Meat and Potatoes 5: Weekly Atlanta Braves Recap 3/27

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Mar 30, 2016; Lake Buena Vista, FL, USA; Atlanta Braves pitcher Eric O’Flaherty pitches during the sixth inning of a spring training baseball game against the New York Yankees at Champion Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports /

Welcome to the 5th edition of Meat and Potatoes, your weekly recap of Atlanta Braves News, Notes, and Links.

The Lead

The Atlanta Braves continued to amass impressively inept Spring results this week, going 0-5-1 and getting outscored 33 to 18. As the 2016 Grapefruit League schedule mercifully comes to a close, the top story in Braves Country is the question many of us are raising with a growing sense of worry: what the heck is going on with the lack of left-handed presence in the bullpen?

Soon after the 2015 season, John Coppolella stressed that improving the bullpen was a top priority. That was comforting for those of us pulling for the good guys, because the Atlanta ‘pen was hovering around the bottom of the league last year. In non-ballpark-adjusted ERA, the Braves relievers were better than only the Rockies in 2015. So why are we currently facing down Opening Day with so much uncertainty in the bullpen?

Bad luck has certainly reared its head. The season ending injury to Andrew McKirahan was unforeseeable. An optimists’ assessment of the acquisitions of Ian Krol, Evan Rutckyj and Alex Torres might conclude that the trio of lefties could have been expected to show more near-term promise than they did this Spring. However, as forgiving as your assessment of the Braves’ effort to shore up the bullpen may be, things are looking shaky as we pull into the home stretch.

Eric O’Flaherty is the lone wolf ‘sure thing.’ This is an unfortunate sentence to bring to your attention. Says a pessimist, “Eric accumulated an 8.70 ERA in 30 innings last year.” Says an optimist, “Eric is only 50 innings removed from Tommy John surgery in 2013. His FIP was much better than his ERA in 2015, and he actually held LH hitters to a respectable result last year. He should bounce back.” I’ll leave you to choose your own place on the spectrum of that cocktail being closer to the brim or to ordering another round, but O’Flaherty is currently the only LH option in the Braves’ ‘pen.

I’m expecting a move to be made soon, in the form of a trade or of plucking a free agent. Coppy and Co. have given me enough reasons this Spring to believe that they want to have as much success in 2016 as possible, within the confines of the rebuild plan. After the embarrassment that was the Atlanta ‘pen last year, I can’t imagine that the Braves are willing to sit pat at this point.

Cross your fingers Braves fans… in hopes of not having to hold our noses.

News and Notes

More from Tomahawk Take

There were predictably a number of roster moves this week. I’ll list the important ones below, in order of most surprising to least surprising (to me, at least).

The Braves cut Michael Bourn and Emilio Bonifacio, and named Drew Stubbs and Alexi Ogando to the Opening Day roster. As I’ll illuminate soon when I post the results of our writers’ 25-man roster predictions, these moves didn’t make me look especially savvy. I thought Boni’ would make it, though I was tentative. Stubbs wasn’t in the mix, so I get a pass. But I didn’t see Ogando making the team, and I was darn near certain Bourn was a lock. So it goes. Get your details here from Jeff.
Catch up on the Drew Stubbs signing here from Alan, in case you weren’t aware that it happened. It was a quick switcharoo.
Jeff Francoeur made the club! That exclamation mark will strike different readers in different ways. It is an interesting development for the 2016 club though, to say the least. Here’s hoping his second go ’round with the Braves ends better than the first. Alan will catch you up on Frenchy’s return here.
Both Torres’ are gone. Carlos opted out after it was clear he wouldn’t make the big league club, and Alex was released. The righty Carlos never really found a niche this Spring, but it seemed to most observers that Alex was a likely inclusion on the roster due to his increasingly rare LH status. More on Carlos here, more on Alex here.
Nick Swisher was also cut. It didn’t surprise me that he didn’t make the team. It did surprise me how much I came to pull for the guy in his short time in the ATL. I hope he can finish out his career productively somewhere. I’m sure he’ll have fun either way. Alan covered Swisher’s exit from the system here.