Ten Things We Learned about the Atlanta Braves in 2016
The 2016 season has ended for the Atlanta Braves. It was an unusual ride, to say the least. So what have we learned from all of this? Here’s 10 things.
A 68-93 mark for the 2016 season would elicit a round of, “Yeah, sounds about right,” from the Atlanta Braves faithful if that’s what they had collectively been promised in April.
The abysmal start and torrid finish not-withstanding, this is right around where most had them pegged. In fact, according to Baseball Reference, they outperformed their Pythagorean win expectancy by one (which, what Pythagoras knows about baseball remains murky, but still).
But as the glow of the 2016 campaign begins to fade, Turner Field goes dark and SunTrust Park becomes a tangible reality, let’s reflect on what we learned about the Atlanta Braves this year. It was a period of change and growth, for all of us—we went from Erick Aybar to Dansby Swanson, for goodness sake. So much has changed.
1. Freddie Freeman is a dang good hitter when you put any sort of talent around him.
Follow this line of thought…
- Pre-Matt Kemp Trade: .284/.367/.514, 18 homers, 25 doubles, 42 RBI, 46 walks (104 games)
- Post-Matt Kemp Trade: .340/.461/.680, 16 homers, 18 doubles, 49 RBI, 43 walks (54 games)
- Post-Dansby Swanson call-up: .347/.453/.667, 11 homers, 37 RBI, 51 total hits (40 games)
Small-sample size, nothing to play for, easier schedule, blah, blah, blah… sure, he could revert back to being merely a star in 2017, not a superstar like he turned into this year.
Of course, if Anthony Rizzo spent the two-thirds of his year in a lineup with seven Jason Heyward’s, got two months of what Jason Heyward used to be and 35 days of Addison Russell, his final numbers might not look so hot.
2. Brian Snitker deserves a chance
Maybe with the Braves, maybe with somebody else. But this season, juggling a never-ending stream of faces and with no mandate to win or even do anything other than avoid complete disaster… how can you NOT be impressed with Snitker? His team kept competing, ended the season on a tear and raved about him to anyone who would listen. Bud Black or Ron Washington may have a better resume’, but they won’t walk in and command the respect of all 25 guys instantaneously.
3. Ender Inciarte does not strike out… nor does he walk.
This is a pretty bizarre skill set for a leadoff guy in the modern game, but let’s follow the numbers.
- Take all the players since 1961 with at least 1500 plate appearances—nearly 1,750.
- Of those players, 392 had strikeout percentage equal to or better than Inciarte’s career 11.3.
- Of those 392, just 102 had a lower career walk rate than Inciarte’s career 6.1
What does this mean? I have no idea. The gamut is flush with possibilities. Jose Altuve and Ichiro are on that list. So are Rey Ordonez and Cesar Izturis. Export the FanGraphs document and play with it like I did—see what you find out.
What struck me the most is that the guys who don’t ever figure out how to drag that walk rate up to at least around 7.5 percent (slightly north of below average, according to FanGraphs) don’t age particularly well. Not important at this juncture, perhaps, but warrants observation going forward.
4. Defense remains an underrated commodity
The Braves had the worst defense in the National League by Defensive Runs Saved (-37) and firmly sat among the league’s worst in FanGraphs Inside Edge Fielding ratings on ball’s that were Likely (75 percent) and Almost Certain (97.4 percent) to be caught.
A full season of Inciarte and Swanson should help that, although better corner outfield production may be too much to hope for at this point in time if the Atlanta Braves are committed to Kemp and Nick Markakis at those spots going into 2017.
Regardless, the ERA’s of the young pitchers may not matter as much as some of the fielding-independent numbers, if you’re hoping to gauge an accurate assessment of development.
5. Sure things aren’t so sure
Matt Wisler continued to show flashes, then be beset by inconsistency. Aaron Blair and Tyrell Jenkins looked extremely shaky in their first partial season with the Atlanta Braves. Lucas Sims got roughed up in Triple-A. Braxton Davidson hit .224 in Carolina. Even Chris Ellis struggled in his own move up.
Do those struggles mean they have no chance at becoming the players we all hope (and some assured us) they would be? Of course not. It means that not everything is guaranteed. Not even Coppy’s brilliance assures us that every single young player will pan out, stay healthy and develop as they are expected. That’s why they still play the games on grass and not spreadsheets.
6. A good ‘pen is coming
Say what you will about Mauricio Cabrera, but he was one of two players in baseball to average 100mph on his fastball in 2016, and the other guy was Aroldis Chapman. Although it was a short audition, Shae Simmons (1.35 ERA in 6.2 IP) looked to be on his way back to full health.
Arodys Vizcaino showed flashes of being a reliable back-end stopper before he was derailed by injury (11.64 K/9, groundball rate near 55 percent). Ian Krol (3.18 ERA in 51.0 IP) and Jose Ramirez (.215 OBA in 32.2 IP) were just sort of around for the most part, but they were awfully effective. And so many of those young guys are going to wind up here if their rotation stints don’t pan out.
7. #AdonisIsOurHomeboy
Unless something real fluky happens—Justin Turner takes little to no money, Austin Riley grows up fast or Rio Ruiz really, really got a lot from his seven big-league plate-appearances in 2016—Adonis Garcia will go into spring training as [finds Bruce Buffer voice] THE UNDISPUTED STARTING THIRD BASEMAN OF THE ATLANTTTTTTA BRRRRRRRAVVVVVVVESSSSSSS!
Was he worth not-quite a Win Above Replacement this season? Sure.
Does he have the occasional play at third base that makes you question everything about your very existence? You betcha.
Could he somehow lower his 4.3 percent walk rate? Seems unlikely, but I’d sure like for him to have another 135 games to try.
I wrote about my love for Adonis earlier this year. Bat him in the top half of the lineup or (shudder) second, like Snit did for a portion of the season? You probably can book an October vacation with little trepidation. Surround him with good ballplayers and make him the clubhouse elder statesman and you may just have Juan Uribe Lite on your hands. Go dance, Adonis.
8. Flowers and Recker—not bad?
Put ‘em together and here’s what you got in 2016: 116 games, .272 average, 26 doubles, 10 homers, 56 RBI, .350 wOBA (no park factors), .790 OPS… you could do a whole lot worse over the course of a full season, even if Flowers couldn’t throw anyone out to save his life.
9. Don’t get attached to anyone
Jim Johnson signed an extension. And hooray for him, because he turned into the guy that was saving 50 a year for Baltimore back in the day during the second half of the season. But that doesn’t mean he’ll still be in an Atlanta uniform by May of next year.
Look back at some of these names and remember that they played for the Atlanta Braves in 2016.
More from Tomahawk Take
- Atlanta Braves 2012 Prospect Review: Joey Terdoslavich
- Braves News: Braves sign Fuentes, Andruw’s HOF candidacy, more
- The Weakest Braves Homers Since 2015
- Atlanta Braves Sign Joshua Fuentes to Minor League Deal
- Braves News: New Year’s Eve comes with several questions about the 2023 Braves
- Bud Norris
- Jeff Francoeur
- Lucas Harrell
- Drew Stubbs
- Jhoulys Chacin
- Hector Olivera
- Dario Alvarez
- Gordon Beckham
- Hunter Cervenka
- Kelly Johnson
- Alexi Ogando
- Erick Aybar
- Jason Grilli
- A.J. Pierzynski
- Eric O’Flaherty
- Michael Bourn (in spring training, but still)
That Coppy turned some of these guys into legitimate prosepcts (Travis Demeritte, Anferenee Seymour and Akeel Morris, to name three), hung a ‘For Sale Sign’ around Olivera’s neck and acquired Rejuvenated and Loving Baseball Matt Kemp straight up for him and didn’t let enough of these guys hang around long enough to lose 110 games is borderline amazing and if you don’t believe me, read that list again and then start going through some of those names on FanGraphs and BaseballReference.
That being said…
10. Coppy is going to have to find new folks to fleece
Dave Stewart got fired and AJ Preller got suspended (and will probably won’t [?????????] be fired after that’s over). The NL West may no longer be Coppy’s oyster in 2017.
Next: What do we do with Mallex?
(A hint on a possible answer to that Mallex question… see #9 above? Hmmm… Arizona will have a new GM this Fall…)