Guessing at Future Needs for the Atlanta Braves

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Jun 12, 2016; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Braves third baseman Adonis Garcia (13) slides into Chicago Cubs shortstop Javier Baez (9) during the second inning at Turner Field. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports /

As the August 1 trade deadline approaches, it is reasonable to assess where the major league team is… and where it is going… when looking for trade targets.

Way back just before Christmas last off-season, I penned a piece that compared the Braves of 2015 to the rest of the National League in an attempt to learn how far away the club was from being competitive.

The chart (reproduced below) that came from that effort was amazing… one simple advanced statistic – the fangraphs WAR – turned out to be a near-dead-on indicator of the success of every NL team.

In short, if you add up the offensive WAR and the pitching WAR for every club, you were a winner and a playoff team if your WAR exceeded 43. The next best non-playoff teams (Nationals and Giants) finished with 40.8 and 39.7 WAR, respectively.

2015 WAR vs. Wins – National League. TomahawkTake.com graphic. Data source: fangraphs.com /

Atlanta in 2015? 18.6. Obviously, there was a long way to go.

As of today, your NL playoff clubs would be Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, the Dodgers, and either the Mets or Marlins (tied). Their cumulative WAR at this point looks like this (in order of best record first):

Giants: 10.1 (Pitching) + 19.4 (Offense) = 29.5
Nats: 13.9 + 14.9 = 28.8
Cubs: 10.2 + 22.1 = 32.3
Dodgers: 15.8 + 9.9 = 25.7
Mets: 13.9 + 9.2 = 23.1
Marlins: 7.7 + 13.7 = 21.4

Anyone under-performing so far? Only one team, really… and they are knocking on the door.

Cardinals: 9.9 +13.8 = 23.7
Pirates: 2.6 + 14.1 = 16.7
Rockies: 7.8 + 9.6 = 17.4

In other words, this model is still holding firm. I have my personal annoyances with pitching WAR in particular, but these results are very hard to argue with.

So far this season, the Braves have recorded numbers indicating that there’s an even longer road to travel: Pitching side, we have a 6.1. Offensively? 0.0.

If you scale those figures for the rest of the year, you get something around an abysmal 11.1. That’s not good.

How do we get from 11 to 43? That is the key question to keep in mind when this club is involved in trades… whether in the next 2 weeks or during the next off-season.

Making the Math Personal

That 43 WAR figure means that on average, every member of the 25-man roster needs to produce 1.72 WAR for the year.

At this time, exactly two players are performing on a pace to match that level: Freddie Freeman (2.6) and Tyler Flowers (0.9). With Flowers out of action for the next 6+ weeks, that value is not apt to be replaced, either, so even 11.1 is looking tough to match.

I’m going to concentrate on the hitting/defense side of this equation since we know there will be growing pains on the pitching side of this for a while… never mind that the pitching has at least been holding up its end of the bargain a lot better than the offense. In addition, the Braves will be striving to upgrade pitching from within, so the place to look for the most significant upgrades will be among the position players.

Bright Spots?

Injuries have taken a toll as Mallex Smith had a 0.5 WAR thing going over 1/3rd of the season. That still doesn’t project to 1.7 for the year, but it was close and he’s a rookie.

Ender Inciarte likewise has been out for quite a while, and he’s at 0.7. If he stays healthy, then that could get close to 2.0 by years’ end.

But that’s about it on the offensive side at this time.

Next: One Position at a time

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