Not much to say about this one. Suffice it to say, the Braves got ripped by Padres hitting early and were out of the game by the fifth inning.
As to what happened this weekend in general, I think it’s clear that all the injuries have started catching up to the Braves a bit. The starting rotation has two major league pitchers in it right now, and one of those is a very old major league pitcher. The lineup is missing two major pieces, with Michael Harris and Travis d’Arnaud both out. Thankfully, Harris reportedly won’t be out for long and the rotation will start to get guys back, likely starting with Kyle Wright shortly. The Padres are also a very good team, so that’s clearly a part of what’s happened the last couple nights too.
Anyway, we’ve got three coming up against Cincinnati, so hopefully that will provide a bit of a chance to get right before going on the road next weekend.
There’s always so little to talk about at the beginning of the season. Good or bad, it’s only April. Twelve games isn’t enough to draw any firm conclusions about anybody, and positive or negative, you can find something to reinforce any viewpoint.
That being said, I am one-hundred-percent confident that Ozuna and Rosario are donezo. It’s difficult to believe that there’s a more ineffectual DH/LF pair in the majors. The sad part is that even with that being true, one of them is probably still the team’s best LF option…
Our 2 best pitchers are injured, our CF and catcher are injured, and half the lineup isn’t hitting. So you’re going to beat up on bad teams and struggle against the good ones. With how competitive the division will be this year, I don’t see an issue with treating April games like they’re September games. We’ve got Reds and Royals over the next 6 games, so we definitely need to take advantage of that because behind them are the Pads again and the Astros.
Agreed. We need to bag wins when we can and take advantage of bad teams whenever possible.
Agreed on Ozuna. I’m not so sure about Eddie. He’s struggling, for sure, but there was a lot of loud contact in the WBC from him and I think he’ll come around. Still, I wouldn’t be mad if they went away from them and started platooning Eli and Hilliard.
What I don’t understand is with all the increased revenues and the Braves overall fiscal solvency, why they won’t just rip off the Band-Aid and simply just release Ozuna. So what if they have to eat the money. It’s sunk. Nothing approaching a remote amount of value is ever going to be regained.
Rosario is less done than Ozuna, but he’s apparently met the “wrong side of 30 skills cliff”. Older players can crater and they both have done so.
I could be being too optimistic, but I would be shocked if Ozuna is still on the team June 1st.
Albies now has a 70 or 80 game stretch where he’s a below replacement level player. Nothing in his plate discipline stats screams that he’s gonna suddenly turn things around. This is one of the big early storylines for me. How long will Grissom stay in AAA when he’s already a better player than half our starting lineup? Drives me crazy when the best players don’t play. The minute they let Dansby walk they should’ve been grooming Grissom for LF. The only thing that even remotely makes sense here is that we’ll be trading Grissom sometime this year, so they want him to showcase SS.
Albies is incredibly streaky – he’s like Kelly Johnson, but he plays great defense. You can’t rely on him, but he’ll turn it around.
When I first saw Albies, I thought we might have a Joe Morgan-lite on our hands. As it turns out, he’s probably just another Hall of Whatever’s Less than Very Good player, long term. He’s a good MLB player but probably not much more.
He’s been a good MLB player in the past. Right now, he’s borderline unplayable. He’s Javy Baez unless something changes in his approach. His ABs last night show he’s just guessing and doesn’t trust himself that he can get to the fastball, so he’s starting his swing way early and often can’t stop it.
I’ll give him a pass for April and May because he’s missed plenty of time in the last few years and there’s a bit of rust still. But it’s a storyline to watch.
I’m all for giving Ozzie a lot of chances and he can bat higher in the order when batting RH. But hitting lefty against a righty at cleanup is just bizarre. At least Hilliard might run into a pitch every now and then (and be like a broken clock – correct twice a day).
Is there anything wrong with White in CF and Hilliard in LF?
Two years ago, Ozzie hit .259/.310/.488 with crazy power for a 2B and stole 20 bags. That was good for a wRC+. He played a full season, played good defense, and that equated to a 3.9 fWAR. You would live with that every year or you’re a whacko.
Last year, his bat dipped (.247/.294/.409) to a 93 wRC, and his 162-game fWAR pace was 2.8. So, other than him being injury-prone, I don’t see what about his on-field performance needs to improve other than a slow start in 10 games. If one more ball off his bat leaves the yard, and we’re not even having this conversation.
I think when these kids all signed their extensions, we thought we were exploiting these guys and we were getting this surplus value. Now we think these guys have not lived up to expectations. It was probably somewhere in the middle in both instances this entire time.
I’m just acknowledging that Ozzie has always been better as a righty hitter and that should be taken into account when making a lineup.
I think this is getting to be an AA/Snit characteristic. A lot of experimenting until about June 1st then locking in and filling holes.
I think expectations are too high and want to reset them. If he silences my doubting, then awesome. I just don’t expect 4 WAR from him. His contract looks about right to me.
ICYMI: Evan Gattis spilled the tea on Twitter re: the Astros cheating. Go read all of his replies.