It’s weird seeing Max Fried‘s name beside a record of 3-1 in the month of August. What’s not so weird is the stellar ERA that’s sits aside his name: 1.69. Nice. His enemy number 1, SP for the Pirates Quinn Priester, has a very similar ERA to Fried, but where Fried’s starts with a 1, Priester’s starts with an 8. Yikes. While baseball is wildly unpredictable from game to game, I think it’s safe to say that Vegas is taking the Braves tonight.

Vaughn Grissom Deserves a Promotion

Every time I’m watching MLBTV, they have a quick minute commercial that shows 30 MLB players sporting their team’s hats and I find it curious that MLB chose, of all Braves players, Vaughn Grissom. In Statcast’s “Outs Above Average”, Grissom still ranks as the Braves worst defender with -8 OAA. Pretty extraordinary considering he only played in 19 games. And honestly, the eye test supported the numbers. Grissom looked wonky. Yet, when I browse the Gwinnett Stripers boxscores, or flip to their game during a Braves commercial break, I’ll see Grissom parked at SS and I just don’t understand why.

However, offensively, Grissom is on a mission.

To put these numbers into perspective, one has to understand that it’s not due to a power surge, as Vaughn only has 4 AAA HRs on the year. This kid is walking, singling, doubling, tripling, and limiting strikeouts. As of right now, he doesn’t have a place on the field and the Braves org seems dead-set on him being a SS even when the evidence is staring into their souls that he’s just not cut out for the position long-term. I hope we see Vaughn moonlighting as an OFer very soon because he could be a very welcomed addition to a postseason roster.

Braves Lineup