You know the old saying, ‘Solo homers don’t hurt you” does not apply tonight, not when you give up three of them.
Justin Verlander, https://www.sentinel-standard.com/story/sports/2012/06/30/verlander-allows-3-home-runs/63575784007/
What? A game on Monday? WTF? (Lest you think me crude, WTF is of course the Williamstown Theatre Festival here in Williamstown, MA. They’re always dark on Monday nights.)
What I’ve Been Doing
From 2018-2022, the Los Angeles Dodgers led the National League each year in both runs scored and fewest runs allowed.That is an unprecedented run. Only 32 teams have led their league in both categories, and those to have done so consecutively are:
Dodgers 2018-2022
Yankees 1936-1939
Orioles 1970-1971
The only other teams to do it this century are the 2001 Mariners and the 2004 Cardinals.
Well, the streak is going to come to an end this year. The Dodgers currently rank second in runs scored, trailing the Braves by 5 runs. Obviously, they could still finish first in runs scored this season. But with two months to go, the Dodgers rank 9th in runs allowed; they trail the league-leading Padres by 72 runs, so catching the eight teams ahead of them is essentially impossible.
But the Braves today stand a chance to be team 33 to lead the league in both categories.; Their runs scored will be uncatchable by anyone but the Dodgers in the two months remaining and they have only given up 14 runs more than the Padres; they can be caught. The performance of the Hammers’ pitching staff has been frankly underrated this season. Sure, we’ve gone weeks with three guys and prayers for four or five first inning runs, but, mirrors or not, the pitching staff, even without Fried and Wright for much of the season is within shouting distance of giving up the fewest runs in the National League.
The Braves have never led the NL in both categories. The Big Three led to an amazing string of fewest runs allowed from 1992-2002, with one more in 2013, but the years with the lead in runs scored never overlapped: 1966, 1973, 1982-83 and 2003.
So what are the Braves chances this year? Without claiming to put a precise probability on it, we can do some math that should give us a good probability. I’m not ready to present that model yet… I’ve been working on it for three days now and I’ve made progress, but it still ain’t done. With any luck, it will be done before the answer is known.
Marathon Man
If you don’t know Marathon Man, it’s a pretty good movie. Lawrence Olivier plays Christian Szell, a former Nazi dentist wanted for war crimes. While in NY’s Diamond District (a block from my old office – had many excellent lunches in the now-departed Berger’s Deli seen at the beginning of the clip) a Holocaust survivor begins pointing at him and screaming “Der weiße Engel! Der weiße Engel!” (The White Angel! The White Angel! This was Szell’s nickname at Auschwitz.)
In this game, every announcer and commenter and broadcast personality was screaming “Der japanisch Engel! Der japanisch Engel!” This allows me to make a Chip Caray comment, my first of the year. For the last three years, Chip kept blathering about how we need more interleague play so Braves fans could see Trout. There is no small irony to the fact that the Angels finally come to town and Trout is on the shelf. But all Is forgotten, because Shohei Ohtani is now bigger than Trout.
Ohtani will not take the mound in this series, so instead we finally get to see Chase Silseth, who was given the name Chase by his parents so that they could express their hatred of sculptors: Chase Silseth is an anagram of “Hates Chisels.” He is the first player in MLB history whose name is an anagram of Hates Chisels.
Ohtani was hit by a pitch, intentionally walked and singled before being retired on a good leaping grab by Harris at the wall. I’m sure seeing that was worth the hype.
Charlie Morton had a terrible first inning which very fortunately yielded only one run for the Angels, a solo homer by Luis Rengifo leading off. If I told you a Venezuelan player was going to hit a leadoff homer, I’m guessing that’s not who you’d have picked. Charlie pitched very well after the first, but was be-angelled by two more solo homers from Randal Grichuk and Chad Wallach. As that great philosopher Justin Verlander opined a decade or so ago, that can get you beat.
And it did. The Braves had a solo homer of their own from Matt Olson, but had another few potential rallies snuffed out from a lack of timely hitting. Ohtani’s flyout in the 9th created the opportunity for an unecessary insurance run. Three solo homers beat one. That’s advanced math.
A.J. Minter came back and pitched well. Pierce Johnson got himself in a load of trouble with a series of 55 foot pitches but managed to wiggle out of trouble. Daysbel Hernandez got into trouble and gave up another run, raising his ERA to 7.36 even though he looks like he has good stuff.
Go get ’em tomorrow. J won’t say this game was as bad as the unanesthetized root canal displayed above, but Dustin Hoffman eventually managed to defeat Der weiße Engel, and he had no curve ball at all.
This is an elite post-game wrap. We should keep JF at the deadline.
I’d consider Ohtani for JonathanF but only if he agrees to be tutored in the off season by JonathanF to further master the language
Prediction:
This team lays a giant egg in the playoffs.
The Braves are roughly average against teams that are worth a hoot and destroy bad teams in a way that is very very rare. Good pitching often neuters this team and the SPs although good, are not good enough to win big in the postseason. The playoffs hinge on Fried returning, and returning dominant. IMO. The Braves NEED to trade for a top flight SP, today. Big time.
I dunno, man. The scoreboard says that there aren’t any other teams out there that are guaranteed to win a championship. Obviously this Braves team is far from perfect, and I’m as concerned about the ability of the starting rotation to shut down a good offense as you are.
But… the two winningest teams in the American league are the Orioles and Rays, and they’re not the 1927 Yankees either. I think if you’re going to look that critically at the Braves, you’ve got to apply the same analysis to the other 29 teams.
I wonder if there was a team the equivalent of the ’27 Yankees this season, would there be any way to estimate their odds of winning the World Series in the 2023 format?
The Braves have far and away the best record in baseball against over-.500 teams, so this is not even close to being true. (Only Baltimore is even close. Most of the teams in the league, even the good ones, hover around .500 themselves in such matchups.) The most worrying stretches they’ve had this season have been when they’ve been uncharacteristically complacent against bad teams (A’s, White Sox), not getting exposed by the good ones.
I wouldn’t say no to another high-quality pitcher, but the playoffs are a crapshoot and that doesn’t change whether they acquire an ace or no one at all. You just have to get hot.
I don’t really disagree with you, but it is amazing to me that we have done what we’ve done with basically 3 starting pitchers. As you said, Fried has to be dominant, or we have to make a trade for a starting pitcher to be dominant, or Kyle Wright needs to return to form from last year (not likely). A rotation of Fried, Strider, someone else, and Morton/Elder has a pretty good shot at working. We also have to rely on a much healthier bullpen. Picking up one more bullpen arm and getting Dylan Lee back will help. Our acquisitions so far, along with McHugh, Heller, and Hernandez cannot be trusted in the playoff in my opinion.
One wonders if you’ve even been watching, given that their record against good teams has been otherworldly.
Also note that the Braves have the best record against .500+ teams. Yes, the Braves beat up on also-rans but they also lay the worst eggs on also-rans like OAK and CWS.
Also, the Braves seem to do best against the best teams like BAL, TBR, and TEX (and MIL and MIN).
The teams I fear are LAD, CIN, HOU.
We have alerted other Braves blogs that JonathanF can be made available if they are also willing to take our DOOOOMED discourse.
DOOOOMED discourse is a dime a dozen (every discussion board has plenty) but JonathanF is priceless.
Braves Journal front office reportedly unprepared for the “You traded Andrelton???”-level outcry in response to any JonathanF deadline deal.
Sources close to the GM: “We’re not rebuilding our discourse. We’re reloading. Before you know it, we’re going to have a discourse juggernaut over here, to go with our brand new website.”
The thing that worries me most about the playoffs is the downtime from the bye we’re on pace to get.
r/Braves is asking us for AAR in exchange for some guy who commemorates every Strider K by yelling “STRIDE ON THEM, QUADFATHER.” I hung up the phone.
If they agree to pick up my two $43 million team options in 2026 and 2027, I’ll waive my no-trade clause.
Unfortunately, Braves Journal is still stuck in the Reserve Clause Era, or that’s what Ryan tells me.
It’s easy to predict that the Braves will not win the World Series. In the wild card era, no team ever enters the playoffs with even a 50% chance of winning it all. Take the field against the best team in baseball every time.
And I would love to add a very good to excellent starting pitcher. You can’t have enough starting pitchers. But remember the Braves won the Series two years ago when Tucker Davidson and Dylan Lee (in his big league starting debut!) started two of the six games. It really is a crapshoot.
Thaks, JonathanF, for the memory of that film. My future wife and I went to see Marathon Man on our very first date. The dentist chair scene is about as well done as any such scene I recall–but it is very intense (“Is it safe?”). Turns out she hates suspense films, and she really can’t stand to watch any torture or infliction of suffering. We are still together 47 years later, but our relationship almost went off the rails before it started. We haven’t watched together any movies like that since.
“Marathon Man” did for dentists what “Jaws” did for the beach.
I own the movie on DVD, but the only two bits of dialog I remember are: “Is it safe?” and, of course, “Essen!”
I won’t be disappointed if the Braves do nothing today. Our roster is loaded. I’d rather hold onto any prospect we can hold onto and only take back straight salary dumps. Last year, we probably win the World Series if Fried doesn’t get sick and Dansby and Strider don’t go down. And the Phils were red hot and ultimately made it to the World Series. I think Fried and Wright’s injuries might help us quite a bit if we can time them being at full strength for the playoffs. It was Wright and Strider’s first full seasons last year, and I know that played a role in where we ended up. 3 of our top 4 pitchers were either not at full strength or unavailable. I’m almost secretly hoping Strider turns an ankle in mid-August just so he can give that arm a rest.
Tucker Davidson to the Royals, and I think we can all agree that makes sense.
I went to my barber today. He advised AA was on the phone working out the following:
Braves Get: Verlander, Cash from Mets, Alex Lange
Mets Get: Grissom , Coby Mayo, Joey Ortiz, Drew Rom
O’s Get: Rodriguez, Lorenzen, Owen Murphy, Ben Heller
Tigers Get: AJ Smith- Shawver, JR Richie, Spencer Schwellenbach, Grayson Rodriguez
Love when the barber makes an appearance.
Brad Hand, come on down.
Barger? BARGER? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ ALEC BARGER!
Another AA deal to get something for nothing. Gotta wonder who goes out. Heller? Does this mean Lee is not coming back soon? With Minter, Hand, and Lee, the bullpen will be stacked with lefties again.
Daysbel maybe? He has all of his options and his last 2 outings were poor.
Probably won’t see the roster move until tomorrow though when Hand will be ready.
It’s interesting to me in an “immovable object meets unstoppable force” kind of way that, out of the collision of the Braves’ extremely tight-lipped maneuverings and the Mets’ tendency to let every embarrassing detail of every failed courtship leak to the public, the Mets’ messiness was what prevailed, re: Verlander “rumors.”
The fact that the rumor was printed means you can pretty much bet your life savings it won’t happen.
I’ve never heard of Alec Barger. Can we resign Pablo Sandoval today and trade him too?
I think Brad Hand has been suggested by multiple posters on here (including myself). Everyone should be happy with this move.
I wish we had gotten an entire pitcher and not just a Hand.
I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.
Rob, you have been traded from Braves Journal to Braves Twitter in exchange for a used Tom Emanski instructional VHS that has an unauthenticated Fred McGriff signature on the box. Best of luck.
I guess this will be known as the HandBarger deal. In all seriousness, I really have to Hand it to AA on this deal.
Dang it, I hate Braves Twitter. I should have negotiated a no trade clause like Alex did.
Hand certainly seems like a better left-handed option than the recently-traded Taylor Hearn. His ERA, FIP, and xFIP all look pretty rough, but he’s been on the receiving end of some bad luck this year (as evidenced by his .333 BABIP). If his luck evens out and he continues striking guys out at a decent clip (26.1% so far), he could be valuable, at least against LHH.
Also, Coors Field. And the Rockies organization.
Mets trade Verlander back to the Astros (for 2 Top-100 prospects).
Citi Field is really gonna be a morgue for the next 2 months.
That’s a shame…
They will have a lot of work to do to match the lack of excitement currently at Nationals Park, but I have confidence in them.
Given the recent sell-off, the prices for the 4 Braves/Mets games in 3 days (Aug. 11-13) should plummet, so there’s that…
JonF, if you’re coming down to Flushing…
Remember when I predicted Braves would get Hand?!
You did predict this.
You also floated Yu Darvish. So, Yu better produce Yu.
It’s not every day that both a Barger and a Burger are traded, but that’s exactly what happened today.
“Sometimes nothing is a really cool Hand.”
Y’all have been busier than AA over here today. What a great recap, JonathanF…dfa me, Ryan!
“Verlander, who had a full no-trade clause, waived it to return to Houston with the Mets informing him that they may not contend again until 2025.”