In preparation for today’s recap I reflected on the string of masterpiece recaps Braves Journal has enjoyed this week and can’t help but be reminded of the 1993 Braves rotation of Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Steve Avery … and Pete Smith. Oh well. Everybody’s got a role to play.
So, the game is an afterthought, much in the same way that the Atlanta Braves seem to be an afterthought to the entity that owns them. Let’s go to a live look in at me defending Brian Snitker on the internet (Warning: graphic murders, foul language, churches, Freebird.)
Snap back to reality. The Braves lose themselves another series sweep and post a 7th loss in a row. They are now 10 games below .500 and 2 1/2 games behind the 3rd place Nationals.
Details. Spencer Strider went 6 innings, allowing only 3 hits and striking out 5, but was hurt by walks and a critical error by Ozzie Albies. Two of Strider’s 3 walks came leading off the bottom of the 4th. Spencer rebounded to get a couple of outs, but Mike Yastrzemski‘s 2 -out double tied the game at 3. Ozzie then booted a groundball at the edge of the outfield grass while moving to his left, and Yastrzemski came around to score the game’s final run.
Austin Riley had 2 hits for the Braves, and Matt Olson had all 3 RBIs. Matt drove in 1 in the 1st on a groundout, and 2 more in the 3rd on a double off the right-center field wall.
Flight from San Francisco to Milwaukee, then back at it on Monday at 7:40 Eastern. Chris Sale and Aaron Civale scheduled.
Didn’t Pete Smith have the best winning percentage of the bunch?
Pete was 4 – 8 in ’93. Still, he had an 11-year Major League career. There’s no dishonor in eating innings.
Was thinking of ‘92. He went 7-0
Yes, Rusty is 1992 Pete Smith
I don’t know how you all do it. There are just some weeks where I’ve got nothing.
Speaking of winning percentage, all-time worst winning percentage for a team with a positive run differential over a full season is .463 (‘09 Blue Jays). Braves are at .422.
An optimist would say that the Braves were 10 runs away from being 5 – 0.
“The good teams are those that win the close games” is BS.
Good teams win the blowouts.
I wanna see a huge trade that really shakes up the roster. Multiple prospects and members of the 25-man roster traded to get an up-the-middle player with team control and relievers. I’m really not sure what the type of trade partner makes sense for us, but if we don’t turn over at least 20% of the roster at the deadline, I’m really not sure what we’re doing.
I am not sure what we can really trade…Ozzie? Ozuna? Murphy? Everyone else is selling really low on or pieces for the future (Riley, RAJ, Olson). We already have no bullpen and our starting rotation isn’t exactly filled with a lot of movable pieces outside of the top 5 right now after losing Lopez and AJSS. It is awful that we have to roll with offensive players like Allen, Verdugo and Eli but here we are. Profar’s suspension hurt us but as has been stated several times, the stand pat bullpen and bench philosophy were the greatest crimes.
Untouchable: Acuna, Schwellenbach, Baldwin
Probably untouchable: Olson, Riley, Strider, Harris
Trade chips: Albies, Murphy, Sale, Johnson, Ozuna, Bummer
If you trade Sale, though, you’re kind of punting on 2026 as well.
The team can’t keep Sale if it’s going to sell at the deadline because of his age and injury history. It’s painful, but he’ll be in high demand, and hopefully the Braves can get a top 100 prospect or two out of it.
I’m not sure trading Sale is punting on 2026, but they would certainly have to sign a starting pitcher in the off-season. There are some pretty decent starters in the next free agent class, but it would take a real financial commitment beyond one or two years, something Alex generally doesn’t do.
It it were my team, I’d for sure trade Sale, Bummer, Johnson, and Ozuna. I’d listen to Murphy offers, but that’s probably a move you have to make in the off-season.
Trading the above without Murphy clears $50 million from next year’s payroll; if you move Murphy, that’s $75 million. That’s a lot of money to spend for a team that still has a solid core, and hopefully, an improved farm system.
Update: I forgot to include Iglesias’ salary dropping off next year, so that’s closer to $66 million, even if you don’t move Murphy.
I realize we won’t do it, but I think Bo Bichette is a guy that makes sense for us to finally spend some money on. He’s young, he’s good offensively and defensively, and his value is depressed due to injury last year and a bit of flukiness this year. I think he’s every bit as good as his 6 WAR season a couple years ago. He matches up with our primary weakness, and it helps that he’s the favorite player of AA’s son. If you can do something like Riley’s deal for him, maybe increased a bit for inflation, it could go a long way toward making us serious again. It could also be disastrous, but we’ve seen the disaster which is frugality.
Exactly Stampton. Winning isn’t signing all your players at or below value, winning is signing some players below value so you can overpay for what you need to get over the top.
We need to be sellers, not buyers. This team is going nowhere.
Do good teams win the close ones? They do. Do they win the close ones at the same rate as the blowouts? No they don’t. The answer is more nuanced than the typical 1 liners that it’s reduced to.
We could do a whole post on it, but as you can see in the table here, teams in the sample with a .600+ winning percentage still won their 1-run games at a .580 clip. That’s a 94-win rate over a full season. Nothing to sneeze at. Teams with a sub .400 win percentage won their 1-run games at a .409 clip. That’s a 66 win rate.
The upshot is that close games are closer to a coinflip than games that aren’t close. Chance becomes the friend of the lousy teams and the foe of the great teams moreso than in blowouts, which the great teams are very unlikely to be on the losing end of.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/columns/cs/896032.html
Well, chance isn’t working for this lousy team, so far anyway.
Correct. I am starting to write up something on this, but I think there’s still something to the fact that some teams are inherently better than others at 1-run game, even when adjusting for their underlying strength or weakness, which will always be the main issue. There is also the question of the frequency of one run games: really good and really bad teams have lower percentages of one run games simple because they’re in ore blowiuts. It is the mediocre teams that have a lot of one run games — they are equally likely to have one run games against both good teams and bad teams, and really, really likely to have one run games against their mediocre peers.
I would say more here, but I hear my job is to generate posts, not comments, so expect a look at this late Thursday or early Friday.
More damning is that the Braves aren’t winning any blowouts.
But I wouldn’t go into “fire Snit” or “sell at the deadline” mode over this losing streak.
It’s a rough patch and it will pass.
I do wish Liberty would invest some more dollars into their moneymaker team though. Buy some bullpen arms ahead of the deadline. Rent Bo Bichette. All good ideas.
This is exactly the kind of lazy armchair analysis that doesn’t add anything to the conversation, but: I think Snit has been a worse in-game manager this year than in previous years. In his first years as a manager, I was pleasantly surprised that he had a fairly decisive hook, particularly compared to the overly passive Fredi Gonzalez. I simply don’t think that’s as true this year.
To the eyeball test, he has looked older and more checked-out this year, and I also think he’s been more passive in his in-game moves. I think the Brian Snitker of 2018-2024 would have won more one-run games with this crappy lineup and this iffy pen than the Brian Snitker of 2025.
Time is undefeated, and it ain’t just Kimbrel it’s come for.
I think it’s easier to have a quick hook when you trust the other guys in the pen.
Which of our relievers would you use to rescue someone mid-inning in a tie game with runners on?
I have issues with Snitker but the bulk of the problems are with AA and ownership. This bullpen is going to lose a lot of close games. This roster has gaping holes at SS and LF and it’s been that way for multiple seasons. Albies is regressing. Harris needs to be coached and maybe demoted. Murphy sucks. Olson and Riley have been not-terrible but not great. Ozuna is playing hurt and his existence makes it harder to get Baldwin consistent ABs. The roster that Snit is “managing” is not in his full control (not sure how much say he even has with personnel).
A sell-off and tear-down/rebuild isn’t going to happen unless AA is replaced. I can make a case that he should be replaced, but I doubt it happens this year…
I don’t even particularly disagree, unfortunately. (Although Murphy’s actually been pretty good this year, BA notwithstanding.)
Well said, krussell, though I do continue to think that AA could do a trade large enough to be considered “blowing it up” by our standards.
During his Braves tenure, Sean Murphy has posted a 107 wRC+ while providing elite defense at a very valuable position (particularly in the blocking department, where he’s been one of the best in baseball the past few years). This year, he’s playing at a 4.7 fWAR/600 PA clip. He absolutely does not “suck.”
I think we do need some moves, and I obviously blame AA for our current mediocrity. Murphy is an above average catcher–he’s fine. We just didn’t need to use limited resources to improve at catcher when we had a hole in LF and SP and a coming hole at SS (since we knew damn well we weren’t going to pay Swanson what it took to keep him, which honestly wasn’t that much.
The biggest problem to me is a farm system that can’t consistently produce even marginal position talent. Once every 3 years, we hit on a Michael Harris or Drake Baldwin, but if you’re not going to sign anyone and you’re going to let guys walk, you need more than that to stay competitive. We’ve hit on a couple of big pitchers, which is great, but where are the relievers? Are we whiffing or just failing to develop the guys we draft?
Sure, some of this is due to drafting late, but it doesn’t stop the Dodgers from having 5 top-100 guys after drafting late and losing some of their picks for free agents.
Fom the Freeman decision onward, I’m still unsure about AA being the one to handle the retooling. Again, it’s not a rebuild.
When you have parts like Acuña, Schwellenbach, and Baldwin, you already have some of the more difficult pillars to find for team-building: a legit MVP candidate still in his prime, a potential ace of the future and a catcher with an exceptional plate approach who can hit for average (and has done so at every stage of his career and is doing so at the major-league level).
In positional wins above average (Baseball Reference), the Braves rank in the top 10 at third base (Riley, No. 10) and first base (Olson, No. 2). Frustrated as I get over Olson’s RISP issues, yeah, step back and he’s still a foundational player. One must hold their breath and hope that his skill set doesn’t deteriorate as he ages, but hard-hit rate and EV numbers show this isn’t happening. BABIP has bit him this year.
But shortstop and center field are both No. 22. Left field is No. 25, which is where the outfield ranks as a whole. Second base is No. 18 and Ozzie seems on the upswing; his track record earns him some grace, anyway.
Murphy will be a valuable piece to trade. Baldwin’s presence makes moving him a no-brainer. Because of this, they should hang on to Sale. Murphy ought to fetch enough return to either shore up the farm a bit or bring in some AA/AAA bullpen arms who would be major-league ready by next year.
So, all this said … you have Sale, Schwelly, Acuña, Olson, Riley, Baldwin as the pillars. Ozzie is fine. If Elder doesn’t turn into a pumpkin, he’s fine. In other words, you’re a decent portion of the way there. You actually have most of the hardest pieces to acquire. It’s building around this. And for the love of all that is holy, stop this bullpen dumpster-diving nonsense. Part of the reason why I don’t trust AA and would be OK with a new GM.
Unrelated: The numbers for which the team is on the hook for MHII in the next five years are $8MM, $9MM, $10MM, $10MM and $12MM. Not great, but not Riley numbers. In other words, if MHII doesn’t figure it out, it’s absorbable. Riley, though, it’s $22MM a year all the way. He needs to get it right.
Delta is ready when you are, Verdugo.
You too, Nick Allen.
(Yes, I know, there are no better options. Kelenic is doing precisely jack crap at Gwinnett.)
A typical Verdugo at bat with RISP. I also love how Contreras always shows us why that was a terrible trade.
It’s amazing that in 2025 we have back to back hitters with a combined 313 at bats and zero home runs. This isn’t 1977…
I fear that Hyers is working with Baldwin lately…
Quite an oppo-shot… RAJ really smacked that one
There is nothing wrong with Matty O.
Home runs? What is this sorcery?
When does Profar become eligible?
We only need 10 more runs for an 80% win probability.
Eli!
Do we dare break this thing completely open?
EDIT: Big Bear says yes.
Lee has some Reitsma Room.
That win reminds me of the last few years. Lets do more of that please
We will take it.
Hey, another 2 weeks’ worth of wins & we can start dreaming again…
All this team needs to completely flip the script is to rip off a winning streak. No better time!
Hooooooope!
Wining is fun.
recapped.