House That Hank Built
Fansided

10 Ways the Atlanta Braves can improve this season.

By James Kunkle

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 25: Ozzie Albies #1 and Ronald Acuna Jr. #13 of the Atlanta Braves celebrate the 7-3 win over the New York Mets on September 25,2018 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 25: Ozzie Albies #1 and Ronald Acuna Jr. #13 of the Atlanta Braves celebrate the 7-3 win over the New York Mets on September 25,2018 at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 10
Next
ATLANTA, GA – JUNE 25: Julio Teheran #49 of the Atlanta Braves walks off the field after striking out Asdrubal Cabrera #13 of the New York Mets to end the eighth inning at Turner Field on June 25, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA – JUNE 25: Julio Teheran #49 of the Atlanta Braves walks off the field after striking out Asdrubal Cabrera #13 of the New York Mets to end the eighth inning at Turner Field on June 25, 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

Cut down on the walks

We have all discussed this until we are blue in the face, the Braves gave out entirely way too many walks last season. Just to remind you here are the numbers again.

  • 635 Total Walks
  • 43 Intentional Walks
  • Averaged just under 4 walks a game!

As you can see and as you can probably do the math yourself, 4 walks per game is 1 every 2 innings. That in turn, obviously means no clean innings. It makes everyone work harder and drives your pitch count up at a very quick pace, which in turn takes a pitcher out in the 5th inning. That in turns make the bullpen work longer and they are gassed by late August. It’s just not a good combination.

Yes, it was ugly. Newcomb issued 81 and Julio Teheran issued 84. The Bullpen wasn’t much better either as Sam Freeman gave out 32 free passes in 50.1 IP and Jesse Biddle handed out 31 in 63.2 IP.

The Braves let go of pitching coach Chuck Hernandez, so maybe new pitching coach Rick Kranitz will have the cure for the sickness that we know as walks.

Home/Braves News