- Is there anyone left who doesn’t think the playoffs are a crapshoot?
- If Ozzie Albies has a poor season, would you still let him hit in the World Series? How much worse could he be than Miguel Rojas? Oh… wait. Rojas is a free agent, supposedly at shortstop. (Please note: I do not mean this seriously.)
- I’m sure you all had Ernie Clement as the all-time leader in hits in a playoff series, right? An easy call at the end of the regular season.
- Lip-reading Justin Wrobleski is easier than pronouncing his name.
- Compare and contrast: Jeff Hoffman and our Will Smith
- I can’t believe that John Smoltz asked if anyone ever won the World Series on a sac fly. Granted, Gene Larkin technically hit a single, but c’mon!
- Compare and contrast: Orion Kerkering and Miguel Rojas
- Compare and contrast: Shane Bieber and Charlie Leibrandt
- Someone earlier this year was commenting on the inability to get men in from third base with less than two outs. Whoever it was, let me have your thoughts on the bottom of the 9th and the top of the 10th.
- Pitchers and catchers in a little over 3 months.
A Few Brief Observations for Comment
Hat trick for Freddie.
Freddie could have played here for fifty years and he wouldn’t have gotten three rings. That HoF plaque will probably have a Dodgers cap on it.
What a disgusting way to lose for the Blue Jays. They were so clutch and so unclutch when they really, really needed to be.
The playoffs are not a crapshoot or else the Braves would not have so reliably exited so quickly for most of their appearances. Multiple World Series appearances and titles for the Dodgers over the last decade are not what you would predict were the playoffs a crapshoot. Elite pitching and elite hitting lead to success. The teams that played in this World Series included the Blue Jays, the hottest team in baseball over the last 100 games, and the Dodgers, the most stacked roster in all of baseball due to willingness and ability to spend lavishly. That is no accident. It was no accident that the Yankees dynasty won 4 in a row in dominant fashion.
Baseball will always be more influenced by chance than the other major sports, and small samples will produce oddities, but this fatalistic crapshoot talk just gives organizations like the Braves an excuse not to compete for anything but a wildcard berth and another abrupt exit. The reasoning goes that it’s all random anyway, so why not just be good enough to make the playoff pool. Getting spanked in the wild card round again proves nothing except the fact your luck was bad. You just need another couple spins.
It’s only a crapshoot in the sense of over every ten year period, you’ll get a Braves or Rangers or Nationals winning it all out of nowhere.
But look over the last fifteen years. The titles are concentrated among a few franchises. Boston, SF, Houston, and LA.
And what do those teams have in common? Elite player development, elite payroll, or both. The Braves have neither.
Yet the Yankees, who almost always have baseball’s biggest payroll, haven’t won any of the last 16 World Series, and the Mets, who I assume have had the 2nd or 3rd highest payroll over most periods you might choose, haven’t won one since before Tim Tebow (remember him?) was born.
Or the Phillies. Or the Angels. Or the Padres. Or the Yankees.
Spending does not guarantee competitiveness, but it does make it more likely. Don’t think anyone argued that though.
I guess we could spend weeks on this but this is what it boils down to. 1) Yes, the best team does not always win the World Series. 2) No, the worst of the playoff teams do not have anywhere near an equal chance to win the World Series as the best teams.
If someone wants to make point #1 under the shorthand of “crapshoot” I won’t argue. But if someone wants to say “crapshoot” to imply anything like point #2 it is laughably false.
I would (and have) phrase it differently:
(1) the best team doesn’t always win
(2) the best team’s chances of winning, while considerably higher than 1 in 12, are essentially never any higher than 1 in 5. It can’t be any higher than that because the series are too short for their superiority to impose itself; plus, the best team isn’t that much better than any of the top 5 teams.
(3) When I say that the playoffs are a crapshoot, I simply mean that people who say, confidently in advance of the playoffs that some team has a 50 percent or higher chance of winning, they’re wrong. No team has ever had anywhere near that high a probability, which would imply a probability of winning any particular game at something like 70 percent, which is the probability when the Dodgers play Colorado, not Toronto.
(4) Obviously, by the time you get to Game 7 of the World Series, the two teams remaining have close to a 50-50 chance of winning, and definitely no worse than 55-45. That is the high water mark for both of these teams. The Dodgers, who had to play a first-round series around 1 in 8 to win at the start… that’s pretty unlikely, though way better than, say, Cincinnati, who were around 1 in 25.
Boy, after the UGA/UF game yesterday, that WS game really finished me off. I did have some not-so-welcome ’91 WS flashbacks b/c there are certain games & moments that you just never get back. (And yes, I did think of Charlie Liebrandt.) Leaving that stadium must’ve been agony.
Also, let’s face it: the Dodgers made some remarkable efforts to win the thing. They were pushing against the tide all night. Made for some awfully compelling TV, though.
Re: Anthony Volpe. (From AAR’s question on the previous thread.)
Given the market at SS, I can see the appeal of Anthony Volpe for the Braves. It seems that the Yanks, who are in another off-season roster freakout, may want to pursue the latest pricey shiny object (Bo Bichette)… so perhaps Volpe may be had at a relatively reasonable price. Turns out Volpe was playing the last 2/3 of the season injured (torn labrum on his glove-side shoulder, for which he had immediate post-season surgery), so it’s not unreasonable to believe he has genuine upside.
After 3 seasons, we see that he’s got some pop (52 HRs) and good speed (70 SB in 90 attempts). He’s an athletic defender with better-than-average range, so far, though his throwing can be erratic. (Due to his less-than-rocket arm, he’s been projected to eventually become a 2B.)
His offensive downsides are obvious – his OBP is awful & he’s a strikeout machine. He doesn’t hit for average and his walk rate is slightly below what’s acceptable, but that 25-percent K rate is really what’s defined him so far in his short career. (In 1,886 career PAs, he’s .222/.283/.379 w/ 473 Ks & 137 BB.)
When he came up to the Yanks, the scouting reports said he had great instincts… I certainly don’t watch every Yankee game, but I have not seen that. In fact, I’ve seen some evidence to the contrary in the field and, to a somewhat lesser degree, on the bases.
Also, his impressive ascension thru the Yankee system was met with a little too much enthusiasm – “Hey, he’s a local kid who grew up as a Yankee fan… another Jeter!” Um, no. He was good in the minors, but that’s still way too much pressure.
And it must be said that the fanbase really wanted him to succeed – with all that history, the Pinstriped People really go for those mythical narratives – so when you don’t live up to them… next! Time to buy another player at that position. And, injury or no, I think the fanbase, FWIW, is in Next Mode with Anthony Volpe. While I’m not 100-percent sure that the Yanks will actually deal him, I’m 90-percent sure that the fanbase wouldn’t mind.
Nonetheless, considering our options, the above is a slightly-less-than-enthusiastic endorsement. I saw him hit a GSHR in the WS last year, but I’ve also seen him flail and fail a lot with some real head-scratching moments.
Thinking optimistically, though, he’s young (25 next year) and, if he’s healthy, I think he can contribute as a bottom-of-the-order guy that’ll can go deep 20 more times than Nick Allen did this past year. If the rest of the lineup hits (if, if, if), he won’t be the drag that Allen & Orlando Arcia were. Defense should be better than average and he’ll steal some bases. (He’s up for arbitration this off-season, but has 3 more seasons under team control.)
His first 2 years in The Bronx he was a 3.3 & 3.4 WAR player. If, minus all that hometown pressure, he gets back to that, we should be plenty happy… despite the strikeouts and the occasional odd play in the field. Also, he’ll be playing for a contract… so there’s that.
I have a confession to make that I’m really ashamed of. I have always hated the Dodgers, even with Freeman, but I was actually pulling for them. I find their team as being likable. Their hitting was not up to expectations for much of the series, but they played hard and defense was a huge reason for their win. I hope you guys will allow me to post after that embarrassing confession. Hopefully if we get LA’s bench coach he’ll bring some of that motivation and determination with him.
Matt Olson wins a Gold Glove. Max Fried wins for the fourth consecutive year.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6772120/2025/11/02/gold-glove-winners-2025-mlb/
File this one under Pieces I Wish I’d Written From A Braves Perspective — I think it’s not paywalled.
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/its-hard-to-explain-to-normal-healthy
“It’s Crazy We Subject Ourselves to This”
I have had the same thought lately. Truly, I did not miss the Braves in these playoffs. Maybe if they start missing them regularly, I would change my mind, but my teams have won multiple CFP titles, a World Series. I’m kind of beyond living and dying with a team. Listening to the top of the ninth of Game 7 on the radio, I was so wound up that I was shaking and shivering in my living room. Crazy.
Any reason not to bring in Luisangel? Even if he is replacement level (and he is still young), maybe he’ll make Ronald and Ozzie better. Who knows, maybe Ronald will make him better.
He is a trade target and will be cheap.
Today, Peanut has added and then removed Gibbons name from the mix, and also reduced his confidence on Lehmann being the pick. So nobody knows anything.
Add to your complicated thoughts of “perfect GM’ery.”
Over the weekend, Nacho Alvarez, Jr. had 5 hits in 5 appearances with EV over 95 on all of them. One an HR, one a 2B. That (power) has been his missing offensive component. If he can OBP 360 and ops 850, he becomes very intriguing.
Ha-Seong Kim just opted out. For what it’s worth, Keith Law is pretty down on him, ranking him below Devin Williams and just above Yoan Moncada on his free agent ranking:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6754665/2025/11/03/mlb-free-agent-ranking-2025-2026-kyle-tucker/
We have people in the Bravesphere who want to give Kim 3-4 years and 75-80 million. It’s that bad at shortstop.
I keep reading the shortstop market is thin due to lack of options, but how many contenders really need shortstops to begin with?
I have:
Yankees, if they move on from Volpe
Red Sox, if Story opts out
Blue Jays, if Bichette leaves in free agency
Granted, those are three large payroll teams, but most contenders have shortstops already. Cleveland could use an upgrade, but they don’t spend in free agency. San Diego probably doesn’t have the money. Who am I missing?
If it were my team, I would rather get another outfielder that can DH and get a real rotation piece.
Gee whiz, guys, I’m just so damn glad that we gave Kim a tryout to go get his multi-year deal while we probably won a couple extra games with him that decreased our lottery odds. I’m so glad we didn’t have to look at Nick’s offense anymore.
Greedy Baseball players that aren’t worth the millions they have already made
No way I am giving Kim that much money. That would be a big mistake. He is an average bat, an like shown previously, his defense has declined. We are not going to sign Bichette and we are likely to have to roll with Allen
Walt Weiss named manager. Hate it.
The least inspiring choice possible. Fire AA.
I hate what this franchise has become. Loathe it. Despise it. I hope they lose 95 games next year.
I really thought they were going to hire Lehmann.
Really disappointed by this hiring. I was excited about the prospect of them bringing someone who is analytically inclined and knowledgeable about modern in-game tactics, like Lehmann or Lombard. Weiss is essentially Snit 2.0.
I am really, really disappointed. Just a few years after the World Series, this feels like standing pat and stagnating.
Walt. Well.
We will obviously have more to say about this in a post of its own, not that there’s that much new to relate. It’s as if your daughter has finally agreed to break up with a guy you can’t stand, but she leaves him for his twin brother.
The one thing I can say confidently about this is that it resolves any lingering doubts about whether the Braves forced Snitker out. There’s is absolutely no reason to force Snitker out to bring in Weiss. So Snitker must’ve actually decided he wanted to retire.
Lehmann saw the spending decisions and roster management over here and was like, “Nah, I think I’ll stay and go for a third straight ring next year.”
Lehmann isn’t going to turn down the opportunity to be a major league manager.
My guess is some of the strange moves we’ve been blaming on Alex over the last 16 months is coming from someone else.
https://x.com/scottcoleman55/status/1985474207736873061
That said, I can’t get too worked up over a manager when 30% of the roster is up in the air. At minimum, this team needs another starting pitcher, another bullpen arm, and at least one more bat. I’m very skeptical on how this gets accomplished given the payroll situation and thin farm system.
Yeah, pretty much what everyone else has already said. I’m not that surprised. It seemed like the most Braves hire from the start. I guess he’s as good as any to manage our continued slide into irrelevance.
On Kim, I pretty much agree with Law. So much that I had convinced myself he wouldn’t opt out. But as JonF pointed out, that’s not how Boras thinks. Kim seems like a poor value for anything much beyond what he opted out of, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some loser team gave him a big deal. Just hope it’s not us.
Why wait to make this announcement if they were going this way all along? Something must have gone wrong with who AA really wanted to hire.
There’s growing concern in the commentariat that McGuirk is more than the guy who sets the budget.
Weiss, unlike Wash and EY Sr, was not poached from a staff that won a World Series.
It is interesting that LA’s staff has not been successfully raided, btw.
https://x.com/boydpc15/status/1985484396514984220?s=46&t=WSNPrB2JyUoeKSn2PZsXZg
I can live with this logic.
I know this will be unpopular with some, but man I would call up the Rays to get Pete Fairbanks AND Taylor Walls and plug Walls in at starting SS. I’d send Tampa Bay a nice group of SPs, Nacho, whomever. I do not want to be paying somebody like Kim $20M+ to just get an extra WAR over what we’d get with Walls. Go spend that money on a shutdown bullpen.
It’s hard to believe Nick Allen is so bad offensively that we are champing at the bit to trade for someone who hit .220 and had a .599 OPS and that was something of a career year. Nick Allen, do you even lift bro?
I’m never opposed to getting better at SS but man that really hits home.
Also, I had not considered that by getting Kim for the last month, Atlanta doesn’t have to give up a pick if they sign him. So that’s something I hadn’t considered and softens the blow a little.
So a player can be cut and decline his option but you still lose a pick for signing him???
That was one uninspiring press conference. There’s a palpable gloom over this franchise.
Alex looked like he was going through the motions. It really makes you wonder what’s going on behind the scenes.
Another possibility—maybe it’s been mentioned—is that whatever pittance of salary we were offering was flatly rejected by anyone who is a choice candidate while Walt Weiss, who is not on anyone’s list, would take just whatever for another crack at managing.
So TM wouldn’t have to tell AA “you’re picking Weiss” but the budget said you’re picking Weiss.
Some people on the Twitters were saying that AA wanted Lehmann and McGuirk supposedly wanted Gibbons as bench coach, Lehmann didn’t want Gibbons so hence Walt Weiss.
“Oh… wait. Rojas is a free agent, supposedly at shortstop. (Please note: I do not mean this seriously.)”
He would be an upgrade and would be worth a shot on a one year deal if other options fall through.