Atlanta Braves: How the Braves could pitch the playoffs

Atlanta Braves postseason starters

Typically, a team would take its top 4 performing starters for the playoff rotation. With the Braves, the top 3 spots in that postseason rotation are fairly set, and frankly, they should match up pretty well with nearly anyone that a team in the National League could throw out there. Perhaps the Atlanta Braves don’t have a Clayton Kershaw or Madison Bumgarner or Max Scherzer, but if the playoffs were to start today, none of those guys would be in the postseason.

In fact, it’s quite feasible that the Braves will have the strongest playoff front 3 in the National League, depending on who gets in of course.

Those top 3, in case you weren’t sure, would be Kevin Gausman, Mike Foltynewicz, and Sean Newcomb. It’s which starter would be the fourth that raises some questions.

A game like last night shows the type of growth that Julio Teheran has had on the mound over the last couple of years. He’s willing to take the ball and battle, even when he has less than his best stuff, but the issue is that Julio simply doesn’t have “premium” stuff in the game the way you would like a playoff starter to have.

On the other hand, his stuff could look like a dynamic starter in comparison to Anibal Sanchez. Sanchez has had plenty of success for the Atlanta Braves in 2018, but there is good reason to wonder exactly how predictable his success could be.

Whether you take Sanchez or Teheran is a debate that could be an interesting one to have, but both will come into play later, so we’ll leave that here, just knowing only one will be starting.