Well, obviously I don’t (or didn’t) know anything. I assumed with enough duct tape, bondo, and baling wire it was possible to take a collection of talent with some scattering of dubious talent and turn it into a well oiled machine. After 5 games, hopefully at least one orifice is well oiled or pain will rule supreme.
How do the offensive capabilities of a group of mid to upper 20’s Major League ballplayers disappear? Inquiring minds want to know.
How do pitchers who performed fairly well as recently as last season, look fried? Inquiring minds want to know.
How do fans endure such? Inquiring minds want to know.
No, I can’t stay up late enough anymore to catch a west coast night start. So, I am going off of “reports.” But, even if this one was actually better than “reports,” it was still very bad. At least in San Diego, victory seemed a mere inch away. In this one win probability or the Dodgers was 88.9% in the 3rd inning. Did it seem that “lost?”
Grant Holmes took the mound. After an effective outing last Monday, he decided to go back to being a pumpkin. I don’t exactly know why someone would choose that route, but I guess if he identifies as a pumpkin, then that is fine. First inning, Shohei Ohtani walks, Mookie Betts flies out, and Teoscar Hernandez hits a home run. So, through 1/3rd of an inning, for the night, Holmes ERA stood at 54.00. I know ERA isn’t the “best” statistic, but that does encapsulate the point.
Meanwhile, Tyler Glasnow was mowing through the dwarf bermuda of the Braves order with aplomb (or 2 plombs, or maybe more). Through 3 innings, 5 strikeouts. Through his 5 for the night, 8 K’s, 3 BB’s, 2 hits, and no runs. Baseball is a game where you are very unlikely to win if you do not score.
Grant Holmes exited after 4 and had his ERA all the way down to 9 for the night. Vast improvement, right? Then, De Los Santos and Uncle Jesse Chavez each gave up 1 more (but at least Chavez did it in 2 innings for a 4.5 ERA, which for a fill in bullpen piece isn’t so bad). Meanwhile the offense couldn’t score until the famous reliever Tanner Scott (interestingly identified as “Tan” Scott in the MLB box score came on in 8 and Michael Harris homered. Thus 6 to 1.
Oh ye of little faith, you have prevailed. Gloom despair and agony on me and Bravesdom (or is it Braves Dumb?).
Thanks, cliff.
It is now incumbent on me to address a bit of the doomsaying. Yes, everyone knows the 2021 Braves were 0-4 and hoisted a trophy at the end. But you don’t even have to go back that far: last year’s Mets were 0-5 (and even worse, they’re the Mets!) and were an absolutely terrible 22-33 towards the end of May. It really is a long season.
Yup, for the moment, let’s just not return home winless.
You’re bound to lose 5 games in a row at some point in the season unless you’re a super team, and even then some still manage. It’s just a killjoy to start the season with one such streak. As down on half our position players as I am, I still must admit we’re too good to not win at least a few games this year. We will probably even win 5 in a row, multiple times even, before the season is out.
It’s just hard to see how at this point. 0-162 feels like a very real possibility with how bad everyone looks.
The Braves will go as Riley goes, and at the moment, I think he goes like dung. Two called third strikes in his first two ABs. At least he swung in his third K of the night, flailing at two balls nowhere near the strike zone. He looks as lost as Michael Harris for most of the season, save his final two ABs of the night. Maybe Riley can figure it out so that everyone else can.
I rarely turn games off, I always stay up for the west coast games, but I can’t do it when they are going this horribly. Hopefully Sale doesn’t fall behind in the first inning tonight and forces me to watch into the fourth inning.
Jerkshit Confar; The Juice Weasel
Speaking of weasel, you should be able to void a contract if it was based on a lie. I’m sure the players union would go ape over that, but it’s like lying on your resume. A young woman got sent to jail for lying extensively on her resume for a federal job a few years ago. It was seen as theft of salary.
Burden of proof would be a nightmare. Did Profar 100% know that what he was taking was banned, or did he just really not want to know, for plausible deniability?
End of the day, losing Profar is a blow but a two-win corner outfielder isn’t the key to the season. The bigger problem is our lack of depth due to our utterly bare farm system, and Profar was basically the only guy we brought in on anything other than a minor league contract.
It’s not too late to patch the holes on the team! But we are going to need to spend real, actual money.
(We also need a much better hit rate for our scouts and player development personnel, who appear to have whiffed on their recommendations to make commitments to Olson and Murphy, appear to have placed undue confidence in Arcia and Kelenic, and generally have built a roster that’s far less than the sum of its parts. Pivoting from Freeman, Swanson, and Contreras to these three was a series of deeply expensive unforced errors, and frankly, accountability is needed.)
That’s why I’m so concerned by Anthopoulos’s lassitude. In general, his hallmark as a GM has been a willingness to make bold moves. That’s why I suspect he got his wings clipped.
https://x.com/scottcoleman55/status/1907129047785820601
https://x.com/gbb70/status/1907140931335201099
Some interesting comments about Alex and the payroll.
Alex looked directly into the camera early in the off season and said payroll was going up. I don’t think Alex would lie that way; if he knew it wasn’t, he’s shown the ability to deflect without answering pretty well during his tenure.
Now that Profar is gone, Kelenic has the highest AVG among regulars on the team.
This too shall pass…
I’m about as down as the next guy so don’t call me a sunshine pumper, but:
-Stuart Fairchild accumulated 1 bWAR in 233 PAs last year and hits LHP pretty well (.755 OPS last year)
-Alex Verdugo is still capable of being the 1.5 fWAR player he’s been in the past. If he just hit against RHP, he could be a 1 fWAR player.
So could they be a halfway decent platoon partner? Maybe. Profar was making, what, $13M? They weren’t paying him like he was a 2-3 WAR player. So were they thinking Profar was a 1.5 WAR or so player and they think Verdugo and Fairchild can put together similar?
They’re throwing 4 guys plus Eli White in the late innings at 2 corner outfield spots. So they’ll have a really, really good defensive outfield with platoon matchups in both corners. It’s possible though not probable that they’d cumulatively put up 2 WAR per 600 PAs at both corners if they played the entire season. Then when Acuna comes back, 2 of the last guys standing can handle LF until July. So it’s not the end of the world.
What’s the end of the world is that the rest of the offense and the bullpen sucks.
Nothing matters if the core of this team doesn’t hit again this year. A shitty OF platoon, a 5th starter, a reliever or two, yeah AA and ownership could’ve done more, but the only way this team contends is if the young core plays great. If they don’t then the window slams shut on AA’s fingers.
Murphy went yard in his first rehab at bat. https://x.com/MiLB/status/1907192350750671063
Time flies, so I didn’t realize that after this year, Freddie will only be under contract for 2 more seasons with LA. The whole equation with Olson and Freeman was about who would be more valuable towards the end of Freddie’s deal. Well, we’re here, and Freddie has a .920 OPS with LA with better defense than Olson and Olson has the same .860 OPS he had with Oakland. Olson entered the prime of his career and moved to a better ballpark and has stayed the same exact player.
Not sure if I understand the point of calling Chavez up for one game and then DFA’ing him for Zach Thompson. Did they see something in him in 2 innings of work that they never saw before and decided to let him go or was this a one game call up all along? Elder for Lopez also does not sound like a good swap.
My understanding is that Jesse threw 41 pitches and wasn’t going to be available for a few days, so they added a fungible long reliever. I think they expect Jesse to clear waivers and probably are not sweating it if he doesn’t.
Apparently our new hitting coach approach is to pull badly off fastballs. We look overmatched by fastballs so far.
Recap will be in the morning.
My early take is that Ozuna and Baldwin are the only guys who seem to take consistently good at-bats.
Zero margin for error.
This team sucks.
Well, that was no fun.
FanGraphs playoff odds have dropped 20% in six games for this team.
Who had Elder getting the first win of the season…
I feel a little embarrassed that I just realized that yesterday was April Fool’s Day. I was starting to believe the articles that said Atlanta started out 0 and 6, lost Profar for half the year for PEDs, and Lopez indefinitely for shoulder issues. Whew! I’m so glad it was just April Fool’s.
This is as bad as I can remember the team looking for a semi extended stretch in years. Even when we started out poorly in 2021 it didn’t look this hopeless. Riley in particular looks awful.
Recapped.