Make no mistake, this Braves team is powerful. .501 SLG in 2023
Make no mistake, this Braves team is patient. .344 OBP in 2023
Make no mistake, this Braves team can hit for average. .274 in 2023
Make no mistake, this Braves team strikes out a lot: 23% K-rate in 2023
In a world where nearly the whole Braves lineup 1-9 fits this bill, Ignacio Alvarez (aka Nacho) bucks the trend and would be a welcomed addition in the 2024 lineup.
Nacho’s Journey
The Braves drafted Nacho in the 5th round of the 2022 draft out of Riverside City College of California. He stayed in Rookie ball for 15 games and was promoted to Low-A where he also played in 15 games. In 2023, the Braves, like they do with many of their potential MLB players, kept Nacho at Rome where he played 893 innings at shortstop.
In his 34th game of the year, Alvarez finally sent one out of the yard. He ended with 7 on the year. Obviously, power hasn’t been a big part of his game thus far, but his bat is solid and his approach is already MLB worthy. When the curtain closed on 2023, Nacho had a .284/.391/.385 line. That OBP would feed the Braves top of the lineup quite well.
Coming out of the draft, Nacho was said to have serious power potential. While that hasn’t been on display thus far, the fact that he hit 7 HRs in his last 310 ABs likely shows that he’s starting to find his power groove.
What’s to Come
Nacho is already offensively solid, but some think he’s a bit of a tweener defensively. His best position is 3B, but there’s no real opportunity for MLB PT there. The Braves chose to move him to SS in 2023, which worked well for his arm, but not for his foot-speed. Considering he’s a strong athlete and the Braves don’t really have one, Nacho would be a great super-utility player for the team, with ability to play all over the infield. However, since Brian Snitker rarely plays his utility guys and doesn’t like to play young guys in those roles, my guess is Nacho will stick at Double-A nearly all year with potential to get his contract selected to the team should the Braves have a few IF injuries.
If not, I could see him going the Vaughn Grissom route.
My Prediction
If Orlando Arcia gets injured and the backups monstrously fail, Nacho could get the call to the bigs. However, assuming Snitker still values defense at SS more than a good stick, the foot-speed will have had to improve from 2023 in order to get a real chance. My guess is that if we see Nacho in the bigs in 2024, it will be with another club….and that really sucks to type.
Fangraphs just did its prospect week, and Alvarez wasn’t in the top 100 or anything but he got several ‘keep an eye on this one’ kind of mentions.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/mlb-power-rankings-baseball-s-top-10-rotations-entering-2024-season-with-braves-astros-phillies-at-the-top/ar-BB1iVe0f?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=LCTS&cvid=d836348f5c6b4a1683f75506e3089fe9&ei=108
Above is a link to one source that says Braves rotation is best in baseball. I can understand not rating it number 1, but below 5 is absurd. Projection systems say that. Analysts say that. Why are so many on this site so against that concept?
Because we have seen several postseason rotation implosions in a row. Even in our WS win we had to start Dylan Lee and Ian Anderson threw a 5-inning no-hitter seemingly without throwing a single strike. I think everyone would agree we have a top 5 (or even top 1) rotation if Morton and Sale both pitch like they did last year and stay healthy and nobody else save maybe Elder has a catastrophic injury (I think we can most easily replace him). It’s hard, given our recent history, to take the over on a 40 yo Morton and a rarely healthy Sale.
But I sure do hope and dream that it all works out. I would love to see Sale throwing in the playoffs like he did when healthy last season following a healthy Fried and Strider.
Probably because people are comparing this rotation to an unrealistic ideal instead of comparing it to other teams’ which are all flawed (even moreso than the Braves)
Predicting that someone is going to get hurt and/or underperform is like predicting the sun rising.
If you think of injuries like a dichotomous variable where either someone gets injured or no one gets injured, then yes, it is almost certain that someone will get injured. But that’s a dumb oversimplification and a smart guy like you knows it. In your scenario, a team that loses its fifth starter for 2 starts due to a blister and a team that loses 3 starters for most of the season, both teams got hit by the injury bug, but it was as inevitable as the sun rising, so I don’t know what you guys are complaining about. When you have multiple players with a higher than average chance of injury or decline, that is more of a problem than having a bunch of healthy guys in their prime with no recent history of injury. The guy we’re counting on to be the postseason difference maker hasn’t been healthy for half a decade. Forgive people for not thinking he is just as likely to miss the postseason as Aaron Nola.
Every team has multiple players with higher than average risk of injury or decline. That’s how averages work.
Some of those teams have good players with high risk. Some have to slot in bad players with risk. Braves are the former.
Not all averages are the same
Congratulations to today’s winning pitcher, Jacob Webb.
As first impressions go, hard to do better than Chris Sale beginning his Braves career with two perfect innings, recording four strikeouts in 25 pitches.
Great to see that Sean Murphy hit the ball hard today. Had two balls in play with exit velocities over 108 mph.
I’m most excited about David Fletcher’s MVP start. He could be found money if he can pretend it’s 2019 or even 2021
Very interesting line up against Pittsburgh in our 13 to 4 loss on Tuesday. Three or four of 27 players who saw the field are likely to be on our opening day roster. Murphy and Sale were the only starters. I guess when our roster is as set as ours is, we have a chance to do a lot of experimenting.
Our non-MLB pitching options are not super effective… woof!