This is a game you really want to see from a rebuilding team. 21-year old Luiz Gohara gives a strong 6 IP with only 71 pitches, and 23-year old Lucas Sims, 23-year old Daniel Winkler, and 24-year old AJ Minter. The offense was highlighted by 20-year old Ozzie Albies, 27-year old Lane Adams, and players who could play a role in our future like 31-year old Tyler Flowers and 32-year old Matt Kemp.
Gohara pitched well in his second career start, limiting the Nationals to only 2 runs, 1 earned. But most importantly, the previous mentioned pitch count and 6 K/0 BB ratio meant his start was very efficient. He’s currently one of the hardest throwing LH SPs in the game, and if he can pound the strike zone, then he’ll be really good. I do wonder if this workload he’s under (123.2 IP across all levels, up from 69.2 IP last year) catches up to him next year. But the bullpen put in 3 scoreless innings with 6 K’s and no walks. The Nationals may be gearing up for the playoffs, but they were still throwing their ace and they had their full lineup in.
Lane Adams has been a revelation lately. 27 years old, has never been given a shot, but now has a .912 OPS in 77 PAs. This month, in small sample, he’s hitting .375/.524/688.
It’s good to win one or two.
Nice recap.
Are you home yet?
Maybe we should trade prospects for frontline pitching in the offseason. But it would take a lot for me to deal Gohara or Allard. Someone could probably come up with a name, but still… even for a package that included Soroka, it would have to be an excellent young starter with years of control.
Gohara and Allard may not pan out, but they’re so good, it’s awfully tempting to take the risk with them and go down with the ship.
Yes sir. Got home on Monday. Very fortunate to have avoided the worst. The people 20 miles east of us were not as fortunate. Thank you for asking.
I’d say only Wright, Allard, Gohara, Fried, and Wentz (maybe Touki?) are untouchable. Everyone else could go for an excellent young starter with years of control.
EDIT: I’m referring to every pitcher with a Tomahawk. Teheran, Folty, Newcomb, Anderson, whomever.
I don’t know why we don’t sign/trade for more prime years guys that are blocked somewhere. Guys like Lane, Matt Adams, Matt Diaz, might only have short windows of usefulness in their absolute prime, but why not roll the dice?
In his last 276 PAs, Matt Kemp has a .665 OPS. Basically since June 1. Of all the problems we have, this probably has to be towards the top. Since my arbitrary endpoints can be poorly received (meaning I won’t say he’s been excellent from August ’16 through May ’17), there really should be more of an outcry from fans that they are paying a guy $19M who has produced a .783 OPS in the last 3 seasons and plays, statistically, the worst defense in major league baseball at the easiest defensive position while leading the league in GIDP. But yet, there’s really little talk of this even on places like Twitter where the fans get direct access to DOB and Peanut. Weird.
@3: Good to hear.
Matt Kemp, what to do, shuck or shoot? Anything but play him. Wish him well but send him on his way.
@5, Agree. I’d like to think people won’t fall for “best shape of his life” stories again, but there’s a reason why the genre never dies.
Kemp also wouldn’t be such a big problem if the Braves had ever shown any appetite to eat a salary the size of Markakis’.
@3, I would ultimately consider trading any pitching prospect if the return was worth it. But I would ask for the moon in exchange for Gohara, Allard, or Wright.
The Braves mlb site calls Gohara 6-3, 210 pounds. The last time he saw 210 pounds was probably as a 16 year old. Then again, he could have been on the Matt Kemp conditioning plan and started the season at 210 and has gained 5 to 10 pounds per month during the season.
@8 That is funny but not funny at the same time
What more does Lane Adams have to do, honestly?
Longer sample?
I meant to get another start, with Inciarte back, he’s back to the bench after his 3 for 4 with a walk mostly against Scherzer. Kemp and Kakes should be getting regular rest, let’s let him get a longer sample.
Can the MLB guys weigh me too? I would love to be 210 again.
I know it’s small sample but lets compare 2017 Trea Turner .285/.335/.450 in 379 PAs with 40 SB, 6 CS, to 2017 Lane Adams .309/.397/.515 in 79 PAs with 8 SB and 0 CS.
Lane has started 3 games this year. His Minor League track record doesn’t bode well for the future, but maybe you caught lightning in a bottle, guess we’ll never know.
He’s our version of Ryan Ludwick. Just doesn’t get any AB’s
Adams is interesting. He was a fairly punchless hitter in his long minor league career, and he has one of his highest power outputs now at the major league level. He’s also a physical specimen. I swear I’m not “that guy”, but it does make you wonder.
With that said, he also really has a fantastic approach as a pinch hitter and pinch runner. He knows he’ll get three strikes and head back to the dugout, and he really seems to take some all-or-nothing hacks on the majority of strikes he sees. He probably thinks, “Eff it. I’m 27 years old, and if I don’t run into a few fastballs, I’m headed back to AAA for good.” Same thing on the basepaths: 8 stolen bases in 79 PAs (and obviously a lot of pinch runs). Hey, give it hell, man. Reckless abandon.
I know it’s small sample but
should be this site’s tagline.
Like 47 ABs?
We have a very large sample of this team being shitty. So there’s always that.
@18, You’re still not ready to let go?
You wouldn’t need to give me 47 PAs — let alone 250 — to determine that you don’t want me on your baseball team. All you’d have to do is watch me play. Apparently, that’s how the Braves felt about Sean Rodriguez upon watching him play.
If anyone has seen Jeff Wren’s tweets they are entertaining. It’s no secret that he can’t stand Coppy.
@21
Wow! He’s nuts, but may not be wrong
Joe Simpson just made a big deal about Dansby reading a book. I guess Joe hasn’t read too many books in his life.
Ender is really good. That’s about the most nonchalant acrobatic home run robbery I’ve seen.
@21, thank you!!! This stuff is solid gold. Holy wow.
Defensive problems.
Tonight makes Ozzie 0 for 2 on recent relay throws to catch a runner at the plate. Both times the ball ended 10 feet up the line aided no doubt by the wild ‘slice’ on his throws. He needs to work on that.
Also, what about that ‘no problem’ casual double play with Dansby, the catcher running, that just bombed? Awful.
@25
When I first saw the main tweet, I didn’t know MLB Grapevine was actually Jeff Wren. I’m really bad about lurking on Twitter (and subsequently becoming angry; why do I self-inflict?), and I read it as Twitter gossip, which is even less reliable as real world gossip. But yes, reading through that, wow, but probably not for the same reasons. Twitter is notoriously in the tank for Coppy, which has begun to cause me to revolt against the prospect worship. The main participants on Twitter are sycophants for Coppy, and they haven’t seen a prospect list since November ’14 that they didn’t think would be the Braves World Series roster two seasons in the future. And of course, it’s no shock that the fired GM’s brother is not going to be an objective voice on Twitter once all those things are considered.
But I think he highlights some points that are not being articulated: Coppy is not nearly as good as the groupthink contends, and Wren is not nearly as bad. And since these are the viewpoints of the current administration, how quickly could that change? Jeff Wren, IMO, makes some decent points in there, and the Twitterers keep saying, “Source? Source?”, but he ain’t gonna give you anything even if he had it. You just have to decide if you believe Braxton Davidson was an analytics pick (he sure as hell wasn’t a “my eyes tell me he’s anything other than a colossal douche” pick), and I’m inclined to believe that. I also think Wren gets way more criticism for CJohnson than Coppy does for the Olivera pick (hey Adam R., don’t think they should have gotten a bigger sample on him too? Their lying eyes…).
I followed him. I want to hear more!
Mike Minor is pitching middle relief for the Royals and making a good job of it. Cleveland, going for 22 in a row, are down 2/1 in the 6th.
Ozzie can still hit though better than he can throw. Left handed, OF, lovely!
Ozzie impresses more every day with how hard he hits the ball.
Nice to see Matt “White Flag” Wisler coming in to erase any momentum the Braves might have gotten from Albies’ HR.
Wisler is just terrible right now. You know, he actually had several very good starts at the beginning of last year. Of course he’s been pretty consistently bad ever since, but lately he gets lit up every outing. It’s increasingly hard to see any future for him as a big league pitcher.
He’s gonna need a change of scenery.
I think Wren also made some good points that the minor league system was not quite as barren as it was made out to be in 2014, pointing out that Acuna, Albies, Sims, and Camargo were all signed by that regime.
Also he said that Wren wanted to hire Showalter instead of Fredi, but was vetoed by JS and Cox. And then wasn’t allowed to fire him after the Kimbrel playoff debacle. I think this is something that most fans who followed closely figured out at the time but a bit surprising to see it confirmed.
Seeing this stuff on Twitter makes me wonder if he was Ken Rosenthal’s source for that article a few weeks ago about the front office dysfunction.
If he was, then you’d have to think he’s fairly credible for Rosenthal to write an article about what he had to say.
You’d think…
Nice play, Oz.
Read his tweets and replies tab. It’s even juicier than his tweets.
Albies has a 12 game hitting streak.
Recapped
I don’t need Jeff Wren to tell me that Coppolella is not well-liked. He has come across as arrogant and superior from day one. I hated the dismantling of the team, questioned the returns we were getting, and now feel like these decisions have been guided more by Liberty Media than a desire to actually win. When I look at the team executives, I begin to see guys who just aren’t hungry to be legendary because they already are. They have the cushiest job ever as major league hall of famers. All they have to do is keep the bottom line happy.
As for Coppolella, the dude drinks too much of his own koolaid. I hope he gets Bobby Cox kind-of lucky with his drafts.