Atlanta Braves dependable pen ready for postseason play
The Atlanta Braves sweep of the weekend series spotlighted their star power but don’t overlook the bullpen stifling a potent Mets lineup.
The Atlanta Braves saw a momentum-changing catch in game two from Michael Harris II, and Austin Riley’s baseball IQ shifted the momentum in game three when he chose not to make a play on a dribbler down the third base line.
Fans will talk about Dansby Swanson and Matt Olson homering off Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Chris Bassitt; plus Travis d’Arnaud sticking a fork in his old team with a two-run double.
They’ll remember an obviously ill Max Fried giving the team five in game one, Kyle Wright shaking odd a bad first inning in game two, and Charlie Morton seemingly rising from the dead to give the Braves four-plus innings on Sunday.
Others talk about the way Raisel Iglesias waving away the middle of the Mets lineup with ease or will marvel over the sudden appearance of postseason Kenley Jansen saving three consecutive games in the highest leverage situations he’s faced so far.
It’s easy to overlook the players who built the bridge to Iglesias, Minter, and Jansen, so I’ll take a minute or 120 to talk about the best bullpen in the game.
Atlanta Braves men in the middle shine.
I’m just the man in the middle Of a complicated plan No one to show me the signs I’m just a creature of habit In a complicated world Nowhere to run to Nowhere to hide — Maurice Ernest Gibb, Barry Alan Gibb
Fans most often remember middle relievers when they blow a lead, allow inherited runners to score, or enter the tenth inning with the idiot-runner on second and give up a run.
When they enter, do their job, and leave, it isn’t news because it’s what they’re supposed to do, but it isn’t easy. The Atlanta Braves’ middlemen are among the best in baseball, and it’s time to give them their due.
Fangraphs provides the usual statistical data, and it’s pretty impressive. Compared to the rest of MLB, when pitching innings five, six, and seven, the Braves middlemen held batters to a Major League-best .192/.265/.296/.561 line and their .246 BAbip put the Braves in a tied with the Dodgers for the MLB lead.
The Braves .were second in MLB behind the Dodgers with:
- a 251 wOBA behind the Dodgers’ .247 and just ahead of Houston’s .274.
- a 27.1% K-rate behind the Dodgers’ 27.5%
- an 8.1% walk rate,
- an 18.9 K-BB rate, a 1.02 WHIP
They were also second in MLB behind only Houston with:
- a 2.51 ER, behind only Houston’s 2.39, and faced 145 more batters
- 156 hits
- 29 doubles
- 18 home runs
These guys are good, but who are these guys?
The Deep Dive
Before I dive into the Atlanta Braves bullpen, I need to explain SIERA, DRA, and why I’m using ERA- and DRA- instead of ERA+ and DRA+.
Warning, boring details that might improve understanding ahead.
If you are among the well-informed, who understand ERA+ and –, SIERA, and DRA + and –, feel free to leap forward to the next page. I promise those who stay I’ll keep it pithy.
Skill-Interactive ERA (SIERA) tries to show the skill level of this pitcher. It’s a step up from FIP, which only looks at the three true outcomes by adding ball-in-play outcomes.
Deserved Run Average (DRA) goes farther than the SIERA by including and adjusting for park, opponent, and, when helpful, framing, temperature, and pitch type as well.
Pluses and minuses in stats, oh my!
Baseball-Reference created ERA+, and everyone said cool, or something some interested in easy-to-understand stats says a new one they like appears. Across the road and down the hill, Fangraphs published ERA-.
Being a simple guy, I assumed – yes, I know what happens when you assume something – they were simply different ways of saying the same thing. They sort of are; both are ways of looking at a pitcher’s performance, but not the way I was interpreting the numbers.
On the off-chance someone is making the same kind of error, I thought it wise to explain what I learned ten years too late. Put as simply as possible, one is the inverse of the other:
- ERA+ is designed to show how the league compares to the pitcher. It is scaled to 100 for convenience but is not a percentage.
- ERA- is designed to tell you how the pitcher compares to the league. It is scaled to 100 as well, but each point above or below 100 represents a percentage point.
For example, Baseball-Reference shows A.J. Minter with a 2.09 ERA and a 197 ERA+. If you flip to their advanced pitching stats, you’ll see he also has a 51 ERA- making his ERA 49% better than the league.
Both stats have their uses, but most of us want to know how our pitcher looks compared to the league, which makes minus stats like ERA- and DRA- more informative.
Now, I return you to your regularly scheduled post in progress.
Collin Dependable
If I ask fans to select the Atlanta Braves’ most effective middle relievers from a list that included Chavez, Lee, Matzek, McHugh, and Jackson, the names I’m likely to hear most are Tyler Matzek and Colin McHugh. However, that answer is only half right.
After a visit to the IL early in the year, McHugh returned looking like the batter-baffling reliever the Braves expected when they signed him. He’s capable of pitching multiple innings and pitches to a reverse split; RHH bat .220/.273/.326 and post a .266 wOBA, while LHH manages to bat only .182/.237/.264 with a .223 wOBA.
Marshal Dylan
A lefty is running neck-and-neck with McHugh, but it isn’t Matzek; it’s Dylan Lee. Fans remember Matzek’s destruction of opposing lineups in last year’s postseason; he’s struggled this year while Lee’s excelled.
Lee doesn’t throw high-velocity gas, but he locates his pitches well. Greg Maddux says a pitcher’s job is to throw balls that look like strikes and strikes that look like balls; Lee was listening.
Lee’s 44.3% chase rate and 33.5% WHIFF rate are the best of any Atlanta Braves reliever, and his ERA- and DRA- are second only to A.J. Minter.
The graph below shows that no matter your favorite flavor pitching metric, the Braves middlemen are among the best in the game.
| Pitcher | ERA | ERA- | FIP- | SIERA | DRA | DRA – | Chase | WHIFF% |
| Lee | 2.13 | 52 | 68 | 2.64 | 3.28 | 75 | 44.3% | 33.5% |
| McHugh | 2.63 | 63 | 69 | 2.78 | 3.39 | 78 | 38.6% | 25.3% |
| Stephens | 3.38 | 82 | 88 | 3.81 | 4.26 | 98 | 33.1% | 19.5% |
| Matzek | 3.24 | 85 | 114 | 5.23 | 4.21 | 104 | 31.1% | 24.3% |
| Chavez | 3.56 | 88 | 86 | 3.13 | 3.38 | 75 | 33.2% | 21.8% |
(Most statistics from Fangraphs, DRA, and DRA- from Baseball Prospectus)
They are those M. . . . . . . . . . . .s
Where would the team be without Stephens and Chavez? Both pitchers filled any role thrown at them, starting, finishing, and mopping up.
We know Jackson Stephens is a bad, bad man because we saw him take a line drive to the head and say he was ready to pitch the next day.
We know, too, that coincidence isn’t causation, but Jesse’s superpower to send opposing batters back to the dugout shaking their head only appears when he puts on an Atlanta Braves uniform. It’s no coincidence that only Kenley Jansen threw more first-pitch strikes than Jesse… and Jansen only took the lead last weekend.
That’s a wrap
It’s still true that great pitching beats great hitting, but it is harder today than it once was. The Atlanta Braves bullpen is better than last year and capable of holding any lineup in check.
Next. It's Michael's year!. dark
The club’s already strong rotation will be the best in the playoffs when Strider returns. If the lineup does its job, we’ll have a long and happy postseason run.