This Bar is now closed and we don’t leave the light on.
This is the place where all pieces that are not recaps or game threads will be discussed. Let’s ring up a toast to the great Alex Remington, who proposed to his girlfriend and for some reason she said yes!
Articles Discussed in this Bar
- Let the Starting Pitching Carousel Begin
- Gwinnett Stripers Players of the Month
- Braves Ink Justus Sheffield and Chad Pinder
- What’s Wrong with A.J. Minter?
- Mississippi Braves Players of the Month
- Rome Braves Players of the Month
Bar Chat Topic
What Brave in the last 30 years do you feel was under-appreciated during his tenure with the team?
Klesko.
I like this choice too.
Interesting, Ryan…I hadn’t considered McHugh or Chavez, but it’s a possibility. Let’s see how they fare tonight. I am eager for Soroka to get there, and have reasonable confidence in Dodd…how about your boy, AJ Smith-Shawver?
Smith-Shawver could get a shot at some point this season, but my guess is that’s the back end of the season, like August or September.
Hoo boy. Thanks for that rundown of our minor league pitching depth, Ryan. The cupboard is bare. I’m sure AA is working the phones, but the current state of things is not quite sufficient.
Did you see my shoutout to you on the post?
Hmm… no, I seem to have missed, what was the shoutout?
Look right under the graphic in this bar.
Oh! Thank you 🙂
MLB Network says Fried & Wright likely will be out at least 2 months.
My vote: Kevin Millwood. If you define him as a 3rd or 4th starter, he was pretty good.
Klesko was a weird one. He had tremendous power, but fairly useless with a glove. He slaughtered RHPs, but was kinda helpless against lefties. (The most painful example was him vs. Graeme Lloyd in the ’96 WS.) His splits, especially 1997-99, were pretty dramatic. Still, I marveled at his power when he began to play a lot in ’94. Despite his limitations, wasn’t crazy about the trade with SD.
I feel like Mac’s answer to this question would be Mike Remlinger.
I think my vote goes to Gary Sheffield. Lots of people don’t like him because of a prickly personality, roid rumors, and whatever else, and his Braves tenure is probably forgotten by most people outside of Atlanta because we were just one of the eight teams he played for, but he absolutely mashed for us. By WAR, his 2003 for us was the best season of his career.
By OPS+ and wRC+, Sheffield was the best hitter that we’ve employed in the last 30 years. Chipper and Galarraga trail him by 10 points or more. And Sheffield was worth roughly twice the WAR of Galarraga, who was otherwise probably his most comparable player, another two-season wonder we signed around then. But hardly anyone even remembers what Sheff did in Atlanta. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who will select him, anyway.
Remlinger’s a good one, especially for his ’99 performance (Game 3 of WS, notwithstanding).
As good as he was for us, I remember Sheffield for different reasons.
My problem with Sheffield was that he was terrible in his 2 post-season series for us (3 for 30, IIRC). Those 2 teams (’02-’03) were really good & probably would’ve won the division without him. We needed him to perform in the post-season & he laid an egg vs. SF & Chi.
My answer is Tyler Flowers. The dude was signed for nothing then put out 11.9 fWAR in 381 games. IMO he revolutionized what the Braves sought in a catcher.
Yacksel Rios looked great in the WBC as well, I think we may have something there if Yates eventually implodes or Lee is made a starter.
Tyler Flowers is a good one, Ryan
Oh, that’s fascinating. He was a really serious prospect a few years ago, and then his career just stalled.
Adam LaRoche. I wish he had a longer career in Atlanta
Hoo boy. Landogarner would not have agreed with you.
New piece for the bar!
As someone who watched Justus’ brother Jordan pitch at Vandy (and they’re from Tullahoma, TN, “just down the road” from me), I approve this signing. Hopefully our coaches can figure it out and unlock his potential.
We now have a game thread for all that partake.
If the Braves can unlock Shefffield that would be like a free draft pick. Could be a huge win.
We are going to get no hit on about 60 pitches at this rate.
A new piece for the bar!
I was mentioning in the Saturday recap that Minter has only thrown 19 innings and that the first 9 were pretty great, and the last 10 have been pretty terrible. Is it possible to tell if his expected stats have been constant across the whole 19 innings, or did something change in the last 10 innings? They look like pretty distinct sets, to the extent that 10 innings is significant to anyone.
We now have a game thread for tonight.
Is it a coincidence that fielding independent stats are good for Minter?
New piece for the bar.
Smith-Shawver has been promoted to AAA. This is nuts!
Tonight’s game thread.
New piece for the bar.
So what’s the deal with Rome catcher Drake Baldwin? He has got great numbers, walking almost as much as striking out and showing power with 6 HR so far this season good for an .893 OPS. Is he a prospect-prospect?
Baldwin is a very athletic “catcher” who projects as someone with an average hit tool and above average power. The problematic things that make him a less than ideal prospect are his age (22 as he was a senior sign) and the fact that he really can’t play behind the plate. The team has gotten a lot of these guys lately (Adam Zebrowski is mentioned in the Rome report Ryan just posted, Drew Slugbear is similar) with the hope one of them turns into Evan Gattis.
Thank you, snowshine! So maybe future LF or DH if he keeps hitting?
Thanks, JonathanF! One question in the back of my mind: why not check performance in “high-leverage” versus “low-leverage” situations, as measured by LI?
You can do that (and it’s such a good idea that I thought about it) but there are a few issues.
1) The most important one is that the folk wisdom on closer problems in non-save situations isn’t about leverage, but about situations. As James points out in the linked article, a 3 run lead in the 9th is pretty low leverage, but is still a closing situation. And a critical situation in the 4th could conceivably be high leverage, but if the a closer is called in there and messes up, people will still say it’s because he is used to “closing.”
2) I already moved a fair bit in that direction anyway by calling any late inning tie game a save situation, even though it isn’t.
3) The leverage index changes batter-by-batter across every appearance and is not really (except for the initial appearance) in the manager’s control. If I bring in Minter with a three run lead in a clean ninth, his leverage is really low until he makes it big by loading the bases with no outs. Managers can only control leverage on entry into the game .
4) I don’t have play-by-play leverage data, so I’d have to calculate it. That’s a pain.
JonathanF–what a delight to read your piece on Closers! It has all the hallmarks of a classic Bill James study–the kind that captivated so many of us when we first encountered his work in the 1980’s. You take a baseball truism, subject it to data and statistical analysis, and conclude that received wisdom is not borne out in reality. Conclusions based on anecdotes and small sample size are often simply wrong, but they get repeated enough that everyone assumes they are true. Especially when combined with a “psychological” explanation for the supposed phenomenon. (The myths of clutch hitting and lineup protection are similar.)
I don’t understand all the math and statistical analysis in your piece, but I know that you know your way around that stuff. And despite the difficulty of the technical material, you make the piece readily understandable and fun to read.
Thank you, sir. I fear you have overstated my success at doing so, but the emulation of those old James’ pieces is exactly what I’m aiming at.
It’s Gary Sanchez o’Clock in Queens.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/37682204/new-york-mets-calling-veteran-catcher-gary-sanchez
We have a new game thread and a new backup infielder who’s not new at all.