The Braves 2nd half will kick off tomorrow at 53-42 against Sonny Gray and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Phillies are 8.5 games up on Atlanta, and Atlanta is 4 games up on the Cardinals for the 1st Wild Card spot. In today’s piece, we will analyze each area to determine where the team can improve for the stretch run.
Starting Pitching
Depth: AJ Smith-Shawver, Ian Anderson, Bryce Elder, Hurston Waldrep, Allan Winans, Darius Vines, Huascar Ynoa
Conclusion: The Braves could very well add a SP in a deal to allow added rest for the above 5, but I don’t think it’s likely. If we’re looking at an area of the roster that needs a do-over, it’s not this group. I’ve long thought that the team could look to a veteran leader to take over Charlie’s role and someone like Kevin Gausman could be available.
Relief Pitching
- Jesse Chavez
- Dylan Lee
- Grant Holmes
- Aaron Bummer
- Pierce Johnson
- A.J. Minter
- Joe Jimenez
- Raisel Iglesias
Depth: Daysbel Hernandez
Conclusion: This is about as good as it gets. However, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Hurston Waldrep be added as a reliever in September.
Infield
Depth: Zack Short
Conclusion: While Matt Olson, Austin Riley, and Ozzie Albies haven’t been great, it’s apparent that the team will be riding with them the rest of the season (assuming no injury) due to their team-friendly contracts. Orlando Arcia is definitely the elephant in the room and it wouldn’t surprise me to see AA acquire another shortstop, but also keep Orlando on the team.
Outfield
Depth: Luke Williams, Eli White, Forrest Wall, Ramon Laureano.
Conclusion: While there are 8 OFers here, there’s only 1 that has shown the ability to play well on both sides of the ball. When MH2 gets back the Braves will have a very strong defensive OF, but the corners really need to step up at the plate. I think AA looks to add an OFer.
Catchers
- Sean Murphy
- Travis D’Arnaud
Depth: Chadwick Tromp, Drake Baldwin
Overall Reflection on Braves 2nd Half
If the Braves want to improve the team, the obvious spots are outfield and shortstop. Bo Bichette likely makes the most sense, but is also having a rough year. I’m not sure they’ll get a shortstop, but I do hope that if AA doesn’t trade Nacho Alvarez, that he gives him a look if Arcia continues to struggle. Picking up an OFer should be relatively easy and it’s not even worth speculating on who AA could acquire because there’ll be several available at varying prices.
JC’d.
FG capsules on the Braves’ first three picks:
https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2024-mlb-draft?sortcol=2&sortdir=desc
Agree with Ryan that OF and SS are the obvious necessities here. I wouldn’t be surprised to see AA go after some of the effectively free players on the waiver wire – the Whit Merrifield/Tim Anderson/Dallas Keuchel/Nick Ahmed/Nick Senzel class of player – to see if he can get any of them on a minor league contract and let them fight to replace Laureano, Short, and White. That’s pretty much exactly what the reunion with Eddie Rosario was.
But that’s all more or less window dressing. What we really need is the kind of player who is still good enough to play for one of the other 29 teams. I’d like Bichette or Chisholm (though I’d want someone to vouch for the latter as his inability to reach his potential has raised some makeup questions); I’d be interested in a player one class down, like Rooker or Winker or Lane Thomas.
What’s concerning to me is: we all know that this is a seller’s market. We’ve been hearing that for a month. There are a whole lot of contending teams, and the price of the guys we all know are available has been generally said to be sky-high, which is the explanation we’ve gotten for why Alex Anthopoulos, who is pretty famous for making a lot of moves, has so far been empty-handed.
But that can’t continue, in my opinion. Either we punt on the season – sell off some of our bullpen arms (and even possibly Fried) to retool for next year, OR, we go for it and get at least one or two guys who are actually capable of moving the needle.
The team, as is, is a playoff team so no need to punt, but not adding would feel like punting, for sure.
No way we sell. AA will never punt on a playoff year. Just have to get hot for 3 weeks
Via Jim Bowden: lower your expectations, guys!
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5646694/2024/07/19/mlb-trade-deadline-front-offices-under-pressure/
Striking to me that Bowden does not identify SS as a position of need. I wonder whether that reflects an industry consensus that AA is unlikely to move on from Arcia, or just an oversight.
Judging from Bowden’s hot take on Ozzie moving to short, he doesn’t know very much about the Braves.
My expectations are pretty low outside of acquiring a premium outfielder.
SS:
Losing Acuna means substantially upgrading shortstop is impossible unless the farm system gets completely gutted. I can’t see that happening.
Arcia benefited from the juiced ball as much as anyone but the decline of his plate discipline is most responsible for his performance. His YOY O-Swing % is four points higher and one of the biggest increases among qualified hitters. In theory, that can be fixed within the same season.
SP:
There are enough internal options to get Sale and Lopez rest if the front office and Snitker can get on the same page. Using Bryce for 3-4 innings with AJSS (I think Alex R initially suggested this) should suffice.
I have difficulty seeing the benefit of parting with prospects in a seller’s market for a starting pitcher that is unlikely to make a playoff start.
OF:
I initially thought a Jesse Winkler type would do but now that I’ve looked at Olson’s numbers something more substantial is needed. This team as constructed can’t do that well if one of their stars is league-average so go for a Luis Roberts or Brent Rooker and figure out the OF depth chart next year. Worst case they have to trade Kelenic or let Ozuna walk. If you make a big trade and Olson figures it out the lineup could be back to where it was last year very quickly.
Every prospect should be available except for AJSS, Swallenbach, and Nacho. I include Nacho simply because he’s the only shortstop even remotely close to playing in the majors and there has to be an Arcia contingency plan internally.
Adding another starter would definitely mean we’re going to go with a 6-man rotation here on out, right? Sale and Lopez are going to start getting way too many innings before too long, and we’re going to want to give Anderson a shot when he’s healthy. Ynoa also just began his rehab assignments. Sale, Lopez, Morton, Schwellenbach, Anderson, and new starter being 6-man rotation options with Elder, ASS, Waldrep, and Ynoa being additional options down the road.
As for Ian’s timeline, it looks like he made his 5th rehab start on July 12th at Rome. So from there, he probably had a simulated outing on the 17th or yesterday, and then he’ll have his 6th rehab start in a few days. I wonder how many they think he needs.
I have clearly already traded Fried in my mind and I’ll go ahead and ban myself from this site.
We already are on a 6 man rotation. Anderson I suspect will push Elder/whoever else is called up out.
Don’t think that we need the veteran starter that Bowden says we do.
I think they want to see the “6th” spot more solidified instead of it being a quartet of guys on the Gwinnett shuffle.
Elder’s got to have some trade value to some team who can plug him into a low pressure 5th spot and see if he can replicate last year’s success.
I wonder if Ryan Feltner is worth taking a flyer on. ERA is terrible, but he’s got a 3.99 FIP and is obviously pitching on a terrible team.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/feltnry01.shtml
An Elder for Feltner challenge trade for both teams. Even when Elder’s good, his FIP has never been good and he’s just been a house of cards.
I was pinch hitting a game thread for Ryan, and it is publishing behind this thread. Don’t know what I did wrong.
I think the main thing was just always needing to add a Featured Image or the post won’t push into the top spot. Should be fixed now.
If we can get some cromulent starter to suck up 60-80 innings for very cheap, I would do it. let those guys we are worried about innings skip a start or stay with 6 guys…
To get someone cheap in terms of prospects, he has to either be bad or mediocre but expensive (in terms of dollars). Anyone who is decent who doesn’t have a bad contract is going to cost us prospects, and anyone bad isn’t any better than what we have in Vines, Elder, Winans, Anderson, etc.
Game thread: