House That Hank Built
Fansided

5 reasons the Atlanta Braves won the NL East in 2019

By Clint Manry

ATLANTA, GA - SEP 20: Ronald Acuna Jr. #13 of the Atlanta Braves celebrates at the conclusion of an MLB game against the San Francisco Giants in which they clinched the NL East at SunTrust Park on September 20, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA - SEP 20: Ronald Acuna Jr. #13 of the Atlanta Braves celebrates at the conclusion of an MLB game against the San Francisco Giants in which they clinched the NL East at SunTrust Park on September 20, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Todd Kirkland/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 6
Next
(Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
(Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images) /

#5. Good health

It always feels like your favorite team suffers the worst injury luck, but trust me the Braves have been extremely fortunate this season in regards to overall health. Sure there have been a few tough ones involving key players having to miss for a while, but most of this team is still predominantly intact.

Season-long health is a pretty important factor in winning a division.

According to an early August piece by FanGraphs’ Jay Jaffe, the Atlanta Braves had the third-fewest injury days in the majors up to that point in the season, at 398 days.

For perspective, the 15th-most injury days came from the Chicago Cubs (835) while the most was and still most likely is the New York Yankees, with 1,765 days.

Another way to look at this:  in early August, the Braves were averaging roughly 30 days per IL stint. The Yankees? Roughly 70 days per stint.

Obviously this is September and there have been more injuries since that article — the Braves were at 11 then and are now at 24 total IL stints for the 2019 season — but regardless, the Braves are still doing rather well.

Four players went down in the month of August:

Of those four August injuries, Inciarte and Webb are still shelved, while Riley missed right at a month and McCann missed just 10 days.

So far, September hasn’t been too nice to the Braves, as they’ve lost potential backup catcher Alex Jackson, reliever A.J. Minter and utility players Johan Camargo and Charlie Culberson.

None of those listed players have returned and it’s possible neither of them will… but, and not too sound too insensitive, none of those four players are everyday starters (yes, Charlie is VERY important as a utility-player).

So even since that FanGraphs write-up, the overall health of the team has carried on strong.

Mike Foltynewicz looks to have made a nice recovery and is finally getting in his groove at the perfect time. Nick Markakis‘ fracture appears to have completely healed and hasn’t slowed him down so far.

Dansby Swanson‘s made a full recovery from his July ailment. McCann is still in one piece after serving not only that August IL stint, but one in April as well.

I realize there’s still more season left (and postseason) and don’t worry I’m knocking on a piece of wood as I write this, but the 2019 season has been an excellent year regarding injuries and when this campaign is over, great health should be credited as a huge contributing factor to the team’s division title.

Home/Braves News