With their ace on the hill, the Braves lost 10-9 in extra innings, which is really not surprising if you’€™ve been watching the Braves in August. According to the broadcast last night, Braves starters have been averaging 5 IP and 4.1 BB/9 in August. Julio Teheran is no trend-setter, so he followed suit by getting pounded for 11 hits (many of which were hit extremely hard, and two were home runs) while giving up 6 ER in 6 IP. We ought to take comfort that he made it six innings, which means he qualified for an Atlanta Complete Game. I coined ACG, but much like something being “so fetch”, it’€™s just not going to happen.
But aside from an Ian Krol meltdown, the bullpen largely kept pace for the second night in a row. I tell you what, if you’€™re a middling reliever and you’re trying to get your career going, this starting pitching will give you plenty of opportunities! Inquire within. Madison Younginer, Arodys Vizcaino, and Mauricio Cabrera all had scoreless outings, but Jose Ramirez gave up the game in his second inning of work. Good for Vizcaino.
We seem to love hitting at Chase Field, much like the rest of baseball. Ender Inciarte had 4 hits, and Nick Markakis and Tyler Flowers both contributed three hits. Flowers actually has pulled his OPS up above .800, and is clearly having the best year of his career.
Another interesting point about the offense and the game yesterday is that this was most likely the first time all year that the Braves started an entire lineup of hitters with an OPS above .700. Lost in all of the starting pitching conniptions is that the offense has started to resemble a real major league offense.
But, we suck, so oh well.
to reiterate…
Freddie Freeman
before June 12th: .242/.336/.414 (.750), 262 PA, 9 HR, 10 2B, 1 3B
after June 12th: .332/.432/.676 (1.108), 285 PA, 17 HR, 22 2B, 5 3B
@jj from last thread
I posted this a few threads back regarding next year’s 40-man:
40-man roster right now:
Pitching (25)- Blair, Boscan, Cabrera, Cunniff, De la Cruz, Folty, Gant, Hursh, Tyrell, JJ, Kelly, Krol, Marksberry, Akeel, O’Flaherty, Ramirez, Chaz, Shae, Teheran, Vizzy, Weber, Whalen, Wisler, Withrow, Younginer
Catching (3)- AJ, T-Flow, Recker
Infield (8)- Beckham, Castro, D’arnaud, Freeman, Adonis, Kubitza, Jace, Dansby
Outfield (4)- Francoeur, Ender, Kemp, Markakis
Players removed at season’s end-
Pitching (2)- JJ, O’Flaherty
Catching (1)- AJ
Infield (1)- Beckham
Outfield (1)- Francoeur
40-5= 35.
Players that could pass through waivers unclaimed and/or players Braves wouldn’t miss should they be placed on waivers(11)- Boscan, Cunniff, De la Cruz, Kelly, Marksberry, Weber, Younginer, Recker, Castro, D’arnaud, Kubitza,
35-11= 24.
Players that have to be added to the 40-man roster from 60-day DL or risk losing(6): Mallex, Biddle, Perez, McKirahan, Paco, Winkler
*I’m going out on a limb here and saying Braves will only had 5 of the 6 and will only keep one of McK/Biddle*
24+5=29
*I’ve altered my stance on this since that thread. I still think they could choose to protect Janas and Lien, but I’m not convinced it’s as likely as I thought a few days ago
Guys eligble for rule 5 that will likely be protected:
Ruiz, Fried, Bradley, Sims
29+4=33.
It’s easy to protect the Rule-5 guys that matter, but what’s not easy is adding guys like Albies, Minter, Newcomb etc., all the while signing MLB free agents that are guaranteed roster spots. What I expect is for multiple 40-man guys to get traded for 1 guy to pencil in regularly somewhere, creating space for multiple call-ups and flexibility if needed.
Would someone really claim McKirahan or Biddle??? You do have to keep these guys on your roster for the entire year if you claim them. And we’re supposed to be trading other prospects to clear room to keep these guys, too?
I bet Coppy is glad he still has his right arm.
Wisler back up. He pitched well the last time he came up from AAA.
@3
I don’t think Braves will keep both of them, likely one. LHRP are just too valuable to let both of them go. Biddle has more upside and McK comes with a whole lot of taint on that bone.
Yeah, we picked up McKirahan on Rule 5 back when he was more valuable. He’s been injured, suspended, and has done nothing in 2 years, so I’m not worried there.
I also think Janas and Lien and whomever on the fridge is ok to dangle, but I do agree that you’ve got 30-35 guys already, and if you want to add some more prospects and FAs, then you definitely have a crunch.
Like I mentioned, you can’t keep trading 1 player for 3 players and not run into a problem eventually.
If it’s good, a 40-man roster crunch isn’t a bad thing. We are about to get into that territory hopefully. Fingers crossed.
It’s amazing how different things would look if one of Wisler/Gant/Jenkins/Whalen/Perez had shown something legitimate in 2016. If one of them had shown an ERA under 4 and some decent periphs, then we could be looking at something different for the future. If Teheran is your #1, Folty is a #4, and one of those guys is a #5, then you feel a little better than simply saying that you’ve got Teheran, maybe Folty, and an 0 for 5 on those guys. It’s amazing how much pessimism is created when you go from having 3 starters out of all of this to 2 at the present moment. But I do recognize why that happens. Right now you can’t honestly say that you’re a one-year deal of a Ervin Santana and a reclaim like Harang or Norris away from having a little bit of promise.
We also might want to claim someone since we will pick first this year
@8, yes, and I know I’ve beaten this horse to death and beyond, but this is why I think many of the proposed veteran position acquisitions are misguided. We can reconsider in 2018. The pitching isn’t there yet, and 2017 will be another losing year, though it might be a little more fun than 2016.
There’s different types of losing years. I could be wrong, but I think winning 70 games with Swanson, Albies, Sims, Newcomb, etc will be entertaining. And who knows, if some of these guys have great rookie seasons we might approach .500. Worst-case, we win 60 again and are still looking to the future, but at least we’ll know a lot more about what we’ve actually already got.
Yeah, I’m at the point that unless, really, Wisler runs off 5-6 good starts between now and the end of the year, there’s no reason for optimism for next year. It’s amazing how much impact 20-something straight bad starts can have. Not that Wisler is the keys to the kingdom, but like I said, 3 projectable starters with a wild card of Whalen sounds a heck of a lot better than the alternative.
Really odd about Jenkins. He’s 6’4″, strong velocity, but just can’t find his command. I really like the person there too, so I hope he works out in some capacity.
There’s always September.
The hardest part of this year has been knowing full well that we aren’t trying to win. The players are trying, but the front office clearly isn’t. Even though I can accept that as an optimal long term strategy, it’s very hard to watch 162 games of it. I’m sure Coppy and company are finding it hard too.
I did get a little worried about innings limits with Whalen getting shut down, but Wisler pitched 165 IP last year, so he could pitch in Atlanta for the rest of the year, and it wouldn’t be much of a jump. Jenkins pitched 138 last year and is only at 114. Even Newcomb could stretch a bit. He pitched 136 innings last year, and is at 129 this year. They may even want to give him additional starts to see how he does. We have openings! Sims is probably done. 92 IP last year because, ya know, bus crash, and he’s at 127 already this year. He did have 156 IP in 2014 though.
This throws cold water on my theory that Chipper is in line for the manager’s job:
http://www.myajc.com/news/sports/baseball/chipper-jones-likes-braves-future-but-says-moves-n/nsLyD/?icmp=ajc_internallink_referralbox_free-to-premium-referral
He doesn’t entirely rule it out, but he gives a whole bunch of reasons why he wouldn’t want to do it.
He’s in line for Hart’s job, imho.
Nice, Rob. Don’t know “so fetch,” but Grandma used to tell me to go fetch whatever. Noun vs. verb? Interested. Please enlighten. Thank you.
Reference to a teen comedy from the 90’s called “Mean Girls”.
Stop trying to make fetch happen, Rob. Also stop making me feel old–mean girls was sooo 2004.
@14
Good. I don’t think he would be good at it and it would be hard to fire him.
I don’t think Chipper Jones needs to be the manager. I think he’s plenty valuable in the role he’s in. I don’t think he threw cold water on the idea; I think he shut it down completely. The guy doesn’t want that life. Hard to blame him. He deserves to do what he wants to do.
I did like his answers a lot. Not a huge fan of the “the problems we’re having are only because of the last guy”, but he was still fair on everything going on right now. I like him.
Naming Chipper the manager would be a pretty spectacularly dumb idea IMO, at least until he serves as some sort of major league coach first. If he wants to be the hitting coach, I’d give him that job.
UPDATE: And having now read the thing, he basically said he doesn’t want to be the hitting coach, either.
Chipper also is a lot smarter than the character he plays on Twitter, IMO. I think that stuff is a game for him.
@22
I agree with you that he is. Even if he were considered the smartest baseball player alive, though, I still wouldn’t want to give him a major league manager job without him getting some sort of apprenticeship first.
I agree from the article he doesn’t want a uniform, maybe ever…
I think Chipper would make a good manager. Possibly a very good manager. Whether or not he should be manager of these Braves is a separate question.
Wonder if Chipper would leave the pitcher in just to bunt.
As the season drags on I haven’t been watching the games intently start to end so I may have missed things, but have we seen a marked decrease in the number of times Snitker lets the pitcher bat and then replaces him next inning? It seems like we have. Or maybe it’s just that we change pitchers every 5 minutes so they are almost always pinch hit for regardless.
When we were good, Fredi’s ham-fisted futzing around made me livid. The last year of his tenure, though, he really didn’t bother me because nothing was riding on it. I haven’t noticed Snitker’s in-game management for the same reason. He does seem to noticeably get better effort out of the players, which is probably more important than that in-game stuff anyway.
How many really good players have made really good managers? It seems like the below average players (ie, Bobby Cox, Buck Showalter, Tony LaRussa, Joe Maddon, …) can relate better to getting the most from the average player and make the best managers. I would not call Joe Torre a great player, but he was definitely above average. He is the only good player I can think of who was a highly successful manager.
Dusty Baker tends to be a winning manager, and he was a good player. Whether his winning is due to managerial skill is questionable.
According to this measure, Felipe Alou and Frank Robinson were good managers and excellent players (though they generally managed losing teams)
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/3/28/2908044/manager-wins-above-expectancy
Don Baylor does pretty well on here, too…also managed bad teams:
http://darowski.com/hall-of-wwar/expectancy/
Ted Williams’ managerial attempt might have done a lot to turn the narrative towards GM’s picking guys that weren’t wildly successful players. I dunno. I would think that most great players in the current era don’t want to manage for the same reason Chipper doesn’t – who wants to keep living that nomadic lifestyle when you have tons of money and can do pretty much anything you want?
If you really want try your hand at running a team, then being the guy that selects the roster has much more impact than the guy that babysits the players.
@31 – Pete Rose didn’t exactly raise the bar either. I’m not sure I would call Dusty Baker a good manager, but I agree he was a good player and has been a reasonably successful manager.
Lou Pinella was a good player and a great manager
Fredi Gonzalez had a wicked eephus pitch. Couldn’t manage though.
Circling back to this managing WAE again, I have wondered if the reason Fredi is rated so highly on this metric is that his teams had dominant back-end bullpens, which WAR and pythag tends to underestimate. Actually, I think I’ve said this before on here. WELP, not a lotta new ideas here.
Dodgers trade AJ Ellis. Reports are he and Kershaw are devastated. Nice job FO
Ellis was approaching Ausmusian levels of doneness as shielded by teammate patronage, but still an odd trade. Marginal improvement in backup catcher production doesn’t seem to measure up to the pitching staff knowledge going out the window.
Pissing off your franchise pitcher for a microscopic upgrade at backup catcher? Bizarre to say the least. Oh well. Go Giants.
Kershaw has been so lights out in the playoffs, it doesn’t matter who s catching. Wait.
Whoa Freddie Freeman!
I thought Matt Wisler was pitching tonight.
Dansby’s pretty good.
Wisler has no hits through 3. Might as well get credit for a no-hitter with this team.
WOW! Who is that guy?
Holy crap. Dansby’s made one full-on Simba play and two Simba-Lite plays in this game.
A “braves no hitter”, BNH. Can we put that in the glossary? 3 innings of no hit ball. Coin it.
Also, Freeman could have a career year here, hit .300 with 30 HR and not even have 80 RBI
As Emily Litella used to say: “Never mind.”
Dansby sucks.
Dansby’s got some fantastic speed. He’ll steal a lot of bases.
Mmm….Wisler looks better the deeper into this game he gets. I can’t help but root for him to get it figured out!
No-hitter through 6. Wow.
And another AAA demotee is recalled and dominates out of the gate. What gives?
ssshhhhhhhhhh, nobody sit near Wisler
Well, he did get 2 Braves no-hitters
yeah that has to be a record, now we can go ahead and lose…Twins ain’t messin’ around
Tuffy Gosewisch is an awfully good baseball name.
Jed Bradley has really been dealing since we acquired him.
Soroka moved into top 100 prospects in MLB pipeline. Braves now have 7. Swanson, Albies, Newcomb, Allard, Anderson, Maitan, Soroka
Recapped.