Atlanta Braves: Diving into the first half stats, looking for ways to improve

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ATLANTA, GA – JULY 6: Austin Riley #27 of the Atlanta Braves rounds the bases after hitting a second-inning home run against the Miami Marlins at SunTrust Park on July 6, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Scott Cunningham/Getty Images) /

Offensive Strengths and Weaknesses

As we already touched on, the Atlanta Braves had one of the best offenses in all of Major League Baseball during the first half of the season.

All of the rankings in this article will be for all of Major League Baseball.

The Atlanta Braves rank seventh in AVG (.263), fifth in OBP (.337), fifth in SLG (.463), and sixth in OPS (.800).

I will say, among National League teams they rank second in most of those categories only behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.

They rank fourth in runs scored (491), 11th in doubles (164), seventh in home runs (143), and are ninth in walks (327).

This team has been very clutch as they are second in baseball with a .281 average in late/close situations, according to MLB.com.

A lot of talk early in the year was the Braves struggles with runners in scoring position. They ended up 13th in baseball in the first half with a .265 average with RISP.

According to FanGraphs, the Atlanta Braves had the fifth highest percentage in baseball for hard contact at 41.3 percent.

They also hit a home run on 17.4 percent of the fly balls they hit, which was also fifth best in baseball.

And coincidentally enough, they ranked fifth in baseball in team WAR at 15.4.

Offensively, there are really two areas I’d like to see this team improve on in the second half. And that’s strikeouts and stolen bases.

They struck out the 16th most in baseball in the first half and they ranked 16th in steals as well.

Of course, neither of those stats are important when you’re seventh in home runs. But in the postseason when you can’t always count on the two or three-run homer, you have to find other ways to generate offense.

The Atlanta Braves are too athletic to not have more stolen bases, and I’m a big believer of putting the ball in play, so I’d like to see them do a better job of limiting the strikeouts.

But make no mistake, this is a top five offense in all of baseball and all signs point to that continuing in the second half.

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