|
The Atlanta Braves are Good At Baseball, An Effortpost In 2021 the Braves won 88 games, got hot in October, and won the World Series. In 2022 the Braves won over 100 games and lost to the Phillies in the first round. In 2023 the Braves won over 100 games and lost to the Phillies in the first round. Baseball, man. The Braves won the East pretty effortlessly last year, never being out of first place after April 2 (when they were 2-1 to the Mets' 3-1), largely on the back of their high-powered offense lead by the unanimous MVP Ronald Acuna Jr's sensational season. It was maybe too effortless, as they looked decidedly sluggish down the stretch and into the playoffs. Having signed most of the team's core to extensions, they bring back pretty much the same team for another go-round in 2024. The Lineup! The Braves' record-breaking 2023 lineup returns basically intact for 2024, so expect a lot of scoring once again. Catcher: Sean Murphy The team's big offseason acquisition last year was Murphy, who they quickly signed to an extension. At the beginning of the year, he made them look like geniuses, smacking the crap out of the ball in the first half en route to an All-Star appearance. He faded down the stretch, but is still one of the better catchers in the game, and his backup, Travis d'Arnaud, is much better than those of anyone you can argue is clearly better. The Braves like to divide their catching ABs on a roughly 60/40 split in order to keep them relatively fresh in the Atlanta heat, so Murphy probably won't accumulate the counting stats you'd expect of a star catcher, but he is one nonetheless. 1B: Matt Olson Olson maintained his pattern of putting up excellent seasons in odd-numbered years, as he followed up his so-so Braves debut in 2022 with a dynamite 2023. He set the teams' franchise record for homers in a single season with 54 and finished fourth in the MVP voting behind teammate Acuna and two jokers from some awful team everyone hates. I'd kind of like to see him break his pattern this year. He's the old man of the Braves' core players at a grizzled 30 years old. 2B: Ozzie Albies Olson might be the oldest, but Ozzie is the longest-tenured member of the Braves' core, and the only one who can still remember the bad old days of the rebuilding years. No one ever talks about Albies except in the context of his contract, which criminally unpays him, but that does a disservice to what a fun, well-rounded player he is. When he first game up I thought Ozzie would make his name on batting average, speed, and defense, but he actually developed into a pretty substantial power threat. Maybe some day he'll get a real contract and we can talk about him between the lines. 3B: Austin Riley There's not a whole lot to say about Riley that hasn't already been said. He's 27, he's signed forever, he destroys baseballs. It's a testament to how good he is that I spent much of 2023 thinking he was having kind of a down season and waiting for him to break out... and he still hit 37 homers. I guess the real news here is that after spending most of his career as a defensive liability who was always on the verge of getting moved to first base or the outfield, Riley has improved his defense to the point where he's basically an average defensive third baseman -- which, given how long he and Olson are both signed, is a relief. SS: Orlando Arcia I was pretty baffled this time last year about the Braves' decision to promote their backup infielder to starting shortstop... and then he went and made the All-Star team. That being said, it's a bit of an oversell -- Arcia's not that good, and if there's a position you can point to as being a weakness for the Braves, shortstop and left field are definitely the ones. Still, I'm less annoyed by him still being the starter than I might otherwise be because there weren't any good shortstop options on the market this offseason, so you might as well continue with the devil you know. The team signed him to an extension early last offseason that pays him peanuts, so he's still a good value even if he eventually moves back into a part-time role. I'm pulling for Nacho Alvarez to have a good season and push him next year. LF: Jarred Kelenic Lacking any obvious holes on the roster to address, Alex Anthopolous decided to gamble in left field. There were a flurry of trades around this transaction, but when all was said and done the Braves paid roughly $17 million in 2024 for the rights to former top prospect Kelenic, who was a high draft pick for the Mets before being dealt to Seattle as the centerpiece in the Edwin Diaz trade. The Mariners were expecting Kelenic to be the Robin to Julio Rodriguez's Batman, but it didn't quite work out that way between injuries (some self-inflicted) and ineffectiveness. Still, I like this risk for the Braves. Kelenic has shown flashes, and the Braves have a strong enough team already that they don't need him to blossom into a superstar or anchor the lineup. If he's Just A Guy, that's fine. And if he does manage to restore some of his top-prospect value, the upside is considerable -- as in "best outfield in baseball for the next five years" considerable. Kelenic could do anything from being cut in June to being a fixture in Atlanta for the next decade and it wouldn't surprise me, but I like rolling the dice on him more than signing the next Eddie Rosario. Kelenic had a disastrous spring and the Braves ended up signing old friend Adam Duvall to give themselves a backup plan, but he looked better as Spring Training wore on and the swing changes he'd been working on started to bear some fruit, so who knows. CF: Michael Harris II Harris was hampered by minor injuries early in the year and got off to an extremely slow start, but once he shook off the rust he was even better than during his RoY-winning 2023. Money Mike is good at everything, and he's still only 23, so I could absolutely see him popping off and turning in a real superstar season. Even if that doesn't happen and what you see is what you get, though, he's still one of the best center fielders in baseball. RF: Ronald Acuna Jr I don't get a lot right about baseball, but in the last version of this thread I warned everyone that they were sleeping on Acuna because of his medium 2022 and that he was going to have a huge season, so I'm going to take the W's where I can get them. Acuna founded the 40/70 club last year on his way to an overall dominant season in which he made everything on the offensive side of the ball look easy. Even more incredibly, according to his batted ball data Acuna actually got unlucky in 2023, so it's possible there's still more there -- although I have no idea what that would even look like. Most importantly, Acuna played in 159 games and didn't show any aftereffects from his torn UCL at all. Ohtani's in the NL now so Acuna's reign as the best player in the league might end after 2024, but as far as pure position players go it's hard to find one you'd rather have. Partway through the spring Acuna had to have his knee looked at, but it appeared to be mostly precautionary. DH: Marcell Ozuna Ick. Ozuna was right on the verge of being cut in May when he went on a tear and saved his roster spot for another season. He actually ended up hitting 40 home runs and turning in basically the kind of season the Braves thought they were signing up for when they signed him before the 2021 season. If he has another decent season in 2024 he might actually put picking up his option on the table, which no one would have dreamed of even nine months ago. Ozuna would probably be a fan-favorite if he wasn't such a piece of poo poo, but, well. I'm hoping the Braves make the right decision at the end of the season. The Bench! d'Arnaud, Duvall, Luis Guillorme, Forrest Wall. I wouldn't bother memorizing any of these guys' names, because with the exception of d'Arnaud and Duvall they're not going to play. The Braves achieve depth not by having a bunch of 1-2 WAR players they can shuffle around, but by building their roster such that almost every plate appearance is taken by someone you'd want taking it. The Rotation! Aside from Spencer Strider, the Braves' 2023 rotation was ravaged by injuries and spent most of the season being a patchwork of temporary fixes and riding hot streaks. 2022 rotation stalwarts Max Fried and Kyle Wright missed most of the season, and most of the fill-ins provided either quality or volume, but not both. AA addressed this issue by... trading for Chris Sale and signing a reliever to start? Okay. RHP Spencer Strider The undisputed ace of the staff these days, Strider is the premier strikeout artist in the game. (He also went 20-5 last year, for what that matters.) His top-line run prevention stats kept him out of the Cy Young conversation last year, but this was mostly the result of a flukey-high home run rate, so he has to be considered one of the pre-season favorites for 2024. He's been toying with a new pitch in Spring Training, because he needed more ways to make guys look dumb. LHP Max Fried Well, it's been fun. Fried's 2023 was mostly lost, but he seems healthy now for what will almost certainly be his walk year. If he's healthy, he'll be a strong one-two punch with Strider in his last year before fleeing out west to join Freddie in LA. Thanks for Game Six, buddy. LHP Chris Sale AA was apparently involved in the bidding for Aaron Nola and Sonny Gray, but after striking out on both of them, he pivoted to the trade market in search of a pitcher who could conceivably give the Braves quality postseason innings. To that end, he traded pseudo-prospect Vaughn Grissom to Boston for Chris Sale straight-up. Now, Sale has been consistently effective -- even elite -- when he's been on the mound, but "when he's been on the mound" is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence. If he's healthy and able to give you vintage Sale when October rolls around, this trade will look brilliant. If he pitches ten innings and spends the rest of the season on the IL... less so. The Braves are good enough that they don't need Sale to turn in a Cy Young season to make the playoffs, but they would desperately like that kind of performance once they're there. Hopefully the uniforms are up to his exacting standards. They (of course) signed Sale to an extension shortly after acquiring him, but in truth, I think the real motivation for that was getting all his deferred money off their books. RHP Charlie Morton Morton has quietly become something of a fixture in Atlanta despite doing the retirement dance basically every offseason since signing here. The quality of his innings have gone down over the years, but he sure will give you a lot of them, and the Braves need that quantity. You have to figure this is the end of the line, though, leaving the Braves with two rotation spots to fill next offseason. RHP Reynaldo Lopez AA must really love this guy because he rushed out to sign him basically as soon as free agency opened. Not on that, they immediately announced they were going to stretch him out as a starter despite the fact that Lopez has only ever been good as a reliever. I guess it could work? Relieving is at least a viable backup option if the starting thing doesn't work out. Lopez won the fifth starter job in camp fair and square, but he wasn't exactly facing down the toughest competition either. ...And the rest The big name here is Bryce Elder, who made the All-Star team in 2023 after a stellar first half, but was absolutely wretched the rest of the way -- and frankly, "wretched" is probably closer to his true talent level than "All-Star." He's probably still the first man up when they need a starter, though, which is... ugh. The Braves spent much of the offseason clearing a lot of the flotsam and jetsam from their pitching depth chart. Michael Soroka and Jared Shuster are in Chicago, Kyle Wright is rehabbing in Kansas City, Kolby Allard is in Philly. The remaining pitchers can be pretty clearly divided between real prospects who could break through (AJ Smith-Shawver, Hurston Waldrep) and organization filler for emergencies (Huascar Ynoa, Dylan Dodd, Darius Vines). I have to figure that they'll look to the trade market before they give too many starts to the second group. The Bullpen! As usual, the Braves have a lot of live arms who they can slot in in some configuration. The Opening Day bullpen looks like this: CL Raisel Iglesias LHP AJ Minter RHP Pierce Johnson RHP Joe Jimenez LHP Aaron Bummer LHP Tyler Matzek LHP Dylan Lee RHP Jesse Chavez But they've also got a bunch of quality depth pieces at lower levels, plus Lopez or any of the other depth starters could end up here. By the end of the season they'll have a good bullpen, even if it takes them a while to figure out who specifically should be in it. Management! The man who signs everyone to an extension ultimately received an extension himself, as Alex Anthopolous signed a seven(!) year extension this offseason. GMs do eventually reach their expiration dates with a team, but I can't pick a single GM I'd rather have running the show than AA right now. Frankly, despite the fact that he's more controversial with fans, the same can be said of Brian Snitker. You do have to build a roster around his limitations as a manager, but the Braves have by and large done that, and the players respect the hell out of him and play hard for him. This is very much an "if it ain't broke" situation. Snitker did lose several of his coaches to other organizations this offseason, most notably Ron Washington and Eric Young Sr to Anaheim. Farm System! The Braves have slowly been rebuilding their minor league depth since graduations and trades thinned it out, but they're not quite there yet. They've got a few pitching prospects who will find their way onto Top 100 lists in the form of Smith-Shawver and Waldrep, but they lack any kind of blue chip superstar prospect right now (not that they need one presently). Keep an eye on Ignacio "Nacho" Alvarez, who could force his way into the infield discussion by the end of the year, or Drake Baldwin, who might be d'Arnaud's successor within the next year or two. Prognosis? The projections say you could lop the reigning MVP off this roster and still have an easy divisional favorite, but, well, projections. Still, it would be a shocker if this team didn't make the playoffs fairly comfortably in this playoff format -- they'd have to be absolutely ravaged by injuries on both sides of the ball not to. The question is, as always, how deep can they go in October?
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2024 17:35
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 22, 2024 05:13 |
|