Braves players who will be critical in the second half of 2021
If the Atlanta Braves want to make some sort of postseason push, they will need these key players to perform at a high level right now.
I’ll spare you from the standard “the 2021 season has not gone the way the Atlanta Braves were hoping it would” speech. I think we’ve heard that enough on this page and from everyone else on the internet. I’ll just say that football season is right around the corner and soon we can all “forget” about the Braves and enjoy our favorite college or NFL teams (which might lead to more heartbreak, but that’s beside the point).
The 2021 All-Star break wraps up on Friday for the Braves, and they will return home to start the second half of the season by taking on the defending American League champion Tampa Bay Rays. They will have to do so now without star outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. available for the rest of the year after suffering an ACL tear against the Miami Marlins.
Replacing the production and energy of a guy like Ronnie will not be an easy task, especially when the Braves’ playoff hopes were already looking thin with him healthy. However, the Braves still have great hitters and leaders in the lineup like All-Stars Freddie Freeman and Ozzie Albies that have proven they can step up.
In short, the entire team will need to step up to have a chance at a postseason run. Not one pitcher, hitter, or coach is exempt.
These are just a few names on the roster who need to play their best baseball from now until the end of the season to give the Braves a fighting chance for Chop-tober to become a reality.
Dansby Swanson
We’ll start with Dansby. Following a breakout 2020 in which he had career highs in stats such as batting average (.274), OPS (.809), and wRC+ (116, 100 being the average for MLB players), it looked as if we were about to see the former No. 1 overall pick from Vanderbilt start coming into his own with the bat after his first few big league seasons were up and down at the plate.
However, in 2021, Swanson sports a .243 batting average with 102 strikeouts, a 28.2% K rate. The 102 strikeouts have him tied for sixth in the majors for most strikeouts by any hitter.
He also had this rough stretch of games dating back to June:
#Braves' Dansby Swanson is 11-for-60 (.183) w/ 2 HR, 4 RBI, 7 walks and 20 strikeouts in his past 17 games. He's got the third-most strikeouts (93) in the NL behind Javier Baez and Eugenio Suarez.
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) July 3, 2021
It hasn’t all been bad for Dansby though, as he does have 15 home runs on the year (more than fellow NL shortstops Trevor Story and Francisco Lindor), and will likely finish with over 20 at his current rate. He has also had some defensive gems this year with his heads-up play at shortstop.
https://twitter.com/BravesOnBally/status/1411139247768276996
Swanson did finish the first half of the season going 9-for-19 at the plate, a promising sign after the rough month he had, and he is known for coming up with some timely hitting over his career, especially in late innings (something Chip Carey reminds us of a lot). He will need to build off of that hot streak in the second half of the season to help replace the production left by Acuña.
Huascar Ynoa
The biggest surprise player of the season (for myself at least), Huascar Ynoa made his mark in the Braves rotation before his injury in May.
On the year, Ynoa was 4-2 with a 3.02 ERA in eight starts while striking out 50 batters in 44.2 innings pitched, a 10.1 K/9 rate.
Oh yeah, he also was pretty good with the bat, hitting .353 with two homers and 6 RBI, the big highlight being a grand slam against the Washington Nationals.
Unfortunately, Ynoa went down with a broken hand in May after punching the dugout after a start against the Milwaukee Brewers. He has been on the injured list since, but will begin throwing soon, per David O’Brien:
Key #Braves medical updates: pic.twitter.com/WhSbS3oRlm
— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) July 10, 2021
We should probably expect Ynoa to return sometime in August, and the Braves will desperately need him. Nearly every starter for the Braves has dealt with some kind of injury this year, so getting a fresh arm back will be huge for the team going forward.
If Ynoa can pitch (and hit) like he did back in April and May, he would cause a lot of problems for opposing hitters and pitchers down the stretch and give the Braves a chance to win critical games that could insert them into the postseason.
Will Smith
To be honest, I could put every player in the entire bullpen on this list. The Braves would be in much better shape in terms of their record and division standings with better performances from their ‘pen.
I chose to go with Will Smith since he is the closer of the group. His tenure with the Braves has been…complicated.
On paper, his 2021 numbers don’t look terrible: 3.68 ERA, 18 saves, a121 ERA+, and 47 strikeouts in 36.2 innings. He also has a pretty nasty slider that has generated a .138 batting average from hitters and contributed to 31 of his 47 punchouts (via Baseball Savant).
However, this doesn’t stop Braves country from holding their collective breath when he comes out to pitch the 9th inning.
Smith gave up a critical three-run homer to his fellow Will Smith of the LA Dodgers in game 5 of the NLCS last year (a turning point in that series). This year, he allowed Luke Williams of the Philadelphia Phillies to hit his first home run (a walk-off at that) back in June that denied the Braves a chance to get over .500 for the first time all year.
The Braves need Will Smith to be the guy who warranted GM (and fan favorite) Alex Anthopoulos to give him a three-year $40 million deal back in 2019 and dominate for the final three outs of a game. Otherwise, it will continue to be a rollercoaster of emotions when his name is announced as pitching for the Atlanta Braves.
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With only a 44-45 record and being just 4 games behind the NY Mets for first in the NL East, the Braves have a chance to rewrite their 2021 season with help from the players listed and the entire organization as a whole. If they can’t get it going, this will go down as one of the most disappointing seasons in the history of the Braves organization.