When ownership owns the stadium, the regional sports network, and the team, that gives ownership some slack. Like offering Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. 500 million for 14 years. I see a high potential of a Mo Vaughn / Ryan Howard type of thing here.
But, to last night. If there was an amorous situation in the center field hotel rooms, it didn’t draw any attention. So, we have to try to get our excitement from the game. And, for Braves fans, it was exciting. Start off hot, keep it going, bullpen slides a little late, but not too bad of a slide.
Top of 1, Ozzie Albies flies out, then Austin Riley grounds out. Seemed kind of like the last 3 weeks. Then Matt Olson walked. Then, some scrap heap catcher (Sean Murphy?) hit a home run. What idiot would want Murphy?
Grant Holmes is serviceable. Really. No runs through the first 5. Low pitch count. There wasn’t really any “K” magic, but to get to 7 and two thirds on 94 pitches, you can’t waste pitches. 3 runs total, allowed (the last 2 came in when Aaron Bummer came in with 2 on and let 2 score). As long as you hit some, that works. The Braves continued to hit some.
The offense was not offensive. In inning 3, Eli White led off with a double. After an Ozzie fly out, Riley went yard to make it 4 to 0. Then, in inning 5, Nick Allen led off with a single. White walked with wizardly ways. Oz doubled Nick home. Then, Riley was inspired by the ghost of Earl Weaver and hit a ball in fair territory over the fence. Now it was 8 to 0.
After this the offense hibernated and the pitching did the fade previously alluded to with the Bummer reference. And Bummer gave up one more in 9 to get to the final of 8 to 4.
As Al Davis said, “Just win, baby.”
I don’t know how long it will take Atlanta to dig out of the hole it dug at the first of the year, but from my observations, they are a solid team. Offensively they have a hole at short and after Acuna gets back they will only have one hole in the outfield. Our top 3 starters will be as good as anyone’s and our bullpen is fair. It could be much better if Kimbrel somehow finds lightning in a bottle.
Overall I think we are slightly better than last year and our top 3 starters could be killers in a playoff run. From what I’ve seen of the NL East, it is not as good as last year. If we are in the thick of things at the All Star break, a few trades for rentals could put us over the top.
It likely won’t happen, but I’d love to see White get more playing time in LF/RF. He’s never going to be a great hitter, but unlike Fairchild and BDLC, he at least plays great defense and has elite sprint speed. He’s never really hit anything in his career, but he’s actually been pretty good in his tiny 12 PA sample this year (.336 xwOBA). Plus, he’s been swinging pretty hard — Kelenic is the only corner OF with a higher average bat speed than White.
Yeah, I think at this point White and Allen appear to have edged BDLC and Arcia in the depth chart, but it’s also kind of like reshuffling deck chairs on the Titanic at this point. The answer to the hole in the outfield is praying that Acuña gets healthy soon and that Harris stays healthy all year; the answer to the shortstop is not currently in the organization.
Unfortunately, the answer is probably Nick Allen. We traded for him for a reason. AA sees SS as an overpaid position where you can get a 1.5 WAR plus defender for pennies or pay $25 million for a 4 WAR player. I don’t necessarily disagree with that as long as you actually get the 1.5 WAR guy and not replacement level like Arcia has been since around the ASB of 2023. You don’t have to be elite everywhere as long as you don’t have a total liability at any position. Unless Bichette wants to give us some kind of discount and AA wants to go out of his comfort zone to sign his son’s favorite player, we are stuck with stopgaps until we draft/develop someone internally.
If I believed Allen could be worth 1.5 WAR I’d probably quit grousing about him. I frankly have trouble believing he can hit enough to get anywhere close to that.
Amed Rosario signed with the Nationals for $2 million and I’ve been asking the Braves to go get him for a half-decade or more. He’s got an .816 OPS. The Nats’ third baseman, Paul DeJong, signed for $1 million and really he’s a backup shortstop. (He’s not hitting right now but in general he’s a low-OBP, decent slugging shortstop.)
My only point is that there are other 1-WAR options out there. Allen’s surely going to keep the job for as long as he’s hitting .300, but the Braves’ offseason lethargy was especially frustrating given that there were other players out there who could be had for reasonably priced major-league contracts, and that’s just not the direction Anthopoulos and the front office chose to take.
JonathanF, question for you: it certainly seems like an overwhelmingly high percentage of the Braves’ total runs this year have come via the homer. Can you run the numbers for this year, and see how they compare to previous years?
I can, but I just saw this, and I’m not going to be able to get to it until this evening. BUt I will note that this year’s numbers are based on a really small sample size which doesn’t include the more homer-friendly summer nights.
Here’s every year but this year (includes playoff games):
That’s amazing JonathanF. To me it looks like (with a couple of outliers) that oth runs fall between about 375 and 500 every year and HR runs vary greatly with the number of HRs (duh). So the more HRs we hit the more runs we score overall. This team is an offensive juggernaut whenever HR runs exceed 40%.
I wonder how that holds up for traditionally less HR prone teams (like KC or STL).
It’s amazing how little variance there is in baseball sometimes. Like any major league team is going to score between 500 and 900 runs except for rare outliers. Or any major league team is going to score 370-550non homer runs excepting rare outliers. Or a playoff team wins about 54% of its games while one of the worse teams in the league loses 54%
Personally, if a guy can pitch 5 or 6 shutout innings, I don’t care if he doesn’t strike out anyone. Today’s version of stats and their importance seem to ignore one goal in winning baseball is to keep the other team from scoring. I see fans raving about a pitcher striking out 9 batters in 4 1/3, before running out of gas, and giving up 5 runs. That’s lunacy, but so is so much of the statistical analysis we see today. How long before humidity becomes a modern stat?
Who raves about a guy giving up 5 runs? I don’t buy that.
Humidity is already extremely important in baseball, since they rolled out humidors in all 30 ballparks: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/3217180/2022/03/31/sarris-mlb-will-have-humidors-in-every-park-this-season-what-will-it-mean-for-offense/
Man, Austin Riley is really locked in…
The Jackie Robinson Day uniforms remind me of last season when I tuned in to the middle of the Lou Gehrig Day game. The Braves were playing Oakland, and I saw the number 4 patch on an Oakland uniform and my first thought was “Dang, Bill North must have died.”
I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I IMMEDIATELY recognized the number of the Oakland Athletics centerfielder from 50 years ago. Fortunately, Mr. North is alive and well.
Bill North was quite the speedster on those Swingin’ A’s clubs from the ’70s, and he had 2 memorable scraps:
1) North & teammate Reggie Jackson duked it out once in the Tiger Stadium clubhouse. According to a really good book I read about those A’s (“Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic”), the 2 despised each other & North won the punch-up by unanimous decision. Unfortunately, catcher Ray Fosse was seriously hurt trying to break up the skirmish. (Fosse sure had some tough luck.)
2) North once threw a bat at Royals reliever Doug Bird, then charged the mound and started pounding on him. Apparently, it was retribution for an incident that happened 3 years prior in A ball. Talk about a dish served cold.
Schwelly didn’t have it tonight. Hopefully our returning Spencer will have it tomorrow
Schwellenbach wore #42 and pitched like the 1986 edition of Rick Mahler.
Amazing that we get two solo HRs and their HRs are two-run and three-run types.
Recapped.