Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
(I had often seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein, but apparently that’s apocryphal; this thread suggests it may have more to do with Al-Anon. JonathanF, any ideas?)
So it would be mad for me to think that repeating the same old complaints about this moribund offense would yield a different outcome. Frankly, I don’t see a whole lot worth rehashing in tonight’s game, which I didn’t watch, and which offered little worth remembering. So I thought I might do something different and I googled classic Chinese poetry.
Here’s one I found at random, by Su Shi – a bureaucrat who was also apparently one of the greatest poets of the Song era. It is called “My Sick Recovery to Early Spring”:
This spring comes early to a world of snow,
Hard to see but her east wind starts to blow.
She gives subtle signs with pussy willows,
And gentle grace even on drums and bells.
Only one quilt can keep me warm in bed,
Tho’ the night feels like winter long and cold.
When the town’s still dreaming in misty air,
A new sun rises, biting the tip of the hill.
Peach and apricot boughs will sprout out there.
The juice for spring outings will boil bubbles.
There’ll be nothing for me, sick and weak.
I’ll keep the bed from running away at home.
Perhaps tomorrow the bats will wake, rested.

Greetings from Frankfurt. As the Frankfurters say “You may already be a wiener.” i stayed up to watch this. No shortage of baserunners, but a dearth of timely hits, and, now, sleep.
I think the quote is properly attributed to AA, which is bad-punningly appropriate. The antecedents of the exact phrase, however, are convincingly much older. And as Dracula said: “May the bats awake or this is going to be a very boring movie.”
I blame the grounds crew.
Lol nice
I will grant you that my efforts in this recap were roughly commensurate to those of the team. I think it’s time for Smitty to start talking to his barber, quite frankly.
Some fun news: on Monday, the Dominican Summer League will start up, and we’ll start to get a first look at Diego Tornes and Raudy Reyes, who we signed over the winter. Here’s the current team roster:
https://www.milb.com/dominican-summer/roster/605
Checking in on the DSL in May says more about our MLB squad than anything you could’ve written.
So, the gods so revile me that they banished me, a native Virginian, to the Philly suburbs 26 years ago, where I have toiled in relative agony ever since. This means I am surrounded by one of the most simultaneously self-aggrandizing and self-loathing fan bases in all of professional sports. I say “professional sports” because Villanova fans don’t suffer from the self-loathing problem: after the recent successes of their men’s basketball team, their smugness (which is only strengthened because the new pope went to undergrad there, whoop-dee-doo) knows no bounds.
Anyway, this is what happens when I try to make nice with Phillies fans. Last night after Strider hit Harper–which I didn’t know about, because the only thing worse than watching the Braves this season is watching the Braves play the Phillies–a “friend” of mine shot me off this unhinged text: “I take back what I said about Strider. I hope he blows out his elbow and I never see his clown shoes and ridiculous mustache pitch another inning ever again.” Now context is everything, and if this person and I had the kind of bantering relationship where such a sentiment were clearly meant to be humorous, then I would have shaken my head and moved on. But we don’t have that kind of relationship. So, that person is no longer in my contacts list. As the Wolf says to his niece in Pulp Fiction after taking care of the poor, headless Marvin mess–“nobody who’ll be missed.” But, holy jeebus, was a nutso reaction to a HBP that only gave widdle Bwyce a widdle ouchee.
As far as this dumpster fire of a Braves team is concerned, the only reason they won’t end today 10.5 games back is because it’s raining here, and will be doing so well into the night, so there won’t be a game. With any luck, they’ll be rained out tomorrow, too, which means that by the time the Philthies host ATL again, any lingering hope I harbor that the Braves will return to the competitive ways of 2018-2023 will be long buried.
I wonder if that guy had the same reaction when Cole Hamels drilled Harper for the audacity of being a rookie.
Snit should have retired last year, and we should have hired DeRo. DeRo may be no better, but he just talks the part and I love him. I think he wants the Atlanta job with these comments. He loves gassing up Acuna.
https://x.com/MLBNetwork/status/1927412483419185567
I’ve been very critical of Snit’s bullpen management – especially in the playoffs — but I’m not really sure how much a managerial change would help. You could argue he should be fired on principle, and maybe it would send a jolt through the clubhouse, but that’s debatable.
A third of the lineup has been absolutely awful, and if the team wants a shakeup, it should send Harris to the minors when Profar is ready. His .255 OBP is unplayable, regardless of the value he provides on defense. His strikeout rate isn’t terrible, but his O-Swing% is almost 40%, which suggests it’s purely pitch renegotiation.
There’s really nothing that can be done about Ozzie; his underlying metrics are still pretty bad, despite the hit streak. There aren’t a lot of second basemen that will be available at the deadline, except Brandon Lowe, but he would cost a fortune.
Why wait until Profar gets back? You would still need to stick White in CF. We’re not going to put Acuna in CF. Unless you feel like Profar/White/Acuna is a better OF than Verdugo/White/Acuna, which I agree.
This roster requires Riley and Olson to be offensive stars. If they OPS at a .750 clip we’re gonna stink. Not sure what you can really do about it. The pitching is good enough. The hitting will lose us 90 games.
Yes, Profar/White/Acuna is a better option than anything with Verdugo. Profar back on the roster guarantees at least four competent outfielders with Verdugo on the bench, and avoids Harris having to get quickly recalled due to injuries like Francoeur in 2008. Acuna also can’t be expected to play every game coming off injury.
I agree with KRUSSELL. This is a stars and scurbs lineup, except the stars are under performing.
That’s the thing – it’s not even really stars and scrubs! It’s a bunch of guys on long-term deals who downgraded from great to okay!
Yup, and we are stuck with them. Its truly amazing to see so many players erode like this.
I’m enjoying the Eli White experience as much as anyone, but I think we’re overestimating the likelihood that it is real. Eli White might out hit Michael Harris over the next 4 months, but it’s not the way to bet.
Actually, I have an idea about how we can solve our left field problems:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45365805/mets-soto-goes-hitless-again-mendoza-says-faith
Trading for a billion-dollar underachiever?
I’ve got a good feeling about the guy!
Wow…the game 1 lineup includes Eli, Fairchild and Luke Williams. Is it Sunday? And no RAJ…I wonder if that is preventative for the possible retaliation?
I’m sure they do not want Acuna to play two games in the same day and he will be in the lineup in the evening.
That being said I think lineup construction is more important then we’re giving it credit for. Riley batting second is gonna be always bad (Albies at lead off is even worse). The lineup with Baldwin 2nd was very successful. I do not support sending Harris down but he was most successful at 9th with Acuna hitting leadoff. That minimizes his tendency to swing at everything as he will get better pitches, Our best lineup in 2023 was with Arcia hitting 8th and Harris 9th. What we’re missing is trying to use the lineup to get the best performance out of everyone. I would prefer to see something like:
Acuna
White/Baldwin
Ozuna
Olson
Riley
Murphy/Verdugo
Albies
Allen
Harris
That maintains Snit’s L/R balance while lengthening the lineup and making everyone better. It’s the synergy that’s missing. Olson, Riley, and Murphy (and to a lesser extent Ozuna and Albies) are power guys. They should be in power slots. Acuna is power but has speed and onbase skills.
When Profar comes back, I’d slot him in 2nd and let Baldwin bat farther down like this:
Acuna
Profar
Ozuna
Olson
Riley
Murphy/Baldwin
Albies
Allen
Harris
Brandon Marsh looks like he’s about to announce that he’s pretty tired and thinks he’ll go home now.
Much like our offense
It wouldn’t be a Braves game if we didn’t strike out multiple times with runners in scoring position. As much as I like Harris, he looks lost at the plate. His regression is remarkable.
Since signing the largest deal in team history, Austin Riley is hitting .265/.334/.469, with a 118 wRC+, and his WAR is 39th.
Uh oh…what happened to AJSS? Why was he pulled at 38 pitches?
Starting to think about it this way: who are we better than? Here’s what I came up with in the NL:
Rockies, Pirates, Marlins, Nationals
Michael Harris is just unreal in CF.
https://x.com/mlbbowman/status/1928149583240007926
There’s some speculation in the mentions AJSS mouthed the word “popped” in the dugout, but who knows.
https://x.com/og_yungdilly/status/1928151483276554568
This is what concerns me the most. If true, you’re telling me the pitching coach and the manager had to be alerted to an issue with AJ’s arm?
Oh, no.
https://x.com/mlbbowman/status/1928163115926995384
After they left him in for another batter when the initial injury happened to his leg.
It’s time for Snitker to go, sadly.
https://x.com/mlbbowman/status/1928172198138613864?s=46&t=_A5dHSx668X2WtFbjIu8dw
Daysbel’s peripherals are poor and he may be regressing now.
Sure, we couldn’t slightly overpay for Tanner Scott, but The Battery is going to look fabulous for the All-Star Game, and that’s what counts.
What a clown show. This entire bullpen is low leverage arms that should never be in situations like this. Not one arm in that pen should be in the top 3 or 4 in an MLB bullpen. Shame on AA or whoever decided this team was locked and loaded.
But those new buildings will be fabulous.
Dodd looks a lot better as a reliever than as a starter.
We are going to be buried here pretty quick. Glad we got Ozzie thrown out in the ninth trying to steal second. It is like every decision we make backfires. It is time to be like George Constanza….just do the opposite.
Would have been nice to have Baldwin to pinch hit for Eli. Oh, wait, he was used as a pinch runner.
Gonna need Sale to go 7 tonight since Game 1 ended up being a bullpen game.
Took me 12 pulls to get the #1 pick
https://www.tankathon.com/mlb
took me 49 pulls for Braves to get #1…or about how many minutes that Snit snoozes in each game.
Which you can’t blame him…because the Braves put me to sleep too.
Like I said, lineup synergy. Riley is much better at 5th. Another big run day with Baldwin at 2nd. This time off of Wheeler.
It’d be nice if our relievers could throw strikes with an 8 run lead.
It ain’t rocket science. High OBP guys go high in the order. Best hitters go 1-2 to maximize AB. Thumpers go behind them. Low OBP guys go at the bottom. Stolen bases aren’t a factor frequently enough to make much difference, but sure it’s nice if you got em in the lead-off spot. Some analyses say SB should go in the 5-7 holes to be in front of singles hitters. Whatever–the most important thing is not to put a guy with a .260 OBP in the first 2 holes and it takes a remarkable level of ignorance to do so in the analytics age.
Why did Allen come out of the game early?
Hit by pitch on the hand. X-rays negative.
So Iggy still doesn’t have it
Snitker didn’t make the mistakes AA did, but the AJSS/Strider thing is going to be yet another talking point from fans that Snit and the staff are out to lunch. And I just don’t know how many of these things can happen before AA has to respond to this and welcome Snit to an early retirement.
AJSS on the 60-day IL now, per DOB. No big surprise.
It’s still too early in the schedule to say for certain, but my personal belief is that we’re headed for a mini rebuild. 9.5 games out of the East and 5.5 out of the Wild Card is going to be really difficult to overcome.
Free agency isn’t a particularly efficient way to add value, but I’d argue the trade deadline is even worse now. There are too many buyers and not enough sellers—and the sellers don’t have much to offer at the moment.
Definitive Sellers:
Angels
Marlins
Rockies
Nationals
Pirates
White Sox
Not exactly a lot of needle movers there, though that list will certainly grow. The Orioles might trade Mullins, but they’re not moving any core pieces. It’s rumored the A’s turned down an offer for Mason Miller, and it’s doubtful they’ll move anyone consequential. I think the Reds might sell at the deadline, but it’s not a given—same for Texas.
I’m bullish on the farm system long-term, but players like Didier Fuentes or J.R. Ritchie are probably another year away from being real trade pieces. I thought AJSS could be a stealth trade chip, but now that’s off the table.
So where does that leave us? Honestly, I don’t know. It feels like AA and/or ownership has painted the team into a corner. We’re in win-now mode, but the so-called core has underperformed, and we seemingly don’t have the resources—either in dollars or prospects—to materially add to the roster.
If it were up to me, I’d trade Sale and Murphy. They’d be among the best players available, and moving them wouldn’t really set the franchise back all that much. I love Sale, but he was acquired for the postseason, and this team probably isn’t making it this year. Holding onto him for 2026 is a risk. Murphy is great, but he’s now redundant; having two catchers this good isn’t a luxury this roster can afford.
I proposed something similar in 2021 and was completely wrong. I’d be more than happy to be wrong again—but I’m not holding my breath.
All that sounds reasonable, but I imagine that we will not replace whomever we trade. Can you really see this organization signing a big pitcher to replace Sale? Ozuna walks and then we’re backing up Baldwin with refuse and have nobody to DH.
I should have included Ozuna on that list, but it’s hard to gauge his trade value. He’s having a great year across the board, but the pool of contenders in need of a DH seems limited. The Tigers, Giants, Royals, and Guardians could be potential fits.
One small piece of optimism on Harris via Baseball Prospectus:
https://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/article/98781/what-theyre-saying-michael-harris-ii-and-ozzie-albies-edition/
What I conclude from this is Harris would be hitting .400 if he could bat against Aaron Bummer all the time.
I mean, same.
AJ has a torn UCL. 🙁
https://x.com/DOBrienATL/status/1928558968797888887
Game thread: