Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: time to have Albies bat leadoff?
It took a bit for him to adjust to the majors (duh), but over the past couple of weeks, Albies has suddenly found his groove.
The Atlanta Braves have a gem in Ender Inciarte… no doubt. But for quite a while, I’ve been curious as to whether he’s been out of place at the leadoff spot in this lineup.
Inciarte is hitting .299 for the season and has 162 hits – easily the best on this team. But he also has just a 6.3% walk rate, which leads to a .334 OBP. That’s good, but you like to have your leadoff hitter at something around .350-.360.
In August, Ender’s batting average has actually risen to .316, though his walks are down further (4 for the month here on the 28th).
Let’s switch to Ozzie Albies. Now admittedly, hitting down in the 7-hole might have helped him a bit, but it isn’t like Albies would see the leadoff position as a new thing since that’s been his lot for his entire professional career.
Despite his slow start, Ozzie, called up on August 1st, is now hitting .271 with a .330 OBP…that’s overall. Over the past 2 weeks, those numbers are .300/.352.
Now Albies hasn’t exactly been a walking machine either… 7.4% overall, though lower now since he started hitting.
If you’d like to call “Small Sample Size” on me, then I could understand… but note that I’m not waving the Swanson banner either…. despite his past 2 weeks with a slash line of .395/.520/.579/1.099.
How About a Change?
But in terms of general skillsets, I would love to see a 1-2 punch of Albies and Inciarte at the top of the lineup… at least for September to see how that works. That combination seems to make sense.
When Swanson first came up, we all heralded him as the future 2-hole guy… and that still might be the case… but right now he’s looking a lot better in the 8-slot and I would not really want to mess with that success right now.
Is that because of Albies being right in front of him? Hard to say. If you subscribe to that theory, then putting this pair 1-2 would work (and then Inciarte goes to #8). But I would like to see Albies get a shot at the top spot for the final month as part of his acclimation-to-the-majors process.
Here’s your box from the Sunday matinee with an offense that just didn’t click against the Rockies’ #1 starter:
| Batting | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | PA | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | Pit | Str | WPA | PO | A | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ender Inciarte CF | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | .299 | .342 | .399 | .741 | 11 | 9 | -0.090 | 2 | 0 | |
| Brandon Phillips 3B | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | .291 | .330 | .426 | .756 | 13 | 8 | 0.047 | 0 | 0 | |
| Freddie Freeman 1B | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 | .322 | .420 | .615 | 1.035 | 23 | 10 | 0.006 | 7 | 0 | CS |
| Nick Markakis RF | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | .278 | .357 | .395 | .752 | 18 | 11 | -0.144 | 1 | 0 | |
| Kurt Suzuki C | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | .269 | .345 | .543 | .888 | 14 | 10 | -0.020 | 11 | 0 | HBP |
| Matt Adams LF | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | .271 | .314 | .523 | .837 | 14 | 8 | -0.053 | 3 | 0 | |
| Ozzie Albies 2B | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | .271 | .330 | .494 | .824 | 15 | 11 | 0.019 | 2 | 3 | |
| Dansby Swanson SS | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | .228 | .308 | .331 | .639 | 9 | 7 | -0.102 | 1 | 2 | CS |
| Mike Foltynewicz P | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .054 | .054 | .054 | .108 | 5 | 3 | -0.019 | 0 | 0 | |
| Lane Adams PH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .275 | .327 | .392 | .719 | 4 | 3 | -0.043 | |||
| A.J. Minter P | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||
| Jason Motte P | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||
| Matt Kemp PH | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .293 | .339 | .478 | .818 | 3 | 2 | -0.112 | GDP | ||
| Sam Freeman P | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | 0 | 1 | ||||
| Jim Johnson P | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||
| Team Totals | 30 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 34 | .200 | .294 | .200 | .494 | 129 | 82 | -0.511 | 27 | 6 |
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
| Pitching | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | HR | ERA | BF | Pit | Str | Ctct | StS | StL | GB | FB | LD | Unk | GSc | WPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Foltynewicz, L (10-10) | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 4.84 | 21 | 97 | 61 | 36 | 10 | 15 | 2 | 10 | 6 | 0 | 58 | 0.143 |
| A.J. Minter | 1.1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 7.71 | 7 | 26 | 18 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 0 | -0.179 | |
| Jason Motte | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3.60 | 2 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.022 | |
| Sam Freeman | 1.1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2.98 | 5 | 19 | 14 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0.012 | |
| Jim Johnson | 0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5.62 | 4 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0.012 | |
| Team Totals | 9 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 9 | 1 | 3.00 | 39 | 158 | 103 | 59 | 20 | 24 | 8 | 17 | 10 | 0 | 58 | 0.010 |
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Can Atlanta solve the Phillies this time? Atlanta has 6 more games against Philadelphia this year… a chance to salvage their 2-11 record against the worst team in baseball. Can we make that happen?