Atlanta Braves lineup divide hurts but they remain in the race
The Atlanta Braves split of Monday’s doubleheader, followed by a blowout win, is a microcosm of the team’s Jekyll and Hyde season.
The Atlanta Braves allowed one run in 14 innings Monday night and split a doubleheader with the Mets. It wasn’t pitching that let them down; Kyle Muller continues to look like a big part of the team’s future, and manager Brain Snitker got Bryse Wilson out of the game before he imploded.
Swanson’s defense saved the Braves in game one. The two double plays he pulled out of thin air kept the Mets off the board and secured the victory as the Braves got ten hits off Marcus Stroman, but game two proved just how ineffective, and inconsistent the lineup is this year.
Despite Luke Walker giving up a double that allowed a run to score, the bullpen did its job. If your lineup can’t beat another team’s bullpen — and the Mets bullpen is at best mediocre — your roster has a problem.
The Mets bullpen held the Braves lineup to four hits in game two, a Joc Pederson single, a pair of singles from Austin Riley, and a single from Dansby Swanson (all in the first 3-1/3 innings), was all the offense they could muster.
The game was over after the fly ball went over Guillermo Heredia’s head in center field because after a team gets past the top four batters, the lineup offers little threat after Swanson.
Your shortstop isn’t as bad as you may think.
Before you start screaming how awful Swanson is, take a deep breath. Since the calendar flipped to July, he’s batting .281/.333/.528/.861 with four homers and ten doubles.
On the season, Swanson’s 25 doubles lead NL shortstops and put him second among all shortstops in MLB. His 17 homers are seventh among MLB shortstops and fifth among NL shortstops (Eugenio shows up on the SS list. but played third base twice as often as SS).
Dansby should hit sixth or seventh in the lineup, not second. He’s done well hitting down in the lineup, but he faced an impossible task Monday night. Anything less than a home run in the seventh inning of game two meant the game was over; with Edwin Diaz throwing 100 mph fastballs, no one hitting behind had much of a chance.
Atlanta Braves stats in context.
What a horrible satire it is to say that figures won’t lie. They are the greatest liars in the modern world.- Halifax Morning Chronicle November 20, 1869
Since the start of the season, anyone who questioned the Atlanta Braves’ ability to score runs or the effectiveness of the lineup was told to look at the run differential and where the team’s lineup stood compared to the league. Game statistics below from the Braves’ schedule page on Baseball-Reference.
The Braves run differential after 101 games is +45 with 482 scored, and 437 allowed; a positive ratio is great, right? Well, maybe, maybe not; everything requires context.
- The Braves scored 46.5% of their runs (224) in 22 games (21.8%) while allowing 105 runs (24%) for a +119 run differential and an 18-4 record.
- In the remaining 79 games, the Braves scored 258 runs and allowed 332 for a run differential of –79 while posting a 32-47 record.
How’s that positive run differential look now?
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Lackadaisical late innings
Late-inning-lightning trademarked the Atlanta Braves lineup over the last three seasons. If the Braves weren’t well and truly shut down after six innings, they would fight tooth and nail over the last three and win more often than not. The 2021 lineup lacks that ability.
The Braves trailed:
- To start the 7th inning 37 times, ended it tied five times, but never ended it ahead.
- To start the 8th inning 33 times, ended it tied twice, and ended it with a lead once.
- To start the 9th inning 35 times, ended it tied three times, but never ended it ahead.
The Braves have won two of eleven extra-inning games.
While we’ve seen the occasional flash of late-inning fight spirit, only five players – Riley, Acuna Jr., newly acquired Pederson, Freeman, and Albies – have an OPS over .760 in the final third of the game.
Almonte (.745) and Heredia (.716) are the only other players with an OPS over Arcia’s .690 in 15 PA.
Atlanta Braves: A Lineup in two parts
The position that the Braves’ lineup as a whole has good numbers when compared to the league holds; since June 1, it sits in the middle of the NL. Looking at it as two distinct parts paints a different picture. I used Fangraphs’ splits leaderboard to look at the lineup top to bottom, from 1-4 and 5-8.
| RK | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | ISO | BAbip | wOBA | wRC+ | |
| 9 | .248 | .327 | .421 | .748 | .173 | .303 | .323 | 100 | 1 to 9 |
| 4 | .287 | .365 | .513 | .878 | .226 | .333 | .374 | 133 | 1 to 4 |
| 13 | .228 | .307 | .367 | .675 | .140 | .282 | .294 | 81 | 5 to 8 |
The lineup top-to-bottom ranks ninth and is dead league average at 100 wRC+, but it’s clear that stat line is supporting the bottom half of the lineup. Every team does this to some extent, but the 13th rank for spots 5 – 8 shows a genuine weakness in the roster,
The differences are more pronounced when looking at the last third of the game.
| RK | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | ISO | BAbip | wOBA | wRC+ | |
| 11 | .235 | .319 | .378 | .697 | .143 | .295 | .304 | 87 | 1 to 9 |
| 5 | .278 | .364 | .486 | .850 | .208 | .336 | .361 | 125 | 1 to 4 |
| 14 | .208 | .286 | .285 | .571 | .077 | .281 | .257 | 57 | 5 to 8 |
The whole lineup drops a couple of spots to 11th, and the top four batters slip to fifth, but the 5 to 8 spots in the order rank 14th, ahead of only the Marlins.
The roster was built like this.
Team’s win divisions because their role players pick up the slack when the stars struggle; the Atlanta Braves paid lip service to role players.
The team projected unrealistic seasons on players without the track record to support it. Even after signing Ozuna, it was clear the lineup was a bat short, but from the day Spring Training started, it was clear they weren’t going to add one.
When a team waits that late to fill a critical need, they are rarely successful, The remaining roster spots went to the least bad pitchers in camp and bench players who added no threat when they popped out of the dugout in the late innings.
The Atlanta Braves were lucky that Heredia and Almonte exceeded expectations, but as well as they’ve played, neither player is capable of carrying a team for a week or two. I respect what they’ve done for us, and Heredia deserves a spot on the bench, but neither player should start as often as they do.
Speaking of the bench, our unofficial team mascot, Pablo Sandoval, must go. Panda hugs are cute, but since May 26, he’s batting .034/.200/.034/.234. Our pitchers hit better, and Panda doesn’t play the field, and there’s no DH, so the bench is a player short.
That’s a wrap
Any changes the Atlanta Braves make in the next couple of days are unlikely to move the needle towards a World Series. Winning the division remains possible because the other teams continue to trip over their shoelaces, but that could change quickly.
Fixing the bottom of the lineup midseason is unlikely, but an outfielder and a replacement for Panda – Travis Demeritte perhaps – isn’t impossible. I expect the team will add a reliever or two; we know the GM has Baltimore on speed dial, and they have a couple.
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