Atlanta Braves lineup: Does Ozzie Albies continue leading off

Leadoff man blues

Now that we’ve established the reason for our losses falls across a wide spectrum of areas, let’s return to the leadoff spot.

Here are the numbers for Inciarte and Ozzie Albies hitting leadoff this year prior to Sunday’s game.

(Statistics from Fangraphs)

Ozzie hit for more power (no surprise) but didn’t get on base as often. When he hit leadoff Acuña hit second. Here are Ozzie and Acuña’s numbers hitting second

(Statistics from Fangraphs)

Albies clearly performs better hitting second. Mark Bowman touched on this Saturday:

". . .there’s reason to wonder if (Albies’) aggressive approach might not be as valuable if he is not hitting directly in front of. . .Freddie Freeman."

Bowman has a point. Ozzie sees more fastballs because Freeman hits behind him. Don’t tell me again, I know protection doesn’t exist… except it does.

Call it what you will, pitchers look ahead in the lineup for places to get an out. When the hitter on desk looks like trouble, pitchers attack the less dangerous hitter. As a result, that hitter gets better pitches to hit. Whether those pitches turn into anything depends on that hitter.

The Braves braintrust would like to solve this but that’s not as easy as it may seem.

Answers please!

Manager Brian Snitker takes a lot of justifiable heat from myself and others, but with the resources at hand, it’s hard to find a good answer. Bowman asked him about moving Acuna up the lineup. Snitker deflected the question without calling his rookie star out.

Since returning to the lineup, the Atlanta Braves’ hyper-talented rookie gets on base 28% of the time, walks 3.9% of the time and strikes out 32% of the time in an admittedly small sample size. Major league pitchers throw pitches that do things he didn’t see in AAA and he’s yet to figure it out.

Someone asked if he struck out less hitting in front of Freeman. Yes, but only marginally – 28.7% – and he walked more as well -7.7% – but in a smaller sample size.  That many strikeouts won’t work in the two hole.

Snitker’s out of ideas, he correctly told Bowman the problem doesn’t reside in the leadoff spot alone.

"“I don’t know where the pieces are . . .(to create) offense when we’re not hitting on all cylinders as a team . . . It’s not just one guy. It’s a team-type thing.” (Emphasis added)"

Ah yes, finally someone identifies – or at least implies – the root of the problem; the roster lacks the pieces needed to shake up the lineup.

Snitker can realign the deck chairs – as he did Sunday – and get a result. That result relieves the immediate pressure, but the problem remains unsolved.