The Braves have found two surefire ways to avoid a loss during this young season: play the Padres, or get rained out. The latter was what they implemented tonight. That, coupled with yesterday’s off day, has granted Braves fans two straight calendar days without a loss. We are getting spoiled.
The Braves will make up this game in September and attempt to kick off this series against the Mets tomorrow night. They have now made more trips to New York this season than they have to Atlanta, and it’s the end of April. One day, this month will end, and the Braves will get to play some games in Atlanta. Novel idea, I know. Until then, enjoy New York fellas.
A+ won 22-2 today. Several had 3 hits, including Acuna and Jackson, who now has an OPS of 1000 and is raking.
A rainout.
A fitting end to the Chase d’Arnaud era.
@1 Glad to see Alex Jackson’s hot start continuing. It’s still early going but I’m wondering if he has chosen to adopt a more aggressive approach at the plate this year – last year his BB rate was about 9%, K rate 27%… so far this year it’s more like 2% / 25%.
Alex Jackson presents an interesting range of potential outcomes – at the plate, he’ll strike out a good amount but hits for power; OBP could be anywhere from poor to decent depending on his walk rate. Defensively, he might be a mediocre corner OF (ie no defensive value) or a mediocre catcher (substantial defensive value).
If there was ever a time for another Road from Bistrol, now would be the time. Too soon?
Ed Werder… fired? ESPN is a complete joke. This’ll probably be the most interest people have had in ESPN for a while, and it’s for all the wrong reasons. This will be really telling to see who has been laid off, and it will communicate the direction they are heading. I bet it’s not a good one.
Ed Werder is a shock. I bet he lands somewhere quick
https://theringer.com/mlb-shortstops-los-angeles-angels-andrelton-simmons-119c55e84657
Sean Newcomb has a WHIP of 1.7 and is walking 6 per 9 innings.
Chris Ellis was a throw in to get a year of Jaime Garcia.
Aybar
Good trade.
What if we still had Andrelton, didn’t need Dansby, and Coppy held to his guns and got Pollock?
We’d have:
Andrelton Simmons
AJ Pollock
Instead of:
Dansby Swanson
Ender Inciarte
Sean Newcomb
Chris Ellis
Erick Aybar
Would we be better off at this juncture?
@8
Yes. Pollock is the best player on that list. The rest are all lottery tickets or filler pieces.
You could build around Pollock and Freeman and have a nice complementary piece in Simmons. I think Simmons is better than Swanson too, probably long term.
Yeah, the Simmons deal and Dodgers deal are turning out to be awful.
I don’t think it is ever a good idea to trade a generational talent like Simmons – especially since his bat was at least adequate. I do think it’s too early to fully rate the deal, but it will never get a passing grade from my standpoint. That being said, please refrain from sharing stories like that. It is extremely sad! )-:
Jayson Stark out at ESPN.
That extra innings double play by Simmons against the Nats a few years ago. I will remember it forever.
Simmons is hitting decently so far this year too. I know it’s early, but the odds of Swanson approaching Simmons’ value don’t look good to me. We need Newcomb to be a decent MLB pitcher, then things look a lot better.
It’s too early to tell on Swanson but the trades made aren’t necessarily dependent on each other. The Braves probably still do the Miller for Swanson/Inciarte deal even if they kept Simmons and just look at moving Swanson to second probably.
They should definitely have gotten more for Simmons at the least.
We traded Simmons because he was about to get a lot more expensive and we didn’t want to pay way up for defense-first (similar to Heyward in some respects, but obviously there wasn’t the urgency factor).
We’ll win if we can ever assemble a team of pre-arb all-stars.
I saw a stat recently that suggested that Simmons was getting paid the most vs. the least amount of offensive production (cost per oWAR? I dunno), and I remember thinking that it’s about to get even worse. Wren clearly took a gamble that his bat would come around, but it obviously never has to justify his salary.
With that said, a team with Pollock and Simmons may be preferable to the current dynamic. But Stewart was in a “win now” mode, so he may not have parted with Pollock.
This team is definitely missing Sean Rodriguez though. Even if we’re not having to pay him his salary (which I think we are), we obviously didn’t spend it elsewhere, so that missed money spent is hurting the on-field product. I think Coppy also would have traded for Phillips considering the deal he got on him, so we could have Rodriguez at 3B instead of Adonis, and Adonis would have been that bench bat we needed. Sigh.
This may be the year for the Angels and DBacks, who knows. “win now” mode sounds pretty appealing. “win at some point in the distant future” mode completely sucks.
Pollock wasn’t available from what I remember
Just tuned in. What happened to Phillips?
@20: The ole groin strain.
On the ESPN thing, it’s never a good look when you lay off a bunch of people for no apparent reason other than to appease the stockholders of your corporate overlords…especially when most of the people you’re firing are at least somewhat in the day-to-day public eye. I’m normally not a huge Deadspin fan, but this piece pretty much completely sums up my thoughts on the topic.
Pleasant surprise turning over after the Hawks game and finding us ahead 5-1, by the way.
8 runs? 16 hits?!
IWOTM
Good outing for Julio. Hope Phillips won’t be out for long.
Isn’t this the first game we’ve won where the game hasn’t been close from beginning to end? Nice break. I can’t pronounce or spell the Mets pitcher’s name, but I have no idea why they didn’t skip his start after the rainout. Thank you New York.
Shelby Miller now seeking a third opinion on his elbow.
On the Pollock/Andrelton conversation:
Stewart wouldn’t budge on Pollock therefore Coppy moved on. Also this thought is skewed a bit due to the salary that those 2 would make this year which is 15MM total and that total would go up 6 more million in ’18. Also, the years of control play a HUGE part in this conversation. Take away 15MM worth of spending and add those 2 guys and you likely have a team that wins 3-4 more games this year and would likely miss out on any big FAs in ’18.
Recapped.