Whatever thoughts the Braves might have had of making a fresh start in June were squashed by Garrett Crochet. Crochet allowed 5 hits and struck out 12 in 7 innings, lowering his season’s ERA to 1.98. Marcell Ozuna did the only damage, hitting his 10th homer of the season in the bottom of the first.
Bryce Elder did just about all a 5th starter can do, coming 2 outs short of his 5th Quality Start in his last 6 outings. Two out damage in the top of the first was fatal. An Abraham Toro single moved Rafael Devers to 3rd, and a walk to Marcelo Mayer set the stage for a bases clearing double off the top of the centerfield wall by Trevor Story.
Elder settled down after that and allowed only 1 more hit until back to back 1 out singles in the 6th ended his day. Enyel De Los Santos ended that threat, then Aaron Bummer went 2 strong innings, striking out 5. Raisel Iglesias pitched a perfect 9th, striking out 2.
Elder threw 81 pitches and 45 strikes, walking 3 and striking out 4. His stuff isn’t good enough to walk that many batters, but it also probably isn’t good enough to throw too many more strikes either. So, conundrum. Still, it’s hard to say that his recent outings haven’t been adequate, especially if you think of him as a 7th starter behind AJ Smith-Shawver and Reynaldo Lopez. Adequate won’t do it against Garrett Crochet, however, and frankly not against half the league lately.
The Braves could at least say they had been playing well at home, but have now dropped their second consecutive home series. They are now 17 – 11 at home, 27 – 31 overall, and 5 1/2 games out of the third wildcard spot.
Atlanta will need to sweep Arizona to win the home stand. That effort begins Tuesday at 7:15; Spencer Strider and Zac Gallen scheduled.
The Braves will not win until they permanently move Riley out of second. Even White would be better. And Harris should be 9th. Why not let Allen be 8th? Our best offense was back when Arcia was 8th and Harris 9th. It’s true that this team will not win until it scores more. The order could change the results when two on and no one is out. The Braves should have scored at least one. Even Olson should have been sent when the 2B catches the ball with his back turned. Tuiasosopo has been doing a terrible job as 3B coach. Just got another K with men on 2nd and 3rd after that. The K’s with men on are absolutely unacceptable. I don’t care who’s pitching. A bunt would be better than a K.
Braves used to maim any LH starter but no more.
There’s no such thing as unlucky. You make your own luck by putting guys in position to be lucky.
Started to argue with the contention there’s no such thing as unlucky, but meh. True enough we need to make our own luck a little more.
The Braves are 5th in NL team ERA.
But they’re 12th in runs scored. For the moment, that’s really the story.
Yes, this. Occam’s Razor. The Braves have a lousy record because they aren’t scoring enough runs.
Now, why they aren’t scoring enough runs is not so clear. The 2023 Braves were one of greatest offensive teams in the history of the game. Only team ever to slug .500 as a team for a season. This team is mostly the same guys. Why they are so much worse offensively now is a mystery.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think better lineup construction would move the needle much. FWIW, I’m also skeptical of explanations such as: They aren’t playing with “fire”; they miss the leadership of Freeman and Swanson; the many long-term contracts have made these guys complacent; management doesn’t want to win; etc.
The saddest thing to me is what has happened with MHII. I love the guy, but his offense now is dreadful. He seems absolutely lost at the plate. For a while I was thinking Jason Heyward was a good comp, but now it’s closer to Jeff Francouer. I hate to say it, but his struggles are now approaching BJ Upton or Dan Uggla territory. I still think he may yet turn it around, but this kind of struggle really does seem to get in some guys’ heads and lead to a death spiral. (see what I just did there? I’m generally very doubtful about this kind of “psychological” explanation–at least for those of us without any inside knowledge–but it is irrestible of most of us)
What I have settled on in my own mind is the unfalsifiable grouse that the coaches aren’t preparing our guys adequately. Clearly, the league has figured out a book on how to attack our guys, and our guys haven’t been able to adjust. Only three hitters on the club have an OPS above .340: Ozuna, Acuña, and Baldwin, and those three are also among the top five highest ISO marks on the team. Riley, incredibly, comes in sixth; he has a walk rate worse than Albies.
Our new hitting coach, Tim Hyers, came in talking about emphasizing good swing decisions at the plate, which is an approach I firmly agree with: it seems like all too often our guys make terrible decisions about when to swing. But right now, it feels like our guys are muddled in between: neither fully able to have internalized a new philosophy, nor comfortable trying to stick to their guns. We’ve got about $110 million worth of hitters and at least half of them look lost.
For that matter, so does Snit.
tfloyd, for what it’s worth I know that lineup construction is not given much weight but I think it’s all about putting guys in the position to do their best. Watching these guys K with RISP is excruciating. We need more OBP out of 1 and 2 to let the heavy hitters (Ozuna, Olson, Riley, even Murphy and Albies) do their thing. We score so much more with Drake at 2 irrespective of his great hitting. Do we have ANYONE who can get on base with regularity?
P.S. What percentage of our runs has Acuna accounted for since he’s returned? Seems like we score 1 in the first a lot.
I’m now back from Frankfurt and ready to turn everything around. Have we hit rock bottom yet? I say yes.
A few numbers:
Sean Murphy – batting .223 – with 46 strikeouts in 140 PA’s
Matt Olson – batting .239
Ozzie – .235
MHIII – .234
When 4 core pieces of the lineup are below .240 with tons of K’s…no one should be surprised at overall lack of success.
And when we’re giving Eli White regular ABs, in a lineup that is already down…that’s essentially criminal.
Someone on here once said they weren’t sure what MHIII was doing with his conditioning and approach. You can’t argue with his defense, but his approach at the plate could do some good by mirroring Kenny Lofton more and Juan Gonzalez less. Just get on base, Money Mike!
Baseball Reference has Braves’ odds at making the postseason down to 28.5%…and somehow, this stinkin’ team has a 2% chance of winning World Series. Well, on the other hand, the 2021 team got hot & lucky at the perfect time. But that team had a much different DNA makeup.
It’s worth noting that despite their low batting averages, Olson and Murphy are still running notably above-average batting lines (120 wRC+ and 125 wRC+, respectively), driven by their high walk rates. They haven’t been out of their minds like they were in 2023, but I don’t see those two guys as being the most glaring problem with the lineup.
It is true that Ozzie and Harris have both been bad this year, though. Harris in particular seems to really be struggling to implement the new “be more selective at the plate” strategy.
This is really an all-systems failure for the organization. As Alex noted, players seem ill prepared for at bats and the coaching staff generally appears aloof; Harris and Ozzie should not be starting, but there’s no one in the organization to adequately replace them; and ownership seemingly isn’t willing to spend to improve weak links.
The next free agent class has some interesting names, especially at second base:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6367630/2025/05/21/mlb-free-agents-2025-2026-offseason-kyle-tucker-alex-bregman/
Gleyber Torres would certainly be an upgrade, but you’d have to be prepared to eat some money at the end of the deal, something I doubt the team would do. You could also sign one of the big free agent pitchers and trade from your own pitching prospect depth, but again, it’s still hard to imagine under this regime.
Ozuna has a hip issue. You need to have the Dodgers’ payroll to absorb all that Atlanta is absorbing.
The Braves’ expected W/L is 31-27. We have a +13 run differential, which is miles ahead of Washington (-37) and not far behind Philly (+22). If AA’s goal historically has been to basically use the first half of the year to audition guys and then buy at the deadline, this is what you’d expect: an under-performing team from a Pythagorean perspective with a crappy bullpen but has money to spend.
I don’t disagree with the premise, and we’re still far from the deadline, but what are we trading?
This time next year, Fuentes, Richie, Murphy, and Caminiti should have more value, but you’re probably selling yourself short by trading them now. Lara is now a bullpen arm, and at this point, might have value on the major league roster.
On the position player side, Gil, Tornes, and Guanipa are even further away from having real value. Nacho is injured and I don’t believe he has played since spring training.
There’s certainly a team out there that wants out of a bad contract, but it’s hard to imagine who that would be.
I agree we don’t have much. But we do have a lot of money, so taking back an expiring bad contract seems like a no brainer. We could definitely trade Nacho.
What about taking Correa and money from Minnesota back for some A level prospect? Then shift Allen over to 2B and trade Albies for a reliever making money? Then trade Nacho for shut down reliever with years of control?
You part with:
-Nacho
-Ozzie
-Money
You get back:
-Correa
-Expensive reliever
-Cheap reliever
That’s a several WAR improvement.
We shouldn’t dream of trading any of our top arms to help this struggling team. We’d be taking pennies on the dollar and hamstringing ourselves down the road. What we should do is be in a position to take on dollars from teams that are just looking to unload guys in their final seasons and save a bit.
We also need a philosophy change to correct the woeful position talent in our system.
EDIT: @Rob, no thanks to Correa. I would rather pack it in and use the same money to sign Bichette, Kim or even Torres. In the case of the latter two, you can also sign a top reliever with the same money
Peanut’s latest dispatch is entitled “Despite recent skid, Braves feel they are ‘on the right track.'” But it’s actually not as rosy a piece as the headline might imply.
He quotes Bryce Elder and Marcell Ozuna pointing out that the team’s generally doing a lot better than it was during the 0-7 start, and displaying general confidence that they’ll get where they need to get. But Snitker sounds a much more ominous note when he replies testily to a question about the Braves’ futility in the clutch by saying, “You have no idea what’s going on there. It’s not an easy fix.”
Boy, ain’t that the truth.
https://www.mlb.com/braves/news/marcell-ozuna-homers-in-braves-series-finale-loss-to-red-sox
Everybody happy now?
https://x.com/Braves/status/1929669372349423831
The #Braves today have named Fredi González as acting third base coach on the major league staff. Matt Tuiasosopo has accepted a position as minor league infield coordinator.
Bwahahahahahah
Tui had to go; he was abysmal at his job. The quotes from AA in DOB’s article are a lot of words to rationalize what was basically the laziest move — bring back the guy you know. That said, at least it shows a shred of accountability.
lol, AAR.
If there’s anyone I associate with outperformance, it’s Fredi!
I remember that Snitker was a pretty terrible 3rd base coach (the term Snitker’ed is in the glossary for a reason) but don’t really remember Fredi being bad at that job. He can’t possibly be worse than Tui was.
I really don’t think this is conspiratorial of me to read this as firing a shot across Snitker’s bow and letting him know that his seat is warming up. Fredi’s the guy who got axed when the Braves suffered multiple late-season collapses on his watch, with Snitker as the midseason replacement who got promoted to full-time.
His job should be on the line, and I’m certainly interpreting firing one of his coaches out from under him – and replacing him with Snit’s own predecessor – as confirmation that it is.
I agree completely Alex. In other organizations, bringing back old names tells everyone they’re looking for something more permanent. Not here.
Sounds like Snit and Fredi maintain a friendship, and they met up while the team was in Philadelphia. Anthopoulus approached Snitker with the idea Sunday. So I don’t think it reads as the heat being turned up on Snitker.
That’s certainly possible, but AA’s the one who’s explaining that, rather than Snit. If it was really Snit’s decision, he should have been the one to get out in front of it. I would interpret that at the very least to mean that Snitker wasn’t the guy who was pushing for Tui to be fired immediately right this very minute.
I wanted to believe at first that this was a statement by AA and maybe even a potential interim manager, but I do think Fredi and Snit could indeed be friends and this was Snit’s idea. So I dunno. But with their expected W/L drastically ahead of their actual, I do see making a small tweak like 3B coach being something they would do. Ububba said it: we’re 5th in ERA, 12th in runs scored. We’re +13 run differential. This team isn’t far off if it can stop losing one-run games.
When was the last time we fired a base coach mid-season?
If this page is to be believed
https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Atlanta_Braves_Managers_and_Coaches
the only midseason changes were when Russ Nixon was fired and Bobby Cox came on and Roy Maityka was replaced by Jimy Williams. (I would note this is a Wiki Page and it hasn’t been updated since 2020, so I’m not vouching for its accuracy.)
Thanks Jonathan!
We are so back
I’ll go on record now that forcing out Snitker will work out about as well as replacing Seitzer did. The core issue is our roster, and the source of it all is that we root for a real estate company.
It ain’t how this organization rolls. Snitker has spent his adult life in the organization. He has a World Series and is arguably the second best manager in franchise history. He’s presided over a great ~decade of Braves baseball. There’s also an All Star Game in Atlanta next month. I’d argue that it’s more likely he resigns than gets fired, neither of which are going to happen. He’s not under contract next year and will be 70 years old. It’ll be very easy to shake hands and part ways after October.
Agreed it would be a bad look to fire someone right before inducting him into your team’s Hall of Fame.
Correct. Baseball is a numbers game. We have too many guys hitting under .230. Snitker doesn’t make these guys K with runners on third. They just suck. In the case of Michael Harris, it looks like coaching could get more out of him. In the case of Arcia, Albies, Fairchild, Williams, Allen, and Murphy, they just aren’t good enough at consistent, hard contact. Give at-bats to those guys frequently enough and you will struggle to score.
So let’s root, root, root for the tax breaks,
If the books aren’t cooked it’s a shame,
For it’s one, two, three liens you’re out,
At the old bank game.
LOL
I just want to drop in and say “Fredi still sucks!”
I was among those calling for Snitker to be fired in 2021. We may or may not turn things around this year but I think the chances of turning this around with Snitker at the helm are slightly higher than getting a replacement. I say give him the rest of the year. Whatever happens, it looks like retirement is looming- hopefully at the end of the year.
Agreed that if things don’t turn around it wouldn’t be a surprise if Snit just said screw it after this season, and it’s not likely anything is going to happen during the season. I’m not as optimistic as some others that will make things better.
Four outs on seven pitches. Against a pitcher who has been crap this year.
Again, the Braves are the slump buster.
Kill this offense with fire.
Sad when the game essentially decided after the first batter of the game
And Strider is fooling nobody.
Just shut him down until next year and punt. This season is going nowhere and all we are going to do is cause him to have full blown elbow surgery.
Tom Glavine is empathetic, but spitting the painful truth about Strider on the broadcast: that if he can’t get the fastball above 96, he must find and improve other pitches or it simply won’t be there for him.
Much better than the ignorant Pollyanna nonsense we’ve been getting from the other TV analysts in Bravesdom.
100% agreed!
Twenty three pitches, nine outs.
These guys are taking at-bats as though they have a 9:30 dinner reservation. Piss-poor.
EDIT: Second time is better. And Fredi is 1-for-1 in sends, although aided by a bad throw. Progress!
But hey…Fredi is back. Going to
Be moving on for a few weeks. This team is so un-fun to watch.
I know that the Babylon Bee is not everyone’s favorite (it’s generally a conservative satirical website), but you gotta’ give them credit for the headline and quotes – funny stuff. We can always say at least we are not the Rockies.
Colorado Rockies Demoted To Church Softball League
“Major League Baseball made the difficult decision to relegate the Rockies after their most recent series against the Cubs, which saw the Rockies lose by a combined score of 78-3 and somehow had their leadoff hitter get struck out by the old lady who threw out the ceremonial opening pitch. “It was time. Past time,” said Manfred. “Frankly, I’m trying to be upbeat, but I don’t see them making the church softball playoffs. They’ve got the newlywed team ‘Holy Matrimony’ in their division, and the veteran team ‘Disciples of Speed.’ It’s going to be tough sledding.””
That’s funny right there. I don’t care who you vote for.
Strider was really smart to sign that contract.
When was the last time this team hit a clutch home run? Eli White 6 weeks ago?
If we turn into sellers, what players could we move?
Not sure we would get a lot for Ozuna, he’s a rental with a bad hip who is strictly a DH.
A team might want Ozzie’s last 2 option years that are fairly cheap.
We could probably get a lot for Chris Sale who has just one more year on his contract after this season.
Would have to think the team would also try to move Murphy who would be worth a lot.
I don’t think Iglesias would be worth much. I would have to think if we sell that any of our relievers would be available.
I think we will have to fall a long way to become sellers at the deadline, especially considering 2021. We are 5.5 games out of the WC right now but I think the final wildcard makes it in being less than 10 games above .500. That is not a very high bar. I think firing Snitker is more likely than dismantling the team and i don’t think that is likely.
Also, why isn’t Kimbrel back in Atlanta? I know he isn’t what he used to be, but I cannot see him being any worse than Montero, even when he’s 50. For that matter, why don’t we invent an injury for Iglesias and let him rest for a while and bring up Uncle Jesse for a while?
Verdugo is worthless.
Rafael Montero is making me nostalgic for Aaron Bummer.
To Bummer’s credit, the recent performance is catching up to the peripherals.
That said, it’s worth noting that last year, he allowed a .908 OPS when ahead and a .640 OPS when behind. This year, those splits are .923 and .457. (When tied, the OPS allowed was .384 last year and .617 this year.)
Also, he’s allowing an .866 OPS in two-out situations. Last year, he allowed a sub-.700 OPS with fewer than two outs, and a .737 OPS (with an elevated walk rate) with two outs. Bummer’s walk rate also elevates with two outs this year — from 4.8 percent to 21.6 percent.
I don’t think it’s a luck thing with Bummer. I think it’s a head thing.
So, how do you get the dude to settle down? Otherwise, Bummer is simply the ideal guy to bring in when down one or two runs — to keep matters from getting worse. Still, that has value.
Thus, the ninth inning today would have been a perfect time for Bummer to work. But that would require, y’know, taking three minutes to look up his splits.
I don’t think Kimbrel will be that much better than Montero, but you have to try, right? I don’t understand why he’s in AAA unless he’s asking for more time.
For what it’s worth, I really liked the Strider extension. If he continued his 2023 trajectory, you’re getting an ace for <$100 million — almost unheard of now — and if he breaks down, you “only” owe him $60 million. I don’t really think the dip in velocity is permanent. He really needs his legs to generate velocity and he just had a leg injury.
In March, he was slightly down from career norms, but it’s dropped even more since the leg injury.
https://www.brooksbaseball.net/velo.php?player=675911&time=&startDate=03/30/2007&endDate=06/04/2025&s_type=2
Ozuna is probably off the trade board since he’s hurt, but my money is on Murphy getting moved.
I agree with this point:
https://x.com/CapitolAvenue/status/1930068860167659784
In other bad news, Waldrep wasn’t great in AAA, and Lara couldn’t find the plate and walked in a run.
Well, at least Drake Baldwin is great. One of the few bright spots in an otherwise dreary season.
Baldwin has worked his way into being one of the untouchables. This team needs people who can hit for average. He’s doing that here, and he’s done that at most of his stops. He just might be able to make up for the sin of trading Contreras (which I know is in the gray area for many, but lands on my board as an AA miss; I despised the deal the day it was made and on balance, the body of work hasn’t changed my mind).
You guys are too focused on the roster. The important thing is the revenue complex drawing accolades from ESPN:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/45392359/2025-mlb-ballpark-village-truist-park-battery-atlanta-future-business-cities-build
https://x.com/b00fffff/status/1930045936383754678?s=46&t=WSNPrB2JyUoeKSn2PZsXZg
These extensions are still “good deals”. But you can only play one SS or 2B at one time. And they’re going to need to upgrade somewhere. You can lower your expectations for Strider but you need a 3rd starter then. AA is going to have to do something here.
Recrapped: