Atlanta Braves Freddie Freeman Nick Markakis slumping in August

The Atlanta Braves continue to extend their lead even though key members of the team are slumping.

Over the past two weeks the bat of de Facto Atlanta Braves captain, first baseman, and one of the leaders in the NL MVP race, Freddie Freeman, turned ice-cold. While his overall numbers are good, his run production and to a lesser degree that of Nick Markakis dropped off.

Markakis production seemed so automatic we seem to take it for granted. It’s a shock when Nick doesn’t get a hit or two every game or drive in a run with a sacrifice fly. If Markakis is the metronome who keeps the Braves rhythm working, Freeman’s power drives the machine.

Historically, as Freeman goes so go the Braves. Fortunately, the Braves down days coincided with the Phillies down days and Atlanta managed to increase their lead while losing games they should have won.

Freeman went through one of these periods in June. After a sizzling May when he hit .355/.433/.518/.951 with a .404 wOBA and 155 wRC+, June saw him drop to (shock =, horror, dismay) .277/.348/.545/.893, .376 wOBA and 133 wRC+. Awful huh?

In reality, his June numbers were buoyed by a hot first week and at that point, Freeman still looked to be duplicating or bettering his buddy Chipper Jones’ 1999 season. He recovered some in July but began to slump again early this month.

Then and now

Looking at overall numbers only, it’s clear Freeman tired heading into the All-Star break and the days off did him some good.

Freeman’s early set in hard June 16 through June 30, when he hit just .108/.268/.240/.508 overall with a.226 wOBA and 36 wRC+.  His numbers over the past 15 days ( Aug 14 – 29) are better overall than in June but he actually produced more runs during that slump than now.

I used Fangraphs’ Splits Tool to compare the slumps and tried to find a nice visual to show them. In the end, the best I could come up with is two tables. The first shows Freeman’s overall number then and now.

It’s easy to see that his current overall numbers are better but his June numbers with runners on produced more runs.

The next table shows his number with men on, men in scoring position, high leverage, and elevated leverage – high + medium leverage – situations.

This slump is deeper and shockingly counterproductive in high leverage and with RISP. He’s tired and needs more than an inning off now and then.