A lot of stuff happened on the field in July for the 2016 Braves, and a lot of stuff happened off the field as well. Essentially as expected, Julio Teheran was the team's lone All-Star Game representative and pitched a scoreless inning as the National League lost the Midsummer Classic. The Braves made a few trades (though perhaps not as many as some fans expected), most notably swapping apparent persona non grata Hector Olivera with Matt Kemp and his even larger contract. The team also shuffled players between the minors and majors as usual, with some potentially surprising demotions (Matt Wisler) and continued rides on the bullpen merry-go-round.
On the field, though, it was largely more of the same for the Braves. The Braves came into July with a winning percentage under .400. They won fewer than 40 percent of their games in July. They still have a winning percentage under .400. Such is life. They continued to allow about five runs a game while scoring less than four runs a game on average, which explains the record. They're currently on pace for a 57-105 season, and are four games "ahead" of the Twins for the worst record in MLB. They continue to have the majors' worst offense and are in the top 10 in runs allowed, which is really just a way of saying that yes, they're the worst by Pythagorean expectation as well. Of course, everyone reading this probably knew all this, or could surmise it from watching a game or three in July.
Series by Series
- Lost two of three against the Marlins (first game of four game series was won at the end of June)
- Swept in Philadelphia
- Won the make-up game against the Cubs at Wrigley, giving the Cubs (technically) one of their 10 series losses this season, as the Braves split the other two games
- Won two of three against the White Sox in Chicago
- Lost two of three against the Rockies
- Lost two of three in Cincinnati
- Swept in four games at Coors
- Two-game sweep in Minnesota
- Series split with the Phillies at home
July Team Stats by the Numbers
- 10-16 record (37-68 overall)
- Current Pythagorean Expectation (overall) of 37-68, leading the Reds by 3.5 games.
- Sixth-worst in runs scored, but that's an improvement over all the other months of the season so far.
- Offensive production: amazingly, respectably average for the month, with a 96 team wRC+ (no pitchers). That's 16th in MLB and 9th in the NL. Whoo-hoo!
- Defensive production: small sample size and data update lag still apply, but seventh-worst in MLB. Ender Inciarte is really the bulk of the defensive production for the Braves (both in July and in general), while the metrics especially hated Jace Peterson's defense at both second base and left field.
- Total position player value: not below replacement level, again! 22nd overall in the majors, similar to where it was in June. Freddie Freeman, Adonis Garcia, and Nick Markakis led the charge. Had the Braves employed someone other than Emilio Bonifacio in July, they would have been even higher on the list.
- Rotation: tough, tough times for a corps that battled through injuries and ineffectiveness. By value, the rotation was the worst in the majors in July; it was also 26th by ERA and 28th by FIP and xFIP. The real struggles came from Tyrell Jenkins and his walks, as well as Matt Wisler and his multiple implosions during the month.
- Bullpen: with the added strain placed on them from ineffective starting pitching, the bullpen also suffered, putting up a leverage-weighted value below replacement level for the month. Arodys Vizcaino, Hunter Cervenka, and Jim Johnson all had major struggles at one point or another for multiple games, but at least Mauricio Cabrera pitched very effectively and stabilized some of the middle innings. The bullpen was 20th in ERA, 26th in FIP, and 29th in xFIP for the month.
- Total pitching value: last in MLB. You probably figured this was the case given the problems in both the rotation and the bullpen, but there it is. The team's pitching was replacement level for the month, and that's a shame, given the ostensibly talented arms on the roster and in the system, and the great success they had earlier this season.
In terms of aggregate production, the story of the season has been interesting. April was a terrible wasteland of misery on all sides. In May, the bats were still ailing, but the pitching was phenomenal. June saw more of a balancing act, as the Braves played better while the pitching stepped back and the bats stepped forward. In July, the pitching wilted completely, but the bats clawed their way to respectability. There's not much that's good about the current team, but at least the different components have shown flashes of production here and there.
Biggest July Impact - Position Players
For the whole month, I think it's important to point out the steady contributions of Nick Markakis. His .378 OBP made him a catalyst or capstone to the rallies the team used to compile decent offensive output for the month, and he had a few huge hits (game-tying homer off of Hector Rondon in Chicago, go-ahead single against the Phillies recently, etc.). Overall, the offense in July was really a team effort between Markakis, Garcia, Freeman, Peterson, and even Anthony Recker, so no one really stood out, but it has to go to someone...
However, in reality, I'd like to acknowledge Tyler Flowers for his limited July contributions here. Since he hit the disabled list early in the month, he only had six games and 23 PAs under his belt for July. But, he made his presence well felt, with five hits in five games, including two homers, and a .391 OBP / .632 SLG despite a .214 BABIP. Flowers was only getting hotter in July, so it's a shame his injury was so poorly-timed. More importantly, though, Flowers had huge impacts in three of his six July games. He hit the game-tying homer off of AJ Ramos to begin the month, got a game-winning hit against the Cubs in extra innings a few days later, and then had a 2-for-5, 3 RBI day in that slugfest at U.S. Cellular Field right after that. Not bad for just a few games.
Biggest July Impact - Starting Pitchers
So, this was not a good month for the rotation, not at all. In fact, the guy with the biggest impact from the rotation was not even with the team in Spring Training. Or April. He wasn't even called up to fix the various rotation maladies the Braves initially experienced. But, when he did come up, Lucas Harrell did something pretty impressive all the same.
Harrell made five starts as a Brave in July. In his first two, he allowed just two total runs, despite facing the Cubs and Marlins in those outings. He got knocked around by the Rockies and then had a relatively poor effort in the unfriendly confines of Cincinnati's ballpark, but then bounced back to shut out the woeful Twins for six innings. All of that got him dealt to the Rangers before he could make a sixth July start for the team. Overall, he put up a 3.38 ERA and 3.68 FIP for the Braves, though his 5.16 xFIP suggests the Braves may have been lucky to get anything for him when they did. Still, the Braves won three of the five games he started, and that didn't go unnoticed. (His FIP and ERA were also better than Julio Teheran's for the month, who was his only real competition for consideration in July.)
Biggest July Impact - Relief Pitchers
Now this one, this one has a very clear and distinct recipient: new bullpen overlord Mauricio Cabrera. Cabrera's surface stats aren't actually that impressive for a reliever: his K/9 is under 9.00, and his ERA and FIP of 3.07 and 2.66 are nice but not spectacular. But, consider the following: Mauricio Cabrera made 13 appearances in July. In those, he meaningfully the team's chance to win just once. He allowed runs in only three of those outings, and in one case he still closed out the game. (The other two featured giving up a meaningless run in a blowout, and his blow-up against the Rockies which was actually a bad outing.)
But aside from his steady relief work, he also came through in two big spots. In the make-up game against the Cubs, he cleaned up Dario Alvarez' mess: with the tying and go-ahead runs on base with none out in the 11th, he induced a double play and got another out to close out the game. Later, pressed into de facto closer duty against the Reds in the 11th inning, he tossed a scoreless frame to give the Braves a rare win. Hopes weren't high for Cabrera being a useful major leaguer, even fairly recently, and his own promotion was largely the result of ineffectiveness of some other members of the relief corps. But he's made hay of it so far. Let's see how he fares in August.
My Favorite Moments of July 2016
The Braves had poor pitching and okay offense this month, yet the pitching performances stand out to me more. With that said, here are some happy moments from a not-so-happy month.
Chasing the Walkoff Dream
On July 17, the Braves went into the bottom of the ninth deadlocked with the Rockies in a 0-0 affair. Ender Inciarte reached base to start the inning and made it to third with one out thanks to a sacrifice bunt (BUNTS!) and a wild pitch. Unfortunately for the Braves, Gordon Beckham popped out in prime walkoff territory. Fortunately for the Braves, after a Jace Peterson walk, Chase d'Arnaud was inexplicably around to engender a celebration at home plate. Yay.
Efficient, Reserved Teheran
Of course, the reason why the above was a 0-0 game was because Julio Teheran decided to carve up the Rockies (and also because the Braves bats did nothing all game). Generally, you like to see Teheran leverage strikeouts more than he did this outing, with just five in seven innings of work, but it's hard to complain when he allows just four baserunners in seven frames of work. No batter got past second against him, and only in his last inning did two runners reach base in the same frame. Check it out.
Folty Flashes the Future?
On July 10, Mike Foltynewicz had easily the best start of his career: seven shutout innings, five hits, no walks, and ten punchouts. Oh, and the game came in a park where the Braves (!) and White Sox combined for 28 runs over the past two games. A nice, and certainly welcome, surprise.
Also, if for some reason you really want to watch him strike out 10 guys in 10 seconds, I guess this video also exists.
Actually, that was really cool. Someone should make it a gif. Folty had another good start after that outing but has been more erratic since then. I look forward to seeing him carve guys up as he did in Chicago in the future.
Flowers Power
A.J. Ramos, the Miami closer, hadn't blown a save all season. Then, on the first day of July, with the Marlins holding a slim one-run lead at home, this happened.
The Braves would go on to lose this marathon of a game in excruciatingly stupid fashion (Jose Fernandez pinch-hit two-run game-winning hyphen-ated dou-ble). But at least Flowers broke Ramos' streak and gave the Braves a fighting chance that they didn't capitalize on.
Lucas Harrell?!?! Winning a series against the Cubs?!?!
Probably the two weirdest things happening this month for the team were the Braves technically winning a series against the Cubs, and Lucas Harrell having good outings after his recall from AAA. So, of course, the combination of the two was the best part of July 2016.
Harrell allowed just six baserunners and one run while pitching into the eighth. He completely cruised until hitting Kris Bryant with a pitch with two outs in the eighth. Seriously, who expected this? He's wearing jersey number 63, that's not even a real number!
The bullpen blew up in the game, but all was right in the world as the Braves won in eleven. Thanks, random seeing-eye single from Tyler Flowers.
Most Aargh Moment of July 2016
The Fernandez double was a good candidate here, but here's one that's even worse. The day before Harrell's start against the Cubs, the Braves took a 3-2 lead over the Phillies into the eighth inning in Philadelphia. Arodys Vizcaino, who still had nice-looking numbers up at that point, had struggled a couple of times in late June, but managed to throw a scoreless inning in his last appearance, came on to preserve the lead.
Vizcaino walked Maikel Franco. Not a good start. Vizcaino allowed a single to Carlos Ruiz. Even worse. But then, redemption! Tommy Joseph grounded into a double play. Still, two outs. But, on a 2-2 count to Freddy Galvis, Vizcaino grooved a 99-mile per hour fastball that Galvis turned around into a rare homer. Freddy Galvis has a career 68 wRC+, and is even worse this year (58). The Braves lost this eminently winnable game. Aaargh.