 IP.
Oh, and how could I forget? Albies went 2-4 and is now hitting a clean .400.
In fact, if you care to get hyped up about AJ Minter (do so at your own risk):
This was before he’s had 3.2 IP in AA with 8 K’s and 1 H. Big, tall, nasty lefty out of the pen? Sign me up.
AJ Minter will likely pitch in Atlanta this year. I’m also on the Steve Janas bandwagon. Not worried about the pen.
Frank Thomas is maybe my all time favorite player bc he came on the scene when my baseball fandom started peaking. We drafted Tyler Houston 5 spots ahead of him. What might have been..
Frank put up numbers that would embarrass Kyle Lewis in the SEC and he struck out half as often
New thread.