Looking back at the Atlanta Braves worst postseason loss
By Fred Owens
What to do in November when you’ve flopped
The nucleus of the team remains sound, and the future should sparkle, but waiting until next year is no longer acceptable because this was next year.
The Atlanta Braves will bring back Tyler Flowers, his magic glove, and missing bat because teams don’t dump both catchers and hope they can find two. Flowers is, at this point, a backup catcher and not a great one at that. They’ll probably bring back Teheran and Markakis as well while hopefully finding better players to turn them into trade material.
The bullpen continues to need help. Pitch-to-contact closers are scary, so I hope Greene gets the job he was hired to do, and we add some support for him not named Jackson, Blevins, or Tomlin.
A corner outfielder is needed as well until Cristian Pache or Drew Waters are ready. Austin Riley needs to play winter ball to find his hitting stroke, or he’ll spend another year in AAA.
Most agree the Braves should try to sign Donaldson again. It will take an extra year to keep him away from other teams, and that shouldn’t be a problem as third basemen age well.
That’s a wrap
I waited a week to write this because I didn’t want emotions to get in the way or reality. In spite of all the things they didn’t do, the Atlanta Braves were six outs away from playing the Nationals in the NLCS. They got that close because other teams didn’t plan well either, and the Braves had Acuna, Albies, Soroka, and Swanson, among others.
This postseason highlighted the return of the starting pitcher as an essential force needed to win it all. The Nationals dismantled the Dodgers and destroyed the Cardinals behind Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin, and Anibal Sanchez.
The Astros added Zack Greinke to Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole.
The Braves have Soroka, Foltynewicz, and Fried with perhaps one of Sean Newcomb, Kyle Wright, and Bryse Wilson to follow, but an established veteran not named Keuchel would look really good in that mix.
Next. Surprise, surprise, surprise. dark
All we can do is wait and hope we see steps taken to improve weak areas and add depth with a résumé, including successful Major League experience.