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Photo by Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
The Braves will get to full strength, or something resembling it, eventually. Hopefully. First, a digression (can it really be a digression if it comes at the very beginning?): having seen a lot of baseball seasons at this point, my pattern recognition-focused human brain always tries to relate, or contextualize, the current season in the context of past seasons. Whenever the Braves struggle, I always come back to 2018 — “Is this the year that karma pays the Braves back for 2018?” But, I also think about other years and teams sometimes. Like, the 2023 Rangers: they were projected to be meh (82 wins), played legitimately great (second in position player fWAR, 18th in pitching fWAR), won 90 games... but the talent level was the talent level, they were projected for 82 wins again in 2024, and had a very unremarkable, 78-win, not much good about it season.
Anyway, one thing that will probably help the Braves stop ruminating on their abominable start to the year will be actually getting their reinforcements off the Injured List and onto the active roster. Which brings us to the question today: which of those reinforcements do you think is going to make the biggest difference?
Ronald Acuña Jr. could be the obvious choice, though his return isn’t exactly imminent. Braves’ left fielders are currently 28th in MLB with -0.4 fWAR; Braves’ right fielders are 25th with -0.3 fWAR. Put those together along with Michael Harris II, and the Braves have the second-worst outfield production in baseball so far. It doesn’t quite matter just how “back” Acuña is, it’d be almost impossible for him not to be an upgrade. The same also goes for Alex Verdugo, but that’s a far less exciting option.
Spencer Strider, on the other hand, is back imminently. The Braves’ rotation, well... they’ve had an unfairly rough go of it: a 111 ERA- (bad and bottom ten), a 111 FIP- (bad and bottom ten), but an 89 xFIP- (great and top five). SIERA aligns to xFIP, but xwOBA does not. So, the rotation could be fine, unless you think their lack of contact management is “real,” in which case Strider might be a huge help.
And then there’s the bullpen, which people love to complain about, but is pretty much literally a bullpen: its pitching triple-slash is 112/122/100, and in this case, the run prevention and FIP aren’t even backed up by the xwOBA/contact management. I guess here you could be hoping that somehow Craig Kimbrel appears and fixes the issue, but that seems unlikely.
Anyway, have at it.
Daily Notes
Record: 4-11
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .168/ .323(Season rank: 20th | 18th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: .378 / .343 (Season rank: 25th | 25th)
Yesterday’s homers: 0
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 2
Record when out-xwOBAing: 2-4 (League: 173-57)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 2-7 (League: 57-173)
Record when out-wOBAing: 4-1 (League: 198-33)
Record when out-wOBAed: 0-10 (League: 33-198)
Record when outhomering: 2-1 (League: 121-31)
Record when outhomered: 0-7 (League: 31-121)
<img alt="Gatorade All-Star Workout Day" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/uVG8K8sPWtNuIi8U2AOtEgQQFqI=/2x0:7897x5263/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/74022518/1520728200.0.jpg">
Photo by Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
The Braves will get to full strength, or something resembling it, eventually. Hopefully. First, a digression (can it really be a digression if it comes at the very beginning?): having seen a lot of baseball seasons at this point, my pattern recognition-focused human brain always tries to relate, or contextualize, the current season in the context of past seasons. Whenever the Braves struggle, I always come back to 2018 — “Is this the year that karma pays the Braves back for 2018?” But, I also think about other years and teams sometimes. Like, the 2023 Rangers: they were projected to be meh (82 wins), played legitimately great (second in position player fWAR, 18th in pitching fWAR), won 90 games... but the talent level was the talent level, they were projected for 82 wins again in 2024, and had a very unremarkable, 78-win, not much good about it season.
Anyway, one thing that will probably help the Braves stop ruminating on their abominable start to the year will be actually getting their reinforcements off the Injured List and onto the active roster. Which brings us to the question today: which of those reinforcements do you think is going to make the biggest difference?
Ronald Acuña Jr. could be the obvious choice, though his return isn’t exactly imminent. Braves’ left fielders are currently 28th in MLB with -0.4 fWAR; Braves’ right fielders are 25th with -0.3 fWAR. Put those together along with Michael Harris II, and the Braves have the second-worst outfield production in baseball so far. It doesn’t quite matter just how “back” Acuña is, it’d be almost impossible for him not to be an upgrade. The same also goes for Alex Verdugo, but that’s a far less exciting option.
Spencer Strider, on the other hand, is back imminently. The Braves’ rotation, well... they’ve had an unfairly rough go of it: a 111 ERA- (bad and bottom ten), a 111 FIP- (bad and bottom ten), but an 89 xFIP- (great and top five). SIERA aligns to xFIP, but xwOBA does not. So, the rotation could be fine, unless you think their lack of contact management is “real,” in which case Strider might be a huge help.
And then there’s the bullpen, which people love to complain about, but is pretty much literally a bullpen: its pitching triple-slash is 112/122/100, and in this case, the run prevention and FIP aren’t even backed up by the xwOBA/contact management. I guess here you could be hoping that somehow Craig Kimbrel appears and fixes the issue, but that seems unlikely.
Anyway, have at it.
Daily Notes
Record: 4-11
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .168/ .323(Season rank: 20th | 18th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: .378 / .343 (Season rank: 25th | 25th)
Yesterday’s homers: 0
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 2
Record when out-xwOBAing: 2-4 (League: 173-57)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 2-7 (League: 57-173)
Record when out-wOBAing: 4-1 (League: 198-33)
Record when out-wOBAed: 0-10 (League: 33-198)
Record when outhomering: 2-1 (League: 121-31)
Record when outhomered: 0-7 (League: 31-121)
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