Sorry there hasn’t been a lot on the blog lately. Those of us on the blog are okay, just incredibly busy; meanwhile, the Braves have fallen back to earth, losiing 8 of their last 10 after winning 7 of their first 11.
Spencer Strider came back and punched out five straight Red Sox. He’s still in spring mode, but boy he was fun to watch, wasn’t he? Crisp fastball, tight slider, and that fun loopy curveball.
Obviously, it’s been a slow winter here, slower than usual over the last couple of months. We’re going to try to figure out some next steps to keep things sustainable amid busy lives, and will share them when we have a plan.
Some of you have reached out to ask if Ryan’s okay. He is, just super insanely busy. But we all appreciate the concern. Thanks for keeping on coming to this bar over all the years.
Quick greetings to everyone, and a quick question: did the final farm rankings (#1-5) ever get a post? I swear I’ve been looking but can’t find them.
Gonna be an interesting year, I hope we can avoid injuries this time…
Very off-topic, and please don’t bring politics into it, but I had no idea former Braves first round pick Sean Gilmartin was married to former WH press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. I guess it pays to be 6’2″, good looking, and rich.
Sean Gilmartin had an astonishingly unmemorable career, but at least he made the majors, unlike many other Braves 1st-round picks of the past 20 years – including Beau Jones, Steve Evarts, Cody Johnson, Jon Gilmore, Brett DeVall, Matt Lipka, and Braxton Davidson. (In fairness, all but Davidson and Johnson were taken in the supplemental round, meaning they were picked somewhere in the 30s or 40s, rather than in the 20s like Gilmartin.)
Gilmartin’s replacement-level career puts his contributions roughly in line with those of Joey Devine, Cory Rasmis, Jason Hursh, Joey Wentz, Kolby Allard, and (so far) Braden Shewmake and Jared Shuster. Ryan Cusick, our first-round pick in 2021, is still just 25, but he’s got an ERA around 5.40 since getting promoted above A-ball and a walk rate of nearly six men per nine innings.
Unfortunately, Gilmartin’s mound mediocrity fails sufficiently to distinguish him from his peers.
Sure would be good to see our fortunes improve with our top draftees. Maybe Hurston Waldrep, JR Ritchie, and Cam Caminiti could have something to say about that, if they can figure out how to command their fastballs in the upper minors.
Welcome home, Craig.
We wondered who might be up AA’s sleeve… I like it
Nice to see Kimbrel return. I always felt he should retire in a Braves uni.
It will be cool to see a box score in Gwinnett of Kimbrel pitching to McCann.
Can someone explain why bWAR has Kimbrel’s 2023 significantly more valuable than 2022? 2022 had similar innings and a lower FIP. What am I missing?
BR isn’t like Fangraphs calculating WAR. They don’t take predictive stats like FIP into account. Just actual results.
Reliever WAR still probably isn’t the best way to evaluate them; WPA and WPA/LI are pretty useful too, and obviously you want to look at all the Savant stuff. Tl;dr is that his WPA has looked pretty iffy since 2019, but by at least some measures he’s still got major league stuff and was pretty good in 2023 and the first half of 2024.
His walk rate was always the concern as he was coming up in the minors, and it’s been one of the main things pushing him out of the league. The bigger issue is all them damn meatballs, though. His first nine seasons in the majors, he served up an average of 0.6 homers per nine innings. Since 2019, it’s been double that. His average fastball velocity fell by 2 mph last year, which is worrisome, too.
But the real question is: can he be a middle reliever? Can he be Luke Jackson, or Michael Tonkin? And my answer is: sure! I don’t think we can expect him to be Joe Jimenez, but I absolutely think he could be Luke Jackson.
Can Ian Anderson be better than Josh Tomlin?
IMO yes.
Can Jared Schuster, Dylan Dodd, or Darius Vines?
Well said by both, and I agree, Alex, that WAR is misleading for relievers. I just wanted to know the reason why his years differed so much.
Why not?
Hard to imagine anyone dancing thru a season’s worth of raindrops, but Ian’s certainly managed this spring.
Periodic overdue thank you to Alex, Ryan, Rob, and the others that have kept things going over the years. I’m generally free to eat some innings when times get lean. Let me know.
I know it’s been discussed elsewhere, but my brother asked me if 200 wins was the new lock for the Hall of Fame. I originally said no, but I think it pretty clearly is.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/W_active.shtml
The only 200 game winners are Verlander, Scherzer and Kershaw. All locks. Gerrit Cole is at 153, and if he could somehow get to 200, he’s a lock.
Is that your brother who was on Conan? I just remembered that…
That’s the guy, timo. He’s had a couple of funny Tikky Tokky’s these past few years that have gotten a lot of views. https://www.tiktok.com/@chriscopecomedy/video/7307721514831351071
Braves signed washed up Alex Verdugo
https://x.com/MLBONFOX/status/1902781876126769536
Kelenic still has an option left and I would except him to spend most, if not all, of the season at AAA once Verdugo is ready.
$1.5 isn’t much for a fourth or fifth outfielder. Kelenic has better tools than Verdugo, and hopefully something can be unlocked at AAA with daily playing time. If Kelenic develops into something more, you have a trade piece, and if he doesn’t, then you have your fourth outfielder for 2026.
I really like getting Verdugo and Kimbrel for a combined $3.5M. Our bench depth was really thin last year. This is much better.
Verdugo is a great pickup at that price. Yeah, he wasn’t great last year, but I wouldn’t call him washed up yet. He’s only 28 and half the majors had down years in 2024, and in 2023, he was an average starting OF. Even in his bad year, he was worth 0.7 WAR, which is a damn sight better than Adam Duvall and Eddie Rosario. Honestly I’m surprised he was available.
Yeah, washed up is harsh and I look forward to eating my words, but my expectations are really low.
expectations are definitely low for Verdugo, but I didn’t realize he was only 28. 28 is young enough for a rebound that isn’t just a dead cat bounce.
Arcia, Arcia, Arcia…Y U NO HIT? This site needs more gifs and memes. Arcia is 2-30 now. SSS, but I am not encouraged he will avoid being one of the worst players in baseball this year. I hope we keep Nick Allen. He can’t be much worse.
Allen has a career OPS+ of 55 so, I mean, it could be worse.
Arcia has the worst mental makeup and maturity of any player on a playoff club we’ve had. It would not surprise me at all if all of this competition at SS has eaten him alive and he’s just mentally cooked. That’s obviously a huge stretch over 30 ABs, but he’s just been a jackass since the very beginning.
Agreed that this site needs more GIFs and memes. I tried to roll that out back in the day and got derailed for some reason.
I’m concerned that Arcia no hit because he’s not any good at hitting 🙁
I must say, I’m pretty excited by the prospect of Daysbel Hernández possibly playing a more prominent role in the bullpen this year. He showed flashes of brilliance in 2023 and 2024 — his four-seamer averaged 97.4 mph (94th percentile) last year and his slider generated a 42.4% whiff rate. The stuff is legitimately good. He has the potential to be a really serviceable/good medium/high leverage guy; he just needs to reign in his control a little bit.
Saw a lot of Verdugo last year. His 2nd half of the season was about as bad as it gets — not quite Joey Gallo bad, but was approaching automatic-out status.
With Trent Grisham (can’t hit) & Jasson Dominguez (can’t field at a comic level) as the Yanks’ other OF options, they never really benched Verdugo, but instead just watched him slide downhill all the way thru October. He didn’t do much in the post-season run either.
I do recall that he made a couple crazy-good plays in LF. I was at a game where he took an odd route to a ball hit to deep left-CF — the biggest part of the ballpark. He stuck his glove out at the last second, caught the ball, then violently faceplanted into the fence. When it was over, he looked like Chuck Wepner. Got quite a hand from the stadium.
Appreciate the Chuck Wepner reference. Apart from the mauled face, Verdugo probably doesn’t have much in common with the Bayonne Bleeder. But you know, Wepner has had quite a life–and is still among the living!
Not understanding AA’s strategy of collecting 4th outfielders while Shortstop is a raging dumpster fire.
To be fair, Orlando Arcia, Nick Allen and Christian Cairo are all perfectly respectable 4th shortstops
But seriously…is Jose Iglesias still unsigned???
EDIT: No! He signed a minor league deal with San Diego! Has a 3 WAR player ever signed a minor league deal before?
Hey man, call me crazy, but I think Eli White might be getting a solid look up the middle. He’s played 7 games, 4 starts at 2B and 3 games, 2 starts at SS. While it would be such a massive downgrade defensively, do they look at sliding Ozzie over to SS and plug White in at 2B? It’s small sample and Spring Training, but White is hitting .394/.459/.545. He played well last year in small sample (.769 OPS), and he’s an incredible athlete. White at 2B would be an upgrade over Ozzie defensively, and while you would downgrade defensively at SS, you would upgrade massively offensively. Or, of course, just let White play SS.
I don’t think you move Ozzie. I think if you make this defensive sacrifice at SS, just have White do it. I’d be concerned moving Ozzie would screw up his offense.
EDIT: also, stampton, “…are all perfectly respectable 4th shortstops.” is very very strong.
I think that if they were in this situation a few years ago, they might have seriously considered moving Ozzie back. But at this point I don’t think he has the range or the arm to play short.
https://x.com/680TheFan/status/1903098029495726353
Ok, I changed my mind. The king has spoken.
Of course, those 3 pitchers also needed a good SS because they had him at 3B. Lol.
You owe me a keyboard, Stampton.
Somebody add Arcia to the Glossary as 4th shortstop
Cheers mate. Glad to spread some levity
Verdugo is just a depth piece. He was a good hitter before 2024. If last year was an outlier, then we got a good hitter for almost nothing. If he’s toast, then he only cost a little. Seems like a no brainer to me.
Give AJSS credit, he’s pitched like he wanted to grab the brass ring.
So I was looking at the roster and based upon options Strider will replace AJSS, Kimbrel will replace Daysbel, and Murphy will replace Baldwin. Verdugo can replace Kelenic (which one is really better) and Acuna can replace de la Cruz. An OF of Acuna, Harris, and Profar with Verdugo as 4th is not bad. With Kelenic and de la Cruz at AAA we have the best OF depth we have had in a long time. With AJSS and Daysbel at AAA we have some good pitching depth too.
Our biggest hole is SS, but can Allen or White be better than Arcia? Nicky Lopez is back on the market. Nacho is getting closer (maybe next year) and we are brewing some depth with Gil and Perdomo.
I suspect McCann will be the backup catcher once Jimenez gets put on the 60-day DL or Tromp is waived.