Another Friday game against the Marlins, and another 900 feet of Giancarlo Stanton homers. But, the Braves were able to keep the other Marlins in check, and managed a 5-3 win at STP.
R.A. Dickey continued his season of Being Not At All Very Bad, going 6 innings giving up only three hits and a walk, allowing three runs on the aforementioned two dingers to Stanton.
As an aside, I love the word ‘aforementioned.’ To me, there is something quintessentially English about it. It sounds like the Weekend Country Manor Home of the lexicographical world. I think it should be used any chance you get. Anyhoo, back to the aforementioned game.
The Braves opened the scoring in the first, as the Marlins kicked the ball around the infield, Brandon Phillips coming home on an error off the bat of Nick Markakis. Stanton tied it up in the 4th, homering to dead center on a knuckler that didn’t, becoming the first player to hit one off the batter’s eye. Stanton launched another in the 6th, his league leading 36th homer, driving in Miami pitcher Adam Connelly, who had singled for the aforementioned third hit Dickey allowed.
But Atlanta responded in the bottom of the frame. Phillips singled, Tyler Flowers singled him to second, and Nick Markakis pulled to within 30 of the league lead in home runs to make it 4-3 Atlanta. Atlanta added an insurance run in the 7th with Lane Adams coming off the bench with a pinch hit double, advancing to third on a wild pitch, and coming home on a Phillips single.
Jim Johnson worked the 8th, pitching around a lead-off pinch hit single from Ichiro Suzuki, and Arodys Vizcaino closed out the game working around a swinging bunt and a two out walk. Mike Foltynewicz toes the rubber tonight against Dan Straily. Maybe we can limit Giancarlo to only 600 feet of fly balls this evening.
Thank you, sir, for the game recap. Your aforementioned predilection served us well. Old R.A. is still getting it done. I’m surprised some pitching needy contender hasn’t come calling. Perhaps I’m glad they haven’t. As others have said, I like having him on the staff.
Reports are that Snitker will be back in 2018. That’s as close as you are gonna get to the FO telling fans that we don’t expect to compete next year.
If Snitker is back next year, I wonder if Washington sticks around.
Or Pendleton. Or Perez
Beautiful recap. Very entertaining. Thank you.
The guys seem to love playing for him. That’s not nothing. Probably not a lot more either.
I’ve been critical of some of Snitker’s in-game decisions (I led the outcry here over the sac bunt by Inciarte the other night), but there is more to being an effective manager than in game strategy and tactics. Bobby Cox was an all time great manager (and my favorite), but Lord knows his game decisions drove me crazy at times.
Posnanski has a post up on Dusty Baker as a manager. Dusty as much as any manager drives analytic-oriented folks crazy (me included). Joe Pos, without denying the bone headed decisions Baker can make, argues that Baker has actually been a very good manager–perhaps better than Bruce Bochy. As he puts it:
“the job is to guide a baseball team through a long season, to keep players focused on the work at hand, to minimize distractions and ease tensions and keep things consistent without letting it get monotonous. The job is to let your stars be stars without letting that offend and irritate everybody else. The job is to keep it loose but not too loose, make it fun but not so players lose focus, to make everyone feel like you trust them without making them feel like there are no consequences for failure. The job is to make young players feel old, and old players feel young, to make pinch-hitters feel important and cleanup hitters to feel like they don’t have the weight of the world on their backs, to make starters and relievers feel like they have your complete confidence without letting them blow too many games.”
Bobby Cox, as best one can tell from the outside, was great at all the things listed above. From what I can see, Snitker has kept the loyalty of his players, and if there have been divisions in the clubhouse they haven’t become public. He seems to have kept things on an even keel through some ups and downs.
In short, I’m willing to believe that Snitker is a leader in ways that make a difference.
Can’t blame Snitker for the rotation and bullpen he was given. Bobby Cox was a great manager because the players loved him and he had 3 hall of fame pitchers in his rotation. Plus Tim Hudson. That helps a lot.
Gwinnett
Manny Bareda
since yesterday a Mexican invader
has conquered the wall
the question now, just where he delivers the ball.
Ronald Acuña
Solves the Braves outfield lacuna
Finally a tilde
Is part of the rebuild
Some interesting things happened – and did not happen – in Danville yesterday.
You know Hauascar Ynoa don’t you, well, he pitched 4 more innings, 0 ER and K’d six, again.
The featured star from yesterday, William Contreras, 4/5 with .964OPS in 28 games.Still catching, the most important stat of all for him.
What did not happen – Kevin Maitan has not played a game in August since leaving a game early on 7/31.
@10
John R
Fine, love lacuna.. Educate me please re tilde, pronunciation, two syllables or one, silent e?
And. With the tilde in place above the n does that effectively change the pronunciation of his last name from 3 syllables to 4, A-cun-i-a? Thanks
Finally. Arsene Wenger was quoted this week, commenting on the number of precocious 17 year olds he has in the Arsenal academy, they’re all talented, a few very, but you look for the one in that last group who’s bored. It means, int al, he is impatient and not in the least bit scared to make the big club, now.(Paraphrase)
What is the point of keeping Acuna at Gwinnett further- another 4/5 yesterday? He is bored, it’s the new world. Be careful, it can backfire, in exactly the opposite way it has in the past maybe.
Sonny Gray
has lost his first game for the Yankees they say
While Ossie Albies has hit a home run
What Fun.
@11
How does knocking the cover off the ball indicate he’s bored? That season where Julio Teheran was clearly better than Randall Delgado but spent the whole year down in Triple-A and pitched terribly while Delgado spent most of it in Atlanta? That’s bored.
Plus, I don’t even buy the premise anyway. No harm will come of leaving Acuna in Gwinnett for the rest of the month.
@11, Both tilde and lacuna are pronounced consistent with the forced rhyme of a lazy American. My priority was making it work, and to idle skimmers it looks like it rhymes! But I think Acuña is pronounced “a-koon-yuh” while lacuna is pronounced “luh-koon-uh”; doesn’t truly rhyme…but it’s close. Meanwhile, the schwa at the end of tilde indicates it’s pronounced “til-duh” but … well, it would have been more clever to write it as such:
“Ronald Acuña
Solves the Braves outfield lacuna
Finally a tilde
Is part of the rebuild-uh.”
These are works in progress, right?
Overall I can live with Snitker’s in game management. It is still a small sample size, but my concern is the streakiness of the team. This year we have seemed to alternate between 5 and 1 and 1 and 5. He also didn’t seem to have the team ready to start the season. I’m okay with giving him another year, but the leash should be short.
Fried called up and Hursh optioned. That’s interesting.
Snitker/Hernández seem slow to get relievers up when a pitcher gets himself in a jam.
@16, Wait, what?!?! Is Fried going to start?
@18 bullpen tonight as per Peanut.
Fried’s not been pitching out of Missippi’s bullpen of late, but having said that it is interesting that all his starts are very brief. I guess they’ve been grooming him for relief? Has this been discussed here and I just missed it? His overall numbers aren’t that good but his last few outings have been solid.
I think they have just been careful with him this season. Last year was a lot on his arm.
Unconfirmed reports S-Rod traded to Pirates for a catching prospect…
Wow, Sean R gone.
We hardly knew ya
He’s one of those guys who always looked displaced in a Braves uniform. Just like Ben Sheets.
How odd about Sean R. I think he’d have been a fine addition to the team but the car wreck ruined him for this year and I think Camargo is currently serving as the S-Rod we were looking for.
Sean’s call-up and handling strike me as another “throw crap at the wall and see if it slides down” administrative move by Hart and Coppy. In between the stockpiling of young pitching talent and some crafty trades are some really nonsensical personnel dealings.
Braves acquire Connor Joe from the Pirates, 1B/OF, 39th pick in the 2014 draft out of Univ. of San Diego.
No power, walks a decent bit. Not one of the Pirates Top 30 prospects.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=joe—000con&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-
Man, I’m so glad Liberty Media is saving all of this money. I was beginning to worry about their top executive’s livelihoods…
@27, This does seem like it’s at heart a money-saving deal, but it’s also a benign, inconsequential one. Unless you think S-Rod’s presence on the 25-man a cornerstone of a winning 2018.
@14
they are, right, for all of us
You’re right. Very replaceable. It did seem like they valued versatility, and Rodriguez was a good money buy based on that versatility. I’m interested to see what they do with all of these savings.
MAX FRIED DAY!
Speaking of talented teenage outfielders, does anyone here know how to pronounce Pache?
The Braves now have the 10th youngest roster in baseball. If they were to trade RA Dickey and replace him with a 25 year old, they would be the 5th youngest team in baseball. That, my friends, tells you really how old RA Dickey is.
If they traded Brandon Phillips as well, and replaced him with a 25 year old, we would be the 4th youngest team. And the three teams ahead of us would be Cincinnati, San Diego, and Philadelphia. Three teams that, well, suck. I’d rather be young and good than young and bad!
What if they traded Jason Motte and replaced him with a 25 year old? Well, my little heart can’t take this no more. 3rd youngest.
Max Fried is a surprise, he’s had a bit of a down year. Could be a great lefty-specialist, though.
Teams been pretty good under Snitker this year considering.
Can’t believe this means converting Fried. This has to be a “get his feet wet / control his innings” situation. You don’t give up on guys with his upside but bang your head against the wall trying guys like Blair and Wisler over and over again.
@31
Pache as in Comache?
At least one of the data sites does pronunciation, more fun to guess maybe.
(sighs)
Here’s my problem. At the end of the day, I just don’t think anybody should skip Triple-A. I mean, I’m sure an exception here and there would be possible, but only in the rarest of circumstances. And Fried is definitely not that exception.
As far as the Rodriguez deal, apparently the Pirates claimed him off revocable waivers, so rather than pull him back, the Braves just went ahead and worked out a deal with them.
Fried has had blister issues. They were just easing him back. I see why they would have him in the pen. I like it
@26 At last we have somebody to replace Braeden Schlehuber!
@35–the kid is Dominican; in Spanish the name would be pronounced Pah-chay (very roughly). But I think the origin of the name is French, which would render a very different pronunciation.
I am surprised Fried got the call also, especially seeing as how he hasn’t pitched very well in Double A this year.
I love it when the kids come up, all promise and potential, unblemished by experience; but it’s how they adjust to the adversity of the game that separates the Smoltzes and Glavines from the Blairs and Wislers. Here’s hoping he’s strong of mind and body and turns potential into production.
Connor Joe? For Sean Rodriguez? Is this FO even trying to extract any value in these deals? Come on this is ridiculous.
Another salary dump, YAY!
Looking at Fried’s numbers…it appears that he hasn’t been as bad as his 5.92 ERA suggests as his home runs per 9 innings is below 1 and he is striking out about a man an inning, but the walk rate is elevated. I would still prefer him to be tried as a reliever for awhile in the minors before throwing him in the fire.
Sean Rodriguez wasn’t really adding much. Whatever.
This move might also be to make more room on the 40 man for later.
@46
The issue is that we should be extracting value in prospects, not salary relief. The fact that ownership appears to still be penny-pinching on minor stuff like this is not at all reassuring.
I doubt we were going to get much prospect wise for him.
I want Andrelton back. http://m.mlb.com/news/article/246415144/andrelton-simmons-adds-bat-to-elite-defense/
It is not that they are saving money. It’s that they have to do it/choose to do it/need to do it.
It’s the symbolism of it.
I contend as always that winning and running a quality organization is about 5th in their priorities right now.
@50, Trigger warning, please. My therapist says I shouldn’t be reading links like that.
I always thought of Snitker being the placeholder while we are rebuilding and struggling with a bad mlb roster. I guess 5 more years of him wouldn’t exactly be a surprise.
Saw the s-rod news and headed straight here to see who was wetting their pants about the Braves clearing salary. Was not disappointed.
If someone wants to pay SRod to play for them, more power to them. The Braves would have been stupid not to do it. Of course, they were stupid for playing him in the first place.
@54
For the record, if it were just this trade and not also the Garcia one, I wouldn’t really be giving it a second thought. Rodriguez has limited value, the Pirates claimed him off waivers, we worked out a deal with them for a minor leaguer. Whatever, it makes sense.
The Garcia trade was the really concerning one from a salary-clearing perspective, what with taking an iffy low minors prospect so that the Twins would take on all of Garcia’s and even all of Recker’s salary. And then having the Yankees get a better deal for him like three days later.
Add this trade into the context of that one, though, and it does nothing to dissuade from the notion that they’d rather save money than build a baseball team properly.
@50: Simba’s still the best glove I’ve seen. I hope his bat keeps getting better. I too wish we had him back.
Rodriguez had a .840 OPS, plays 5 positions, and was making $5.5M annually. In what universe is that not a valuable player? And in what universe should we be happy to clear payroll for an undefined reason? Trust? Has Liberty Media earned that?
Rodriguez had a .840 OPS
When?
@55 is the correct take.
@58, I dunno, man. We signed him to a free agent contract last year, so presumably nobody offered him a better deal than we did. And, unfortunately for all involved, he was injured. Terribly so. To the point where this season is a completely lost one. Question their wisdom on it, but the Braves allowed him onto a major league field to prove himself and I think we all saw the results. This really isn’t that big of a deal. I think the Braves like what they see in Camargo and perhaps feel like the kind of player S-Rod represents has already been replaced for next year.
@59
He had a .859 OPS last year. My point, though, is more in response to Jay condescending the people less than thrilled that we’ve cleared even more payroll for undefined reasons. I’m confident they’ll spend it, but until then, I don’t think Liberty Media deserves the benefit of the doubt.
@40
your multi lingual skills are ahead of mine…you mention French in the root so how about Pache as in panache?
Max Fried
has apparently just agreed
to travel to Cobb
in search of a much better paying job.
Sean R
we are so happy you all survived the car
but for us, for our part
3 for 39 was simply an ominous start.
Did I miss it, or hasn’t Sean’s replacement been announced yet? Jace? Dansby?
I bet they come up with something to spend the money on. Should not be hard to identify some areas of improvement.
@65
It’s Jace.
@66
…yeah, like balancing out the Liberty Media ledger at the end of the fiscal year.
First, it’s pa as in, “ma and pa Kettle” and che as in Guevara.
Second, Liberty doesn’t keep the money — it all gets spent by the team. The terms of their agreement with MLB when they purchased the club allow no assets to be transferred up the ladder: Liberty can choose to invest more if they choose (and they did to sign Ervin Santana) but not go full Marlins.
Edit: Don’t make me defend Liberty Media again. I need a shower…
Shedding a completely sunk $7.5M is a good thing, no matter what you think about ownership. They got out of a bad situation. I won’t even blame them for this one, since it’s not like they knew he’d get in an accident and get hurt.
@69, I wouldn’t say it’s completely sunk. He could come back next year and produce at a .859 OPS clip. I think that’s highly unlikely and the Braves probably do, too. Not the worst thing in the world to cut bait on such a deal.
How much is the right to pay Sean Rodriguez $6m supposed to be worth?
He could be had for only money 6 months ago, and since then he’s had shoulder surgery.
Liberty Media
Booked rooms on Expedia
Wishing MLB had given licence
To keep their ledgers in balance
Who replaces Sean R on the roster? Jace? Dansby?
Melodrama at Citi Field moments ago.
Puig homers, runs back into the dugout, flings both arms around hitting coach and hugs him hard.
Funny enough but then he pulls his face towards his lips and gives him a heavyweight smackeroo on the cheek that lasted.
Funniest of all the fear, the look of pure anguish and disgust as he finally managed to push Puig away. Lovely.
Yaseal Puig
‘twould be best if you feign pure fatigue
when you see him approaching
your virtue encroaching
the fear of a Cuban blitzkrieg.
We replaced Sean Rodriguez with Jace Peterson 2 1/2 years into a rebuild. There are more factors in play than that, sure, but on 8/5, the Braves are not a better team, so I will reserve my optimism for if/when we finally acquire a long-term valuable player who’s making money (not Kakes, Kemp, Colon, Dickey, Garcia, and Olivera).
Re: Liberty. I didn’t know they weren’t allowed to essentially pocket money like was mentioned, but it doesn’t preclude them from setting a lower payroll number the next year based on a lack of commitments, and that’s essentially the same thing. I Trust the Process (TM), but I’m just not there on payroll reduction when there isn’t a corresponding reallocation three deals in a row.
American manhood at risk
approaching at speed that was brisk
how homoerotic
but not deemed exotic
by one who’d not fancied a frisk.
@75, Nobody’s expressing optimism. The S-Rod deal is logical. Did you think we’d get a better return for him than we did? You think it’s guaranteed he’s going to eventually bounce back? I don’t on either question.
Who should we be spending money on right now? Who should we have spent money on before the deadline that was reportedly available?
Sean Rodriguez and Jace Peterson are both more or less replacement level players, give or take a career year, and that’s not taking the Sean Rodriguez injury into account. Arguably the Braves are not a worse team on 8/5 than they were on 8/4.
I think the best return is to keep him vs. playing Jace Peterson, Lane Adams, or Danny Santana at a left field position currently vacated by a player who’s been on the DL twice this year and a hamstring held together by twine and silly string. I think it’s best to keep him as a backup to 3B, 2B, and RF. Why is it assumed that he had to be traded? We’re not rebuilding any more. We’re supposed to be pursuing good players, not trading them for salary relief, middling prospects, and opening spots for AAAA players. Will they reallocate the money? Probably. Are the Garcia, Ventura, and Rodriguez deals connected? Probably. But at worst, I’m just being impatient that they seem to still be prioritizing the future vs. the present.
I’d say Jace Peterson is easily a better bet for productivity than S-Rod the rest of 2017.
@78
Listen, I’ve cheered Jace pretty hard, but he has a career .641 OPS, and Rodriguez is fresh off a career year in which mechanical adjustments were the reason. Should we trade Tyler Flowers for the same leg-kick-anomalies? Did they determine that after 47 major league PAs after an injury and insufficient recovery time that he was a flash in the pan and a sunk cost? He still had a higher OPS than Jace’s. That thought process concerns me.
I’m really willing to agree to disagree considering it could simply be impatience fueling the frustration.
@81, When I say “replacement level,” and you come back with “yeah, but OPS,” it really doesn’t get more Braves Journal than that.
You can’t have it both ways. If 47 major league PAs is too little information to determine Sean Rodriguez’s health/true talent level, then it’s also too little information to compare to Jace Peterson’s OPS this season (whatever that’s worth, anyway).
Did they determine that after 47 major league PAs after an injury and insufficient recovery time that he was a flash in the pan and a sunk cost?
Yeah, they did. How much clearer could it be now that they rushed him back because they wanted to showcase him for a trade and be rid of him? Maybe the Braves are wrong, and they have given us some reason to doubt them, but this is the kind of thing where they’re in a better position to judge than we are, and they look to have acted with certainty in retrospect.
How else would you like to parse value between Jace and Rodriguez?
WAR per season, with whatever faults it has, is better for this purpose than OPS. And it’s weird that one can bank on commenters here to go on at least two long anti-WAR tangents a year, but then the fallback stat is always the much more obviously flawed OPS.
But part of what I’m saying is: the Braves probably have some insight into Rodriguez’s current ability that won’t show up in his track record, however you want to quantify it. The consensus of comments on here, driven by observation of Rodriguez, would back up what that insight appears to be, which is: get rid of him.
The Braves absolutely could be wrong. They were straight up wrong in their evaluation of Alex Wood. Maybe it is too small a sample. Maybe Rodriguez will get healthy and be a 2 or 3 win player on the Pirates. Definitely not impossible. The totality of information would lead me to not be mad online until he shows he can perform again.
Folty is our ace
SRod is less than 1 WAR per season for his career. Jace is below replacement for his career. Neither is worth discussing in the context of the Braves being good again…but kudos for trying…there’s not much to talk about around these parts lately.
Leo Mazzone…
Surprisingly articulate, opinionated, interesting..
A voice that would work on Broadway.
Giancarlo Stanton is a very strong man. Why couldn’t we have traded Sean Rodriguez for him?
The Dodgers are 43-7 over their past 50 games. They are the first team to do that since the 1912 Giants. Of the seven losses they have in that stretch, three of them came against the Braves. That’s…astonishing. Baseball is a funny game.
@84&86
As the 25th man on the roster, used in a strategic way the way every back-of-the-roster player should, Rodriguez would be significantly more valuable, thus accumulating a higher WAR, if he was given more than 47 PAs to see if his 2016 career year was not a fluke. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Back-to-back walks by Hunter Cervenka. It’s like 2016 all over again!!
@90, S-Rod was neither signed nor paid to be the 25th man on the roster. He was paid to be our top utility guy. We’ve made out well with others in his place. Have you seen S-Rod play this year? He looks every bit the guy who has struck out once every two ABs at the major league level, and who only had three hits in 47 PAs in his minor league “rehab”. It’s a lost season, man. This trade ain’t a hill to die on.
Meanwhile…Freddie!!!
Another big hit by Stanton. Can we trade for him? (Uncharacteristically inept defense by Ender.)
Folty reminds me of Smoltz.
Excited to see Fried. Love that they’re using prospects in a bullpen role to ease them along.
Folty, wow. Stanton, wow. Freddie, wow. Great game. Right team won.
recapped.