Braves offense / pitching / defense stats

by fphjr01 on May 19, 2009 11:04 AM EDT Comment 6 comments

I'm home sick today, so I thought I would spend a little bit of time digging through Braves stats as a team for the season to date. This is probably an exercise in stating the obvious, but given the quality of recent fanposts, I'm certainly not lowering the average here. Everything below is on a team average basis. Maybe that's a good thing to look at and maybe its not, but I thought it was interesting.

Batting:

OBP = .342, 6th in the NL ; SLG = .395, 13th in the NL ; BB / K = 3rd in the NL ; "SPD" rating = LAST in the NL, LAST in MLB, and LAST by a large margin.

Believe it or not, the Braves actually have more home runs than the Mets at this point, even though I think we would agree that the Mets have a better offense. To me, power is an issue, but I think the most glaring problem is team speed. We have the fewest stolen bases and the 4th most GIDP, and as we saw last night, that really takes us out of innings. GIDP can be a tricky stat though, b/c the leaders in the NL are the Dodgers and Mets -- having lots of guys on base apparently leads to more GIDP opportunities -- no shocker there.

Perhaps instead of (or at least in addition to) pondering how we can add a "power bat", maybe we should think about getting some guys who can improve our team speed.

Pitching:

FIP = best in NL ; K / BB = tied for best in NL ; HR / 9 = best in NL

Pitching is not the Braves problem. We (myself included) like to complain about relievers sucking, bullpens blowing leads, JoJo in the 5th spot, but the truth is all teams deal with pitching problems, and on the whole, we are better than everyone else in the NL.

Fielding:

I'm not a huge fan of UZR stats and the like, b/c you need too much data before the noise drops down enough to make some conclusions, if you can conclude anything at all. All I'll say here is that it seems like (author's totally subjective, un-statistical observation) the errors / lapses / whatever that the Braves are making here seem to occur in game-changing situations (late, runners on, etc.) more often than usual. Maybe this isn't true at all, but I can only hope that the law of averages here will even things out, so that the team doesn't have to play "perfect" to avoid defense costing them games.

All said and done, things don't seem quite as bad as they feel after the last few days, which is almost always the case if you take a deep breath and try to view things objectively. All the other teams in the NL east have issues at this point. Personally, I'd like to see the team stand fast for now, and if anything try and better position ourselves for future years. If that means sell this summer, then so be it -- I think we are more than 1 player away from fixing what ails the offense. The good news is our pitching is great, and looking great for years to come, which is exactly where I want to be.

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Agree

I think that the bull pen is a problem, but can’t be fixed. Really the bullpen is usually the weak link for any team. Besides a closer, and some teams a set up man, the bull pen is uaually a cast minor league pitchers, and often times washed up major leaguers. For most teams spending a bunch of money on middle relief just isn’t an option.

Besides bullpen, I would say our lineup is our biggest weekness. We have no leadoff hitter nor a typical cleanup hitter. That means our leadoff man can’t get off, steal bases, etc, and no one in the middle of our lineup that the other pitcher says “oh shit” when he walks to the plate. Im not saying we have to have one of those guys, because there aren’t a lot out there, but we have no one to get our lineup jumpstarted.

Defensively we are OK. We make most the plays, and out D has rarely cost us games. We have made our errors, but I can’t really recall a game where I said that our D cost us.

by wcubmac on May 19, 2009 2:31 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

The Braves better not ...

sell this Summer. Look the Braves have a major strength…pitching. At the big league level they have a solid 1 through 3 and KK may yet to prove to make that an foursome. The 5th spot has about 3 or 4 candidates who either would be or could be top 4 in most rotations.Heck we could pitch Medlen this week, Glavine next week,Reyes the week after and Campillo the second week of June in the 5 spot alone. If we want we could probably throw Morton in for a start as well, and not have touched the organizations top prospect.In addition, from what I read about on this board, we have 5 or 6 other guys who are legit prospects who are a few years away. HOW MUCH PITCHING DO WE NEED? Like in the 90s, there were times to make adjustments.Nixon was brought in for speed, McGriff for power. We need that now.Not a bullpen. Not a wasted Summer.If KK throws well , Glavine regains some old form, If Medlen turns to gold, if Jo Jo finds himself ( and Bobby Cox thinks he is close..good enough for me) and Hudson is ready in early August , not to mention Hanson as a potential top 3 guy. We can have the first ever 9 man rotation!!!!! In case one of them gets tired from ptching, we can throw Morton or Campillo to fill in every 10th day.

The point is ,of course, we have excess to trade for the things we need. I hated the Tex trade. JS should have fired himself for that one. However, we can afford to go to the Pads right now and offer them 60% of a rotation and pick up a guy who is cheap in terms of salary, awesome in terms of ability to hit the ball, 27 years old and a long term keeper, who does not seem to be the money hungry type, but would be worth 15 million or so 2 years down the road. Just about the time when Chipper is falling down the back side and Heyward is ready to play.BTW, Juan Pierre might be someone to look at when steriod boy gets back.

by mikie baseball on May 19, 2009 3:27 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Agree

The Braves pitching staff it is strongpoint by far. I think that trading Jo Jo, Campillo, anyone besides Hanson isn’t going to bring us much. Hanson, JJ, McCann, Escobar, Chipper, Frenchy to a point, are the only guys of value, and they are going no where. Vasquez, Lowe, Hudson, KK, I wouldn’t be shocked if one of them got delt, if Hudson can prove he is healthy. My guess would be Vasquez would be the guy, younger than lowe, more proven the KK. He would be the only guy that could bring in legitamate value to the braves.

by wcubmac on May 19, 2009 3:44 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I think the Speed is the problem. Look at Tampa Bay.

Those guys were down 9-0 and came back to lose 11-7 in like two innings or something like that

Speed is a very big asset and we need more of it. I wish we would have gotten Furcal to play 2B. our top of the order would have been insane

by drumzalicious on May 19, 2009 5:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Now might be the time to start dangling a guy like Morton or Medlen to try to bring back a power bat; ie, a Chris Duncan type that will put up something around a .200 ISO. Ideally a righty, but the important thing is that we inject some power into this lineup. We’re getting the base runners at an above average clip, but we’re 5th worst in baseball in ISO.

Thankfully, any upgrade we pursue is going to profitable. Francoeur and Anderson are playing below replacement level offensively and aren’t anything special defensively either.

by 17843 on May 19, 2009 7:35 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Two great points, we do not have the speed to put any pressure on a defense, and we don’t scare them with power. We really need to get one or the other to make a good push. Our pitching may be enough to carry us, but come playoff time, if we want a good shot, we need to have one or the other

by wcubmac on May 20, 2009 1:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs