The Padres are very bad. The Braves just completed their third sweep of the waning season, and they did it by scoring 24 runs. Mike Foltynewicz was really good through the first five innings, allowing just one run and recording three strikeouts and no walks in just 70 pitches. Then he gave up a two-run homer in the sixth. Still, it was a quality start, his tenth in 19 starts, and combined with his last outing, Folty is starting to look a bit like the frontline starter he resembled in the middle of the summer. We could use that.
Freddie Freeman went 1-3 with two walks, two runs, and three RBI including a two-run homer. He’s now got the fifth-highest slugging percentage in the National League. (Actually, he’s behind Trevor Story, but Story played only 97 games and is out for the rest of the year.)
He’s really good.
As a consequence of the streak, we’ve also picked up 1 1/2 games on the Cardinals.
More, please. Winning is more fun than that other stuff.
The Mississippi line-up today got me excited for having Albies, Enciarte, Mallex and Swanson on the same team next year. I know you’d be limited in the power department, but that group gives you some range and could make things happen at the plate.
Dirt cheap and fun to watch. Do what you will at catcher and the hot corner.
Let’s not throw Adonis away yet, please.
A bench of Adonis, Jace, Chase, 5th OF, and Flowers/FA would give us a lot of flexibility. Adonis is just not worth giving the 3B job to next year. He’s got a 0.1 WAR.
In more detail, Adonis is last among the 25 qualifying 3Bs with that 0.1 WAR. He’s fourth from the bottom in HRs, third worst in OBP and SLG, and he doesn’t play great defense or steal bases. He’s made improvements, he’s a nice story, and he’s some right-handed power on a team that has none, but we could upgrade 3B so easily and upgrade the bench by putting him on it.
We’re thinking that if Adonis plays a whole season like he did after his AAA recall, he could be a 1.5 war player. Also, if you can platoon Ruiz or Jace with him, you might squeeze more value out of the position. We can do a lot better at 3b, but I’m not crazy about signing Prado for more than 3 years AND giving away a pick to do so, especially when 3b is actually our best organizational position: Demeritte, Riley, Maitan, Ruiz.
Jason Heyward in the thick of it in the big Giants/Cubs match up at Wrigley tonight. Costas repeatedly saying he’s been swinging better the last 9 days.
Singled first at bat, RBI, i didn’t get to see it.
Rolled over.
Struck out
Came up in the 7th with the bases loaded, 1 out and the Cubs still one behind. Crowd gaga. Weak pop up behind first, 2 out. Russell hits behind him, drives in the tying and go ahead runs.
Tellingly Madden allows himself to be quoted earlier by MLBtv as saying he gave him 4 clear days off – he needed a ‘mental break’. That’s a first, overdue.
This makes me proud: http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/09/01/atlanta-hecklers-are-meaner-to-bryce-harper-than-philly-hecklers/
Good day in the Minors: Weigel going 8.1, 2H 0ER, Ozzie and Peterson HR, Touki 6IP 1ER, Ian Anderson 6IP, 2H, 1ER, 5SO. The future looks bright today.
@10
Patrick Weigel
has again been named pitcher of the month by Der Spiegel
but he has still to learn German
according to his agent/ brother Herman.
Any thought on whether Jed Bradley is a real prospect or a suspect? The guy was horrible in Milwaukee and we got him for nothing. Since coming to the Braves he’s looked great. Is this just a blip or are our AA/AAA coaches that good?
I can’t imagine our AA/AAA coaches are that good. If that were the case, we’d be farther along than we are. Bradley is from Alabama, and he may just be more comfortable than he was in the Milwaukee system. Milwaukee also turned him into a reliever, and the Braves tried him as a starter. I’d love for Bradley to turn in 3-4 really good starts and the Braves flip him in the offseason.
But really though, you can’t help but get excited about Weigel. Upper-90s fastball, second most strikeouts in the entire system, more strikeouts than innings pitched, and keeping hitters off the basepaths (1.04 WHIP). He’s got to be a top-10 prospect, especially if they weigh proximity to ML heavily, when new lists come out.
Agreed on Bradley, Rob, but our coaches must have seen something in him that no one else did to even want him. He totally fell on his face as a starter and was even worse as a reliever with the Brewers. Let’s hope he becomes a Chuck James type of story with a little more longevity.
He’s a Yellow Jacket so I’m a fan… Please no more starts from De La Cruz (would rather see De La Soul) or Weber. Let’s see what he can do and see what we may have behind Julio, Folty and hopefully we continue to see what we have seen in Wisler’s last two starts. Maybe the Bills get a start or two down the stretch.
Great night in the minors last night. ST will be fun.
Todd
I’m hoping De La Cruz gets the win today (may not be up again) and then Perez takes his spot.
In my opinion, the Brewers gave up on Bradley as a starter way too early. They drafted him in 2011 and he was pretty mediocre for the first 2 years in their system. In his third season (2014), he put up some really good stats in a half season at high-A. Then he goes to AA and gets knocked around a bit, but was still not horrendous. His line for all of 2014 as a starter was 10-10 with a 3.91 ERA, 124 K and 46 BB in 141 innings. To the bullpen with him! And he was pretty bad there.
He was 22-24 getting knocked around at A+ and AA except for that half season in A+. I could see where they felt he should have been a more finished product. But why wouldn’t you want a guy on your roster named Jedidiah Custer Bradley?
So the Braves have become Custer’s last stand?
@9, I think that just goes to show that when you follow your dreams, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. Well done, everyone. God bless us all.
how can you resist that name?
Jeremiah Custer Bradley
as a Brewer, a bit of a pariah – lackluster, sadly
in Atlanta he disowned that label
the Indians? too many prospects he would have to disable.
Great showings around the minors yesterday. Also of note: Mallex started for Mississippi. (2 for 3 and stole a base, FWIW.)
He stole third, so he may have slid feet-first, but he tried to steal second, and I can imagine he slid head-first, so I hope his finger issues are definitely behind him. If he’s at all scared about putting his fingers at risk, then that really hurts his game. I love that he got right back to it in his first game back.
So what do you do next week? You’ve got 4 OFs for 3 spots.
@22, bravo
@24, “So what do you do next week? You’ve got 4 OFs for 3 spots.” When you put it like that, it makes us sound AWESOME!!!
No matter what, I think Mallex gets playing time. He’s a known quantity for our future, as a player or as a prime trade chip. Play him.
I would just imagine they’ll be cycling through days off for the last month of the season with more frequency. Kemp will probably only play 6-7 innings of defense.
I think it’s more important for Mallex to get as much playing time as possible to see what we’ve got. He’s not playing in the AFL, so this is a helpful time to see what’s going on there.
If you so choose to go back and read the reaction of the Teixeira trade on Braves Journal, it’s an interesting read:
http://bravesjournal.us/?p=3179#comments
I, like many, were for the trade at the time. And even up to about a month ago, I’ve said on here that I would make that trade again. As I make a more concerted effort to follow the non-linear but fairly steady progression of just about every prospect we have, I’m starting to back off a little bit on whether or not the Braves should make a trade to that magnitude again. It was seen, even at the time, as a stretch of a trade and a win-now grab by JS. I don’t think we’ll feel that pressure any time soon. I think I would make that trade again if we stopped short of sending all three of Harrison, Feliz, and Andrus. Salty was always the main piece of the trade, but giving up all of the other three is probably where I’d step off. Even though Harrison ended up having the least productive career of the three, I think I would have held onto Harrison based on the information at the time.
To Stu’s credit, he seems to have been the lone wolf to be both informed and skeptical of the trade. That guy’s got a good noggin on his shoulders.
He’s still wrong about Colin Cowherd. The guy’s wrong so much, but he’s still entertaining.
You could even let Kemp play first once or twice, to give Freddie the occasional breather.
You could even let Kemp DH. Oh wait…
@28, before we let Stu get too big-headed, he was extremely opposed to our trading Kyle Davies.
In his defense, Davies got BABIP’d to death for 8 years
I mean, Stu would point out, and he’d be right, that given what we publicly knew at the time about Davies, we gave up on him awfully early. But the Braves turned out to have been right about him, and that could either have been a fluke, or it could have been that our scouts knew what they were doing.
I sure did love Hiram Kyle Davies.
Somewhat related, I’m always horrified when someone links to a thread from that far back. Who knows what stupid comment(s) from me lurk(s) in those things?
I just miss Mac. I never met the man, but I knew him. I still remember crying the day Alex announced his passing.
They let the Twins pass them? C’mon, guys stick to the plan.
SIGN TEBOW
Excellent inning by Withrow. He looks really sharp after the long layoff.
M-Braves, who hit a rough patch after Swanson got called up, are getting a big time lift from Mallex–who is 3 for 3 so far tonight. Newcomb has allowed 1 hit through six, with 7k AND ZERO WALKS!!
Me too, Rob.
I love Mauricio Cabrera. Could someone in the know do a comparo with Kimbrel, up and down?
Watching Mauricio Cabrera pump 102-mph gas low and inside on the corner on a 3-2 count with two men on in a tie game in the bottom of the eighth while a Phillie ineffectually flails at it is just the greatest.
Kimbrel had much more command of his fastball and slider. But he couldn’t touch 102.
Yeah, he learned command, but Kimbrel’s last full season in the minors, he had a bb/9 rate in the teens. If I remember right he really got his stuff under control only after they brought him to the bigs.
Win, win, win.
Wow, Kimbrel had some AWFUL BB/9 numers.
21 yrs old across 4 levels: 6.8/9
22 yrs old at AAA: 5.7/9
22 yrs old in ATL: 7/9
Of course, he had 12+ K/9 at every stop, including 18/9 in his first year in Atlanta. Cabrera doesn’t have close to those K numbers. Simmons, on the other hand, has similarly gaudy K/9 numbers to Kimbrel, hence the “Baby Kimbrel” nickname before he got injured. Vizcaino was not far behind Simmons.
Interestingly, Dan Winkler and Jose Ramirez have some very good strikeout numbers in their minor league careers. On the less impressive side are Chris Withrow and Jason Hursh.
I can definitely tell Kemp is costing us games rather than winning games for us.
My bad… I factored in only part of Kimbrel’s 2009 work in figuring his walk rate. It wasn’t quite “in the teens” per 9 innings–but, as you said, it was quite high all the same…. Here’s hoping the current crop figures it out as they advance, to anywhere near the extent Craig did.
Newcomb’s final line: 7 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 8 K
Last ten starts:
55.2 IP, 35 H, 17 ER, 22 BB, 68 K
This would seem to be his best stretch as a pro. If we didn’t really want to see what we’ve got with the Bills, Blair, and Bradley, you could make a compelling argument to give him some starts in a lost season.
By the way, was tonight’s start by De La Cruz the last start we will see by a journeyman for the year? We now have 8 guys healthy who deserve to be starting games over that guy.
WELP, in Gwinnett both Reid Brignac and Emerson Landoni pitched during a 14-0 loss to Durham.
@47 Kind of a hit to the fWAR acolytes. HRs win games. We need more of them to get better, but this is a start…
Regardless of how Swanson and Blair will turn out, Enter is already quite something.
Recapped.