Meat and Potatoes 7: Analyzing the Braves’ Week, April 9-16

More Weekly Atlanta Braves Analysis from Meat and Potatoes.

[Note: these numbers do not include Saturdays win. As a general rule, the stats I’ve included look a touch better after another solid performance by the Good Guys yesterday.]

The team numbers were bad this week, folks. I’ll forgive you if you aren’t surprised. The team triple slash all starts with 2’s, and Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) shows us at nearly 50 percentage points below league average offensive output. Our low Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) suggests we were maybe a little unlucky this week, and our ‘Clutch’ score shows we were actually a little better offensively in high leverage situations than overall. Also, only one HR? Sheesh.

On the team pitching side, the Braves actually look a little better than you may expect in terms of walks, strikeouts, and HRs. Not good, but not bottom of the league either. Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) suggests that we may have been unlucky on balls in play and sequencing (the order of offensive events transpiring). Sure enough, our pitching Clutch score is a poor one, which tells us that Braves pitchers were markedly worse this week when the situation was most important.

I’ve included some notable individual performances of the week. Notable, of course, can mean many things. We see Jhoulys Chacin accumulating a whopping 0.4 WAR in only 6 IP, with a stellar K/Inn posting (8 in 6 innings). Beckham and Nick Markakis were big producers this week, both utilizing quality contact and low strike out rates to post YUGE wRC+ numbers. Nick Markakis is currently leading the bigs in doubles, as a matter of fact. Expect both players to cool down, though; their super-high BABIP rates are not sustainable. Some of Markakis’ doubles, for instance, should start turning into outs as the sample size increases, even though his hard contact rates suggest that his success so far is no fluke. That’s a very encouraging sign for the veteran.

Less encouraging were Freddie Freeman and Julio Teheran. Julio may not have been as bad as his ERA suggests, according to his substantially lower FIP. The hits just came at the wrong time, ala that Bryce Harper grand slam, perhaps. But he was giving up a very high rate of hard contact, as you probably noticed if you watched his starts. My eyes suggest that he has been finding too much plate on his offerings, despite pretty dynamic movement. Let’s hope that changes soon.

Freddie is managing to make out after out, despite not striking out too much (only 5 in 24 PAs). He is carrying a respectable OBP by continuing to gather walks, though he usually gets on base at a higher clip. I have zero idea why Freeman is struggling so mightily, but it does look like his bat is lacking it’s normal quickness and aggression through the zone. Freddie hooked a ringing double Saturday; maybe better things are nigh from our lovable slugger.

Down on the Farm.

Catch up on our stacked minor league system via our resident guru, Ben Chase. He updates the major minor happenings twice weekly, on Monday and Thursday.

Here are this week’s links, to Monday and Thursday.

Roster and Lineup Still Settling In.

RHP Jose Ramirez was DFA’d this week, and he luckily (?) cleared waivers. He was Outrighted to Gwinnett where he’ll keep working on convincing the ball to travel to its intended destination. Ramirez was replaced by a combination of two rookie relievers, LH Hunter Cervenka and RH Joel De La Cruz. Cervenka makes sense because of a strong record against LH hitters and the Braves lack of such stuff, but the De La Cruz promotion was curious, given his very pedestrian numbers in the minors. He only lasted a couple of days before heading back down to make room for Jhoulys Chacin‘s ascent towards his first start of the year, though, so no need to worry our heads too much.

More from Tomahawk Take

• Braves News: How the Braves got their name, mailbag, more
• Atlanta Braves Mailbag: New Year’s Edition
• Braves News: Atlanta makes a pair of trades, prospect debuts, more
• Atlanta Braves History: How the Red Stockings became the Braves
• Braves News: Atlanta Braves acquire Eli White from the Texas Rangers

Mallex Smith is here! Malex Smith is here! A little tonic for our misery, he will be lighting the basepaths aflame at least while Inciarte is on the DL. Something serious needs to be added to this celebratory tone, though: somebody get that guy a helmet that fits, or some less violent slide mechanics, or something! The kid loses his helmet every time he belly flops at high velocity. He’s already cut his face up with that noise. #saveMallex

Daniel Castro is here! Ok, it doesn’t have the same ring. Castro has a slick glove though, and with Erick Aybar‘s early struggles at, well, baseball, the 23 year old Mexican native may figure in more than any of us probably anticipated.

After an excellent spring, John Gant had a rough first few appearances and was swapped for fellow RH reliever Chris Withrow. It’s not clear what Gant’s role will be with the Braves moving forward. Ideally, he can show that he could be a solid back-end starter at the big league level, either for the Braves or for someone else. Gant’s multi-pitch arsenal and finesse approach certainly seem more ideal for a starting role than the alternative. If nothing else, his funky windup made him momentarily famous.

Jace  Peterson’s Disappearance Reappearance Changing Role.

Jace Peterson has come into the 2016 season without any leash length whatsoever as the starting 2B for the Braves. There were different camps of thinking as to how much the Braves ‘believed in’ Jace’s hot month or so in 2015 as being something he could repeat. Well, Beckham has been getting the starts at second, and a superior defender in Daniel Castro is also sharing the roster with Peterson now.

Jace has seen time in the outfield already this year; it’s possible that the Braves are toying with the idea of leveraging his athleticism in a super utility role. With Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson seemingly cemented as the middle infield of the future, I personally feel that molding Jace into something of a Ben Zobrist Lite is a prospect worth considering.

With a defensively suspect left side of the field, Peterson could seemingly find playing time throughout the year without getting the bulk of the starts at 2B. Let’s remember something though: Beckham is a career 82 wRC+ hitter. He is probably not going to make us very happy at 2B either.

Erick  Aybar Underwhelms.

As hinted at above, Erick Aybar seems to be playing himself right out of his everyday starting role. There’s already talk of shifting him to 2B to hide is glove. So far on the year, Erick is slashing .154/.190/.154 and showing a spotty glove. This is very much not the offensive upgrade and solid defense that Coppy claimed would make us feel less queasy about the Andrelton Simmons trade. It’s quite early. But it’s quite bad, too. Daniel Castro seems the most likely candidate to vulture Aybar’s playing time if he does continue this fall from grace. Castro has given us no reasons to expect him to hit at the big league level though, as his sub 100 wRC+ during essentially every stop in the minors and his 64 wRC+ effort last year in 100 big league PA suggest. Despite this, he looks like he could be a significant defensive upgrade over Aybar, who has of course also started very cold at the plate.

Please click on to find a few different takes on the Fredi Gonzalez situation, and more observations for the past week of Braves baseball! 

Next: Is Fredi G on the Hotseat? More Braves Links!

More Weekly Atlanta Braves Analysis from Meat and Potatoes.

Fredi Getting Increased Criticism.

More from Tomahawk Take

• Braves News: How the Braves got their name, mailbag, more
• Atlanta Braves Mailbag: New Year’s Edition
• Braves News: Atlanta makes a pair of trades, prospect debuts, more
• Atlanta Braves History: How the Red Stockings became the Braves
• Braves News: Atlanta Braves acquire Eli White from the Texas Rangers

I’ve found myself to be somewhat supportive of Fredi in the face of the often-present cacophony bellowing for his job on a platter. He sees things that I don’t. He has been in baseball in a professional capacity for years, while I’ve been comfortably scrutinizing his moves with nothing on the line and a beer in my hand. But, I’ve also felt all along that our boys would be better maximized by more of a thinking man’s manager; someone that could do a better job assessing leverage when deploying the bullpen and manage splits more effectively. Regardless of your viewpoint on Fredi, he’s been getting a lot of press by convincing writers that his job is in jeopardy. For instance:

From Tomahawk Take: 

Alan’s Take: Atlanta Braves’ GM Seems to Suggest that His Manager’s Job is Not Safe

Josh’s Take: Should the Atlanta Braves Fire Fredi Gonzalez Now? 

From Talking Chop: Think Fredi might be fired? Oddsmakers agree

From Deadspin: The Atlanta Braves Are Very Bad, And Fredi Gonzalez Isn’t Helping 

Twin Misery. 

The Braves have a strange bedmate so far this year. The Twins mirrored the Braves bad start, topping out at 9 consecutive losses. After they finally relinquished their choke hold on American League ineptitude, wouldn’t you know it, they too have put together a 2 game winning streak! What a world.

Other Links.

The Braves defense has been bad. (Talking Chop)

Teams are having some trouble adjusting to the new slide rule  (Tomahawk Take)

Jim Bowden of ESPN isn’t sympathetic (Insider subscription required)

Ahhh! Our Playoff Odds! (Fangraphs)

That’s it for this week, Braves fans! Keep it classy out there. Better times are ahead of us. Check back next weekend for your weekly analysis and recap from Meat and Potatoes.

Next: Did Coppy Refuse to Endorse Fredi Gonzalez?