Atlanta Braves twenty-four games in – who’s hot who’s not
By Fred Owens
Who’s hot – who’s not for the season so far?
Actually, almost all regular members of the lineup started hot. As you can probably guess, Ronald Acuna Jr. leads the pack since the season began. All statistics come from Fangraphs and a search I created on StatCast.
| Overall Hot | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | BACON |
| Ronald Acuna Jr. | 103 | .302 | .423 | .558 | .981 | .417 |
| Freddie Freeman | 107 | .326 | .441 | .500 | .941 | .391 |
| Dansby Swanson | 91 | .263 | .358 | .550 | .908 | .322 |
| Nick Markakis | 95 | .321 | .400 | .464 | .864 | .377 |
| Josh Donaldson | 100 | .261 | .375 | .477 | .852 | .400 |
| Tyler Flowers | 46 | .317 | .391 | .439 | .830 | .520 |
| Brian McCann | 36 | .294 | .375 | .441 | .816 | .321 |
Freeman slots in at number two with Dansby Swanson starting the season injury free and hot.
It took Bringer of Rain awhile to find his timing but he hits the ball hard and now they’ve started to fall in – or in some cases out of – the park.
Only two players warrant joining the cold list and a lot – not all – of that is sample size related.
| Overall Not | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | BACON |
| Johan Camargo | 18 | .239 | .314 | .391 | .705 | .290 |
| Ender Inciarte | 21 | .225 | .300 | .325 | .625 | .300 |
Camargo has come through with some critical hits and as you’ll see later Ender’s been warming up lately as well.
This seems a good spot to show you the x-stats, average launch angle (LA) and exit velocity (EV). for the Atlanta Braves regulars season.
EV is in miles per hour; LA is in degrees lofted above horizontal:
| Players | xBA | xSLG | xwOBA | EV | LA |
| Charlie Culberson | .429 | 1.195 | .596 | 95.6 | 20.0 |
| Nick Markakis | .405 | .606 | .410 | 92.2 | 7.7 |
| Freddie Freeman | .392 | .599 | .471 | 92.3 | 16.2 |
| Ronald Acuna Jr. | .392 | .624 | .472 | 90.2 | 11.5 |
| Josh Donaldson | .386 | .789 | .471 | 93.7 | 7.4 |
| Tyler Flowers | .385 | .728 | .440 | 91.1 | 17.8 |
| Dansby Swanson | .371 | .667 | .457 | 91.3 | 13.2 |
| Ozzie Albies | .338 | .533 | .363 | 87.6 | 12.4 |
| Brian McCann | .336 | .575 | .397 | 85.2 | 2.0 |
| Matt Joyce | .316 | .902 | .472 | 89.7 | 28.9 |
| Ender Inciarte | .305 | .357 | .297 | 78.3 | 1.9 |
| Johan Camargo | .298 | .306 | .315 | 90.4 | 15.3 |
I sorted on xBA, but what struck me as odd was Camargo’s low x-slugging number
L/R Splits
As you might imagine, numbers as big as those already provided mean the left/right divide isn’t as great as it seemed at times in the past.
| Hot vs RHP | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Matt Joyce | 20 | .294 | .400 | .824 | 1.224 |
| Charlie Culberson | 7 | .286 | .286 | .857 | 1.143 |
| Tyler Flowers | 37 | .364 | .432 | .515 | .948 |
| Josh Donaldson | 81 | .282 | .370 | .535 | .906 |
| Brian McCann | 35 | .300 | .400 | .467 | .867 |
| Freddie Freeman | 80 | .308 | .438 | .415 | .853 |
| Ronald Acuna Jr. | 81 | .273 | .400 | .439 | .839 |
| Nick Markakis | 78 | .297 | .385 | .453 | .838 |
| Dansby Swanson | 74 | .238 | .324 | .476 | .801 |
While Ozzie had a couple of big hits, he and Camargo aren’t seeing right-handed pitchers well. Ender is off to a typically slow start to the season is having a particularly rough time against opposite sided pitchers.
| Not vs RHP | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Ozzie Albies | 85 | .240 | .329 | .400 | .729 |
| Ender Inciarte | 71 | .188 | .254 | .297 | .550 |
| Johan Camargo | 34 | .200 | .294 | .233 | .527 |
Ender’s struggles don’t seem to include lefties, and other left-handed bats don’t seem bothered who pitches.
| Hot Vs LHP | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Ronald Acuna Jr. | 26 | .400 | .500 | .950 | 1.450 |
| Dansby Swanson | 21 | .353 | .476 | .824 | 1.300 |
| Freddie Freeman | 31 | .370 | .452 | .704 | 1.155 |
| Johan Camargo | 17 | .313 | .353 | .688 | 1.040 |
| Nick Markakis | 22 | .400 | .455 | .500 | .955 |
| Ender Inciarte | 19 | .375 | .474 | .438 | .911 |
| Ozzie Albies | 24 | .375 | .375 | .500 | .875 |
Surprisingly, Flowers can’t seem to hit them this year, Donaldson has similar issues. and McCann has only five PA.
| Not vs LHP | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| Josh Donaldson | 23 | .176 | .391 | .235 | .627 |
| Brian McCann | 5 | .250 | .200 | .250 | .450 |
| Tyler Flowers | 9 | .125 | .222 | .125 | .347 |
Here are the Atlanta Braves average launch angles and exit velocities to accompany the splits.
| Exit velocity | Launch Angle | |||
| Player | vs RHP | vs LHP | vs RHP | vs LHP |
| Brian McCann | 92.7 | 84.1 | 31.3 | -2.4 |
| Charlie Culberson | 93.8 | 97.9 | 26.5 | 11.3 |
| Dansby Swanson | 90.9 | 91.5 | 20.9 | 10.9 |
| Ender Inciarte | 75.8 | 79.0 | 3.8 | 1.4 |
| Freddie Freeman | 92.3 | 92.3 | 15.4 | 16.7 |
| Johan Camargo | 94.4 | 88.5 | 22.0 | 12.2 |
| Josh Donaldson | 90.3 | 94.5 | -4.5 | 10.2 |
| Matt Joyce | 73.6 | 91.0 | -15.0 | 32.6 |
| Nick Markakis | 91.1 | 92.7 | -3.2 | 11.8 |
| Ozzie Albies | 88.3 | 87.3 | 2.6 | 16.2 |
| Ronald Acuna Jr. | 91.1 | 89.9 | 15.0 | 10.3 |
| Tyler Flowers | 78.8 | 93.4 | 49.8 | 11.7 |
Negative launch angles lead to groundballs, something between 10 and 25 is better as are higher exit velocities.
Examples you might recognize:
- Brian McCann: average launch angle is +1.9° (8th lowest in baseball)
- Ender Enciarte: +2.0° (9th lowest).
- That said, McCann’s average exit velocity is 7 mph higher than Inciarte’s