Pitching, defense, and two run homers.
Earl Weaver’s famous mantra can be relaxed a bit against this version of the Braves. Jackson Holliday‘s 2-run homer in the 3rd inning accounted for all the damage as the last place Orioles complete the road sweep of the Braves. Holliday ended with 4 of Baltimore’s 6 hits.
Grant Holmes could have been good enough, allowing 4 hits and striking out 5 in 6 innings of work. We’ll charitably credit Trevor Rogers with being better, if we take the Braves bats themselves out of the equation. Rogers went 6 2/3 scoreless innings , allowing 4 hits and striking out 6.
Sean Murphy‘s 13th home run of the season came in the 9th inning. Murphy had 2 hits, as did Jurickson Profar and Stuart Fairchild.
The Braves fall to 8.5 games back in the race for the 3rd wild-card spot as we go to press, and will try again on Tuesday at 10:05 Eastern against the Athletics, wherever it is that they play. I assume that is 10:05 PM, unless the game is designated as another in Rob Manfred’s passionate campaign to break America of our nasty habit of watching Major League Baseball games. Didier Fuentes and Jeffrey Springs scheduled.
The 5 stages of grief:
Denial
Doooooom!
Hoooooope!
Rosterbation
Cynical sarcasm
I reached Rosterbation this weekend. I tapped out a 2,000-word plan for the next five months in my notes that should at least get the team into the wild-card mix. It has just one free-agent signee above $10MM/year and provides an adequate start to restocking the farm. But it also involves a) gutting what’s left of the bullpen for the final two months (Iglesias, Bummer, Johnson all dealt), b) trading Sean Murphy either in the next month or the offseason, c) going back over the CBT (although not exorbitantly) and d) extending Acuña. (So, I’m not convinced the club will actually follow the prescription.) The variable is getting MHII to an adequate level; the key would be adding an adequate fourth outfielder who could step into the void if needed (and could also be an occasional DH in a pinch, thus having useful purpose if an MHII revival renders such a pickup redundant). There’s a real opportunity here to use this season as a time for honest reflection and a philosophical refresh to get the most out of what remains of this window … while also beginning to improve the farm to hopefully extend said window. But the organization must have the self-awareness to understand that this failure of a season wasn’t about misfortune of injuries and what-not, but plenty of self-inflicted wounds.
😁
Thanks, Rusty. I can’t keep up with all the weird start times and “broadcast partners” either.
Back in the Eighties, like a lot of you, I’d always rush to get the new Bill James Baseball Abstract and turn immediately to the article about the Braves. The first sentence of the Braves article in the 1987 Abstract is: “Lord, what an awful team.”
I’ve been thinking about that sentence a lot this summer….
When I think back to 1987 me, I could replace the “cynical sarcasm” phase with one called “barely controlled rage.” Readers, feel free to modify depending on your stage of life.
These fellas should feel right at home in Sacramento.
Harris hasn’t walked since May 18th.
The Braves gave Jeff Francouer an 8-year deal.
We can all look forward 15-20 years to when MHII is a color guy on the broadcasts. Perhaps he will have enough self awareness to joke about his inability to lay off the slider that’s a foot outside.
I’m really not sure what it is the Braves are thinking about Harris.
If they’re thinking he’s too valuable defensively to send down, one might point out that we’re losing games with him; we can lose them without him.
If they’re concerned about bruising his tender psyche, well, he’s got to toughen up instead of hurting the team in perpetuity.
If they’re concerned about looking bad in signing him through his arb years, the Braves are going to have to be ones to suck it up in their tender psyches.
I note that while Nick Allen can’t hit either and also excels defensively (and is in objective numbers better defensively than Harris) , we have managed to limit him to under 300 plate appearances through late-inning pinch-hitters. And yet Harris, who is clearly a worse hitter right now than Allen, has almost 350 plate appearances.
Look… Harris is still very young, and managing him no doubt requires some psychology and some actual coaching and the upside is still enormous. But I note that’s what we’re saying about Kelenic as well, and no one is demanding his presence in the lineup. Something has to change.
I would personally use Murphy to acquire an outfielder who can play center and let Harris start 2026 in the minors. I could be wrong, but there just aren’t many MLB caliber starting shortstops that will be available via trade. The free agent class at short looks pretty awful.
My hope is the team uses the DH spot as a way to rest regulars versus having someone who can’t play defense there full-time. If Harris makes adjustments, then it won’t be difficult to put him back in center and rotate the other position players.
Starting Nick Allen, who has years of team control and is excellent at defense, isn’t as much of an issue in the lineup if you’re getting average to above-average production in center and second.
The scouts among us can complete the picture, but just looking at Harris’s stat lines, the only things that jump out to me are the walk rate, as frequently noted, and the BABIP.
His walk rate this season is 2.9 (down from 4.9 career, 8.3 MLB average) and his BABIP is .250 (down from .315 career, .292 MLB average.)
His exit velocity is 88.1. People who follow that more closely can comment how significant that is relative to his career EV of 89.8, but the MLB average is 88.4, so I don’t think it explains everything. His strikeout rate is pretty stable at 21.1 (career 20.9, MLB average 22.5.)
I guess you could add that his Line Drive rate is down, and his Ground Ball and Fly Ball rates are slightly up. (LD 21.1 vs. 24.6 career, 23.8 MLB average.)
In his 4th MLB season his pitch recognition should only be getting better, but clearly it is not. Is it just the case that the league has figured out that you don’t have to throw him strikes to get him out, combined with a little bad luck? Any chance there’s a vision problem?
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/harrimi04.shtml
Had the same thought this weekend. He does not seem to be able to tell what sort of pitch is being thrown where. Maybe he needs some specs
Harris needs to go to the minors. White can play CF. It worked for Adam Duvall but not so much for Kelenic. I think Allen’s great defense at SS is a distraction just like Arcia’s offense in 2023. Has anyone seen the Cubs’ record recently with Dansby or the Phillies with Turner? Until the Braves have a real SS that can play defense AND hit, we will never be a great team again. Harris’ great defense is also a distraction. He needs to learn how to hit in the ML. It took more than one year for all the pitchers to figure him out. He needs to adapt.
Dansby was always the most understandable of the exits to me, but it still made sense to sign him given the scarcity of SS. Who cares if he hits .250? He has pop and fields his position at an elite level. We had Contreras and Swanson and said “no actually we need to allocate those resources to Shawn Murphy and nobody”
The Contreras-Murphy thing is the one I really can’t get past. Here you have this gift from the gods, a young catcher who is an exceptional hitter for his position. With budget always a consideration — financial flexibility! — he comes at affordable prices through 2027. Defense is a weakness at the moment, but with time, catchers typically improve in that area, and even if he only becomes sub-optimal, his prowess at the plate more than compensates on balance, especially when factoring in cost. And AA says, “Nah, let’s get older, let’s get more expensive, let’s get a lesser bat.” Is Murphy’s defense that much better? Not enough to compensate for age/cost/offense, not by a long shot. The moment I learned of the trade, the first words from my mouth were, “What is he thinking?” I’d like to trade AA to the Nats and let him screw them up.
Overlords, you of all people should know that this org is never going to carry a bat-first catcher. They’ll run Charlie O’Brien himself out there before they did that.
Orlando Arcia (2023-2025) + Nick Allen (2025): 3.0 WAR
Dansby Swanson (2023-2025): 11.4 WAR
Yes, Dansby is overpaid, but contrast that with what you’ve gotten out of SS since he left as well as the lack of any real internal or external options to come even close to his production and glove. The Braves are business-like to a fault and their refusal to engage with top-flight free agents limits their success and creates a cascade of other issues that could have been fixed by simply spending some money.
Amazingly, this team is 11 games under .500 and still has a slightly positive run differential. With Sale and Schwellenbach gone I don’t think it will stay like that and it will go under soon, but that’s still remarkable.
Which tells me I don’t think we are that far away from being good in 2026. Need to make some obvious improvements to our offensive black holes on offense and get some more pitching depth.
Find an upgrade at second base. Find an additional right-handed offensive minded outfielder to share time in the outfield to take PAs away from Harris if he continues to suck. Sign a couple of starters like a Michael Soroka to fill in the bottom of the rotation so that we don’t have to give 20+ starts to the likes of Bryce Elder or not ready Didier Fuentes.
Ozuna, Iglesias, Kelenic, and I think David Fletcher (lol) are coming off the books. Plus they reset the tax threshold, so there should be some money to play with.
Isn’t Kelenic making no money? Aren’t we “paying” Kelenic through the Fletcher contract?
Kelenic is making $2.3 million this year. He and the Braves avoided arbitration.
Michael Harris is a mix between Jeff Francoeur and Willie Mays Hays.
Comparisons to Frenchy:
-Naturally athletic but could probably be in better shape.
-Started out hot, the league made adjustments, and the player couldn’t make adjustments
-Accordingly, they’re really similar hitters across all lines
Comparisons to Willie Mays Hays:
-Started as a legitimate speed threat who could have had a long career utilizing speed to his advantage, but instead chose to not build on that. Harris had 20 stolen bases his rookie season, and even with the rule changes, has not increased from there. Willie Mays Hays deemed himself a power hitter in Major League 2.
-After some success, he decided he wanted to build his personal brand. Harris is in commercials and truck giveaways and blah blah blah. He’s also very active on social media, and you know Willie Mays Hays would have been all over the socials in Major League 2 as he was building his movie career.
You have to admit there are some similarities.
Instead of focusing on the past, let’s look at what we have and need. Regardless of how questionable the moves were, we are about as good at 1B and C as we could be. Where we falter is at SS (where we could have had Dansby) and CF and 2B (where existing players are underperforming). LF is an issue, too, but with Profar, that should be solved (my original point being that Laureano would have been just as good, cheaper, and no PEDs). Sale effectively replaced Fried and Lopez, Morton so the SP is OK. The bullpen is a mess (Montero just does not equate to Minter even though Minter is oft-injured) but Jimenez will be back next year and we have good pitchers in the minors (Harris? Burkhalter?). I think the “fire” came from Dansby and Minter and it seems to be lacking this year. We need a big time SS before we can compete.