The Braves won their sixth straight tonight, 4-2 over the Marlins. Grant Holmes went six shutout innings, turning in his best start of the season. Kenny Powers has big league stuff, but he’s been terribly inefficient and inconsistent. Tonight he only needed 71 pitches to complete those six innings. He probably would have gone even deeper in the game, but when he allowed the leadoff batter to reach in the 7th, Weiss employed a quick hook. At that point the Braves were clinging to a 1-0 lead (thanks to an Ozzie homer). Dylan Dodd (what a revelation he’s been!) got a quick flyout and a GIDP to escape any damage. Austin Riley knocked a two run blast in the bottom of the 7th to give a 3-0 cushion. Dylan Lee shut them down in the 8th, and the Braves got an insurance run in the bottom of the inning, on a Ronnie single, a HBP, a walk, and a wild pitch. That insurance was helpful in the 9th, as Iglesias had a shaky outing. He gave up a couple of runs on a walk and three hits, but the Marlins inexplicably attemped a double steal and Baldwin nailed the lead runner to end the game.
* * *
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but yesterday was the MLB trade deadline. Everyone agreed the Braves’ number one priority was to acquire a front-line starter, someone you’d feel comfortable slotting in behind Chris Sale to start game two of a playoff series. Because Alex Anthopoulos did not get such a pitcher, he’s been subject to more acrimony from Braves fans than at any time in his tenure in Atlanta.
After all, no one wants to see Bryce Elder, Martin Perez, or Grant Holmes starting that playoff game. On the other hand …
In their last three starts, Elder went six, giving up one run; Perez went seven shutout, surrendering just one hit; and tonight Holmes went six shutout innings. Who needs an additional starter anyway? Who would you rather have, Tariq Skubal or Grant Holmes? Well, for tonight at least, Holmes was better. Skubal, in his first start for the Dodgers, pitched well, but surrendered two runs in six innings and took the loss against the Cubs.
Of course I’d like to have Skubal (or deGrom, or Mize, or Detmers, etc.). But the point is, having the guys we did not get would not guarantee success, and the guys we have are capable of getting the job done.
Here are few of my thoughts, which are mine, about AA and the trade deadline:
–I start with the assumption that AA is a pretty smart guy, that he has more information at his disposal than any of us do, he works hard, and he wants to win. He might be mistaken or make an unwise decision. But it’s not that he doesn’t care or doesn’t understand what’s at stake.
–I saw some commenters on some sites suggest that Anthopoulos has given up because the Dodgers will inevitably win the World Series this year. AA is smarter than that. Even with Skubal, the Dodgers only have about a 30% chance of winning it all. There is a 70% chance someone other than LA will go all the way, so you might as well do your best to be that someone.
— It’s fair to criticize trades that were made. All of us can evaluate whether the value we gave up was worth the value we got in return. It’s tougher to criticize trades that weren’t made. We don’t know exactly who was available, what AA was willing to give up, and what it would have taken to get the guy we wanted.
–It may be that AA is too in love with our own prospects. His post-deadline comments indicated a reluctance to part with our top prospects, for fear of giving up future ROYs like Baldwin or Harris. We all know that no prospect is a sure thing, and that overly optimistic views of your own prospects can lead you astray. On the other hand, AA knows more about our prospects than any of us do (except for snowshine, of course).
–The basic problem is that predictions, especially about the future, are difficult. Many of us remember the Smoltz/Alexander trade. Folks often call that a win/win for both teams. Alexander was phenomenal for the Tigers; they would not have won the pennant without him. But in retrospect, would you rather have 20 years of John Smoltz or 2 months of Doyle Alexander? The gold standard for deadline deals is Fred McGriff for three guys, the best of whom (Melvin Nieves) accumulated negative 2.7 bWAR in his career. Obviously it was smart to give up those guys for a future HoFer who led the team to a division title after the deadline and a world series title two years later. But I also remember Len Barker for Brett Butler and Brook Jacoby. The prospects we gave up were about twenty times more valuable than what we got in Barker. It can go either way!
–Much of the criticism of AA is based on how the missed opportunities to acquire a top starter hurt our chances in October. I’m not convinced. I do believe that most of us have not truly internalized how randomness affects the postseason; it’s more of a crapshoot than we like to admit. All Braves fans from the 90’s know that even three HoF starters do not guarantee a WS victory. And in 2021, the Braves didn’t exactly run top tier starters out there every game. In fact they had two bullpen games out of six, with Dylan Lee starting one of those in only his third big league appearance.
–AA also emphasized that he must balance short term vs. long term goals. I think he means that he won’t sacrifice long term competitiveness for one big shot for all the marbles. I for one appreciate that approach. But I recognize that a lot of folks disagree. Flags fly forever and all that. Roger asked today, would you rather have one World Series win (without any other success) or ten division titles without a world series win? In the 25 years between 1996 and 2020, the Marlins won two world series, 1997 and 2003, and our Braves did not win any. But the Fish never won a division title in that quarter century—even in the years they won the series they made the playoffs as a wild card. They only finished second five times in those 25 years, and never really competed for first. The Braves in that same stretch won 13 division titles and made the playoffs as a wild card twice. Of course they did not win the world series during that stretch. Even so, I’d helluva lot rather be a Braves fan than a Marlins fan. It’s a lot more fun to be in a pennant race most years than to be hopeless by August. But your mileage may vary.
* * * *
Tomorrow night our guys go for seven in a row behind Bryce Elder. We live about 15 minutes from the ballpark, and we’re planning to go. This team is a joy to follow.
Beautifully said, tfloyd. I would only add that the folks who complain about not having a free-spending billionaire owner should be grateful we DON’T have Steve Cohen running things.
The Len Barker thing enraged me at the time, as the attitude seemed to be: “Something must be done, this is something, so we must do this.” Butler, much less Jacoby and Rick Behenna (RIP) weren’t going to win us a WS that year, but they could have been solid building blocks, which were thrown away for nothing. I’m glad we’re not repeating that mistake.
I was thinking of Peter Angelos rather than Cohen because of the longer track record despite the thinner wallet, but yeah.
Great post, tfloyd.
Thanks, tfloyd. I thought it was interesting that AA mentioned Drake Baldwin, as he certainly didn’t have any problem trading William Contreras.
I wrote more about the Len Barker trade while we were killing time in the covid days. I thought it was a terrible trade, but on closer review it was much worse than that.
I thought Rob’s comment on the linked article was interesting in hindsight. For those who didn’t click on the link, in early 2020 he named three stars who he would be devastated to see traded and five stars or future stars he could stand to see elsewhere. Over six years later, two of the first three, Acuna and Albies, are still with the team, and I assume that Soroka’s injuries made Rob less devastated by the time he actually left. Of the other five, including three who were just as prominent as Acuna & Albies, only Riley is still with the team, and Freeman, Swanson, Fried, and Camargo are gone. That suggests that either AA thinks like Rob or Rob was good at anticipating the future and adjusting his emotional attachments accordingly.
Well said tfloyd…
The sh!t sundae on the turd that was the Barker trade was that the team then decided Barker was really the replacement for Phil Niekro so they released him in the off-season.
I didn’t even think about that. Yikes.
Hurt the team and send your Hall of Fame pitcher off with a flea in his ear. Great job all around.
All of those people bemoaning not getting a starting ace should be forced to wear their Dodger 2021 Championship t-shirts… because a team with the best record signing Max Scherzer and Trea Turner at the deadline couldn’t possibly lose.
It’s possible to believe that no trade would’ve made us likely to win the World Series while also believing that the right trade could’ve made us significantly likelier to win it.
Of course you’re correct. But it reframes the question from the stupid Twitter refrain: “We now have no chance” to the proper one: “What are you willing to pay in current prospects to raise your WS winning chances from 15% to 20%?”
I suspect that filling a couple of holes to get two extra regular-season wins so you avoid the wild card round can often do as much for a team’s chances of winning the World Series as getting a solid but not great pitcher who you’re glad to start twice in the World Series, and at a lower prospect cost. Avoiding the wild card round, even if you would be favored to win it, almost doubles your chances of winning the World Series (if my math is right, the chances would go from 6-1/4% to 12-1/2% if all the teams are equal), while once you’re in a series against another very good team, one solid pitcher more or less (ie, not Skubal) probably isn’t going to make a 6% difference in your overall chances.
A counterargument is that the pitcher will help you win extra games in the regular season and the pre-WS rounds too, but the spare parts also would help you some in the postseason. And ideally AA would’ve both filled holes and picked up a good pitcher, of course.
On the Barker trade, it may just be that I’m a lot older, but it seems like perfect games were a much bigger deal when Barker threw his than they are now.
A project for Jonathan if he ever runs out of topics to study is to figure out why – or at least how unlikely – it was that there were only three perfect games between 1964 and 1968 (or between 1956 and 1981 if you want to cherrypick the widest possible range), at a time when complete games were common and ERAs and I assume hits per 9 were vey low, while there were 6 between 2009 and 2012 and 3 in 2012 alone, when complete games were less common and offense was higher. It seems like the low level of offense and greater percentage of complete games in the 1960s would swamp the effect of having 50% more games/year after expansion from 20 to 30 teams. I suppose having fewer strikeouts in the 1960s meant more balls in play so more opportunities for hits, but that seems like it would be a pretty minor effect. Also, there’s only been one perfect game since 2012, so I suppose the decline in complete games and to a much lesser extent the continued increase in strikeouts have swamped all the other changes.
If you strike out 12 batters, the chances the remaining 15 fail to reach given a .300 BABIP is 0.4%. If you only strike out 6, that goes to .056%. A few K’s makes an order of magnitude difference in likelihood
That’s a real interesting question. I’m going to give myself two chances to answer it, with two contradictory answers. Answer number 1 is that these are just rare events — nothing really going on here. Answer number 2: worse defense on the many balls put into play back when? [Edit: Answer number 3: What Stampton said.]
But, yeah, no-hitters and perfect games were rare and a real thing back in the day. Long before there was an annual Baseball Abstract, there was the World Almanac, and that is where I (living in a non-metropolitan area with no pocket change and limited access to The Sporting News) got most of my info about what used to be called baseball statistics, I think (definitely not “analytics”). You got all the boxscores from the previous year’s World Series, with the lettered-superscripts for who pinch-hit for whom. I especially enjoyed the table listing — could this be true — all of the no-hitters in the modern era. The few perfect games were noted as such. So, too, were special occurrences, like rain-shortened no-hitters: Going from memory here, but I think Dean Chance had both a 9-inning and a 5-inning no-hitter, perhaps in sequence on the list. (Saw him pitch against Whitey Ford in the first major league game I ever attended.) Also noted — and back to perfect games — Harvey Haddix’s 12-inning perfect game that he ended up losing. Seeing that up against the 5-inning no-hitters was my introduction to the precepts that rules are rules and life is not fair. Had to wait to late life to learn that only one of these is true.
(Replying to Stampton) OK, but the difference isn’t 12K to 6K and the BABIP’s aren’t remotely the same. Try your calculation for 7.6 K/9 and a .336 BABIP (2012 averages) versus 5.9 K/9 and a .291 BABIP (1968). Then adjust for complete games being about 9 times more likely in 1968 compared to 2012 (28% versus 3%), which more than makes up for the 50% increase in the number of games. I suppose the K/9 differences between the best pitchers (who are the ones most likely to pitch perfect games) in those two years might be greater, and there probably are other factors. And I guess the complete game adjustment may not matter as much if you would count multi-pitcher perfect games the same as complete-game perfect games.
Yes, good points, but as you say, I wasn’t assuming average performances. More that a complete game pitcher these days is more likely to have a lot of K than 60’s pitchers. So K’s matter but K’s are also a function of swinging harder which raises BABIP
Something somewhat related that shouldn’t take much mental effort or time if you have the right search tools: How common was it by decade (say from the 1980s to the 2020s) to remove a pitcher after 6, 7, or 8 no-hit innings? Now it seems fairly common, and I assume if you go back 40-50 years it almost never happened except in cases of injury.
In early 2024, my son & I were in Wrigley and saw Skenes’s second MLB start. His results by batter were K, K, K, K, K, K, K, 3-1, 5-3, K, K, 4-3, 8, BB, K, 6-3, 3 unassisted, 6-3, K. He wasn’t just dominating by the standards of regular pitchers, he was dominating by the standards of no-hitters. After the second inning (by which time I don’t think there had even been any foul balls), my son & I were just telling each other, “this isn’t happening.” Now his pitch count hit 100, and I guess he was fading because he walked a batter and gave up a fly ball in the 5th, and the Pirates were up 8-0 so I think it was the right thing to do, but there’s no way in the world would he have been taken out in the 1970s.
I am only really upset about the trades AA could have made without giving up a haul (like getting Ray). Even though we do have enough prospects to get any rental (maybe not Skubel), we could have done better than Mahle without giving up much. The teams may have demanded more and AA said “no” and then they pivoted to getting less from someone else. But still we could have gotten someone – there were so many.
And someone said we are now relying on our best guys getting healthy (specifically, AJSS, Schwelly, and Suarez). We DO have the horses if they get well.
There were a lot of young players from the Dominican League traded. Don’t we have some of those?
Robbie Ray’s ERA is nice, but he isn’t actually pitching that great inputs-wise. Ray has a 112 xFIP- this year, meaning if you strip out the contributions of the defense and assume an average HR/FB rate, he’s actually been 12% worse than a league-average pitcher. Elder, Perez, Holmes, and López all have better xFIP- marks than Ray. He wouldn’t be an upgrade over any of the non-Sale starters we currently have.
Tyler Mahle has been better than Ray this year — he’s running a 97 xFIP- and has been more successful at suppressing barrels and hard contact. I’m not saying Mahle is an ace, but I’d rather have him in the rotation than Ray.
https://x.com/awfulannouncing/status/2085011739465146811?s=46&t=WSNPrB2JyUoeKSn2PZsXZg
The jokes write themselves up there.
“To whom this may concern,
I’m sorry for calling the shitty players shitty. It will happen again.
Best,
Keith”
Alex is right on some level: there are multiple ways to win in October. If you squint, you can see a world in which they mix and match their way to quality innings in October with the current staff. My issue is the offense probably needs to be elite for that to work and they should have traded for another LHH bat to replace Dom.
Well, there is a tried and true way: have 3 Hall of Fame pitchers in your rotation. That guarantees multiple consecutive World Series titles.
Wait…
Grant Holmes and Martin Perez are using the “you guys stink” talk as motivation.
“It kind of fires you up a little bit,” said Holmes, who had only three MLB starts with at least six scoreless frames before Tuesday. “When somebody trusts in you, it’s a whole lot easier to go out there every five, six days and do your best, compared to going out there when somebody doesn’t believe in you.”
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7493397/2026/08/05/braves-trade-deadline-reaction-rotation-holmes/
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? But based on a sample size of two, I’m buying it. 😉
I’m wondering, though, the sample size of players whose off-the-record reaction was: “Really, front office? With what we’ve accomplished amid our personnel issues, you have so little faith in our potential to reach a WS that you wouldn’t go off-plan just a little to give our rotation a needed jolt – not a makeover, just a jolt? Essentially, fulfilling the strong assurance you gave the fans and team not just before this season but in prior seasons? Really?”
Holmes really changed his pitch mix last night. Threw a bunch of sinkers. Maybe he’s pissed and making adjustments.
Dodgers just lost to the Cubs in an afternoon game, putting them at 69-46 for the year. Going into tonight’s game, we are 68-45. If we win tonight, we will be currently in position to get the second bye.
To put the same point in another way: while I also wanted more from the trade deadline, there sure is a lot of very confident talk here about what will definitely happen. I’m prepared to be wrong, maybe I missed a rule change, but I’m pretty sure we still gotta play the games.
We are really playing some good baseball in this stretch.
No doubt, but… buckle up, after the Marlins, it’s Yankee Stadium to face Fried, Cole & Schlittler.
Dunno yet which game Sale is set to pitch, but it’ll be a helluva matchup.
The Yanks’ lineup has taken some serious blows, but their pitching (starters & ‘pen) has been terrific this year.
70 pitches through 6 for Elder. Let’s see if he can go 8; give the bullpen a break.
Elder looking great—70 pitches in 6 innings. Holmes last night tossed 71 through 6 innings.
Told you we shoulda traded that bum at the deadline
Bryce Elder also said “and it became personal with me” like MJ did in the Last Dance.
Phils down by 6 in the 11th inning… looks like we’re gonna pick up another game.
THE BRAVES
It’s like Frankie Frisch said, bases on balls, baserunning blunders, and 6 run 11ths…
Great commentary here, as always, on the Braves. Lots of sense being made. I too was a bit down over not getting a top-line starter, but I still really like our chances. Fingers crossed AJSS and Schwellenbach can make meaningful contributions later this year.
What this team reminds me of is the 2013 Braves. That team had no great starters, but pushed the Dodgers to 4-games in the NLDS. I’ll always remember it for the Kimbrel / Carpenter debacle in the 8th inning of game 4. But we had the ghost of Freddie Garcia starting and outpitching Kershaw in that game. That team didn’t even have an obvious ace like we do with Sale.
But man, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could knock the Dodgers into the WC round. That would be sweet!
This points out the biggest problem with wild cards and especially expanded wild cards. Braves are built to win a division and have a great team but the Phillies are built to make the wild card and win short series’. I understand that the Braves only won 1 WS in the 90s but they were faced with a lot better teams than there are today because of parity.
Mark my words (hoping it’s not so) but the Phillies will face the Dodgers in the NLCS and the winner will win the WS. Things could change if we get some of our injured players back and have no further injuries. Remember the Chris Sale missed the first playoffs with a back injury……
A team should have to win a division AND the playoffs to be a champion.
I don’t think the Phillies did that intentionally. They just signed an ace and developed 3 others (Sanchez, Suarez-yeah I know, Nola). Elite front-line starting pitching with strike out stuff helps you win any time of year. The Phillies were a very strong team last year and won the division but this year their aging hitters are not hitting as well and they’ve lost Suarez and Nola has been awful.
The difference you’re talking about was worse in the 2010s and 2021 when the wild card “round” was one game, as there’s probably even more of a difference between a team built to win one game (makes the single best pitcher even more valuable) and a team built to win the regular season.
I’m sympathetic to Roger’s point. Here’s my take on the issue. I agree that if you are stuck in the Wild Card playoff round, it absolutely helps to have a Sanchez and Wheeler up top. This said, given how close to p=.5 the chance is of winning or losing any baseball game, what you would really, really, really like is to avoid that play-in round. Put another way, if you had to put real money on the Braves’ chances of winning the WS, would you prefer to wager on addition of Skubal but having to start in the Wild Card round; or starting in whatever the next round is called, with the roster we have? I think chances are higher in the latter case, which is why I agree with Roger than discourse around a roster upgrade is too fraught relative to the real disadvantage of being a division-winning team but having to go through an early-round crapshoot. Would be interested which bet others would choose….
My initial response is I want the bye. But the results of that have been mixed since the playoffs expanded. Not sure how to quantify asking a player who’s played every day for six months to take four days off and then be ready to go again.
Murphy is out of the lineup, a day after finally getting back in. Their handling of Murphy since the jump has been abysmal.
Baserunning idiocy. Takes a lot of stupidity to have only three batters in an inning when you single twice without a double play.
That’s something that has got alot worse this year. The amount of pick-off’s and running into outs we’ve had is shockingly high.
An odd frame… 3 up, 3 down w/ 2 hits.
At the game. I managed to get great seats at the last minute right next to Wiley Ballard and the camera well. It’s a hoot to watch Ozzie in the dugout. He never stops talking. He’s had especially animated conversations with Kim. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ozzie speaks Korean.
And that was a weird gift… thanks, Fish
What’s the weather look like, in Atlanta? We gonna get the rest of it in?
Pretty good chance of more rain the next couple of hours. In fact it’s raining a little right now. And I just saw lightning. But they will try to get it in. It’s going to be very late when they arrive in NY
Fri: Tyler Mahle vs. Fried
Sat: Sale vs. Cole
Sun: Holmes vs. Schlittler
We decided not to come last night because the forecast was a 60% chance of rain. The weather turned beautiful last night. We came tonight because the forecast was just 20%. Like yogi said (and I repeated in my recap) predictions are hard.
Delta 8877 was originally scheduled to depart KATL at 11:30pm.
It might be 4am before they get to the hotel.
I’m really tired of the constant food segments on BravesVision. They just spent like 10 minutes talking about PB&J sandwiches.
New thread: https://bravesjournal.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=41944&action=edit