The Braves have not gotten a lot of mileage out of young players... so far

There have definitely been many sentiments during the whole rebuild process that the Braves have embarked on, and a couple of interrelated ones have always piqued my interest:

1. It’s fun to watch young players learn and develop, especially at the big league level; and
2. The worthwhile part of watching the major league Braves right now is largely wrapped around the performances of the prospects and younger players.

Now, I’m not saying in any way that those are wrong — in fact, I can’t say I even disagree with either. Which is why, in no uncertain words, it’s been so immensely disappointing to consider just how little production the Braves gotten out of all of these young players to date.

Below is a simple chart — it is simply production by all rookie-eligible players, from the start of 2015 (the start of the rebuild) through Saturday’s games. Note that this is specific to rookie-eligible players only, so, for example, Jace Peterson’s 2015 (1.0 fWAR) counts, but his 2016 (0.0 fWAR) does not.

Oh... oh dear. It’s a little hard to tell, but from Opening Day 2015, through August 19, 2017, the Braves have gotten the least production from rookies among all teams in MLB. The stats surrounding this only get worse: they are the only team whose aggregate rookie production has been below replacement level, with +1.0 fWAR among all hitting and fielding from rookies, and -1.3 fWAR among all pitching from rookies. On top of that, as you can see from the charts, the only team that’s even kind of close in futility is the Reds, with every other team having at least 3.0 fWAR from their rookies over this period. By hitting, the Braves are tied for the fourth-worst production; by pitching, they are dead last.

Of course, WAR is a counting stat, and teams are composed of far more than just rookies. Unfortunately, when leveling the playing field to account for disparities in how often teams let rookies take the field... it’s not any better. Among all teams, the Braves have given the fifth-most PAs to rookies, as well as the fifth-most innings pitched. So, as you can see, that’s kind of an issue: they’re in the bottom five in production, and in the top five in opportunity. On a rate basis, the Braves still have the worst production from rookie pitching, and the second-worst production from rookie hitting and fielding. So, thanks, Diamondbacks — because of you, the Braves aren’t last in both.

At this point, you might be saying, “Rookie seasons, shmookie seasons! What matters is how the young players perform, in general.” In that case, I’m not sure I have much better news for you. I compiled a list of every player that recorded a rookie season in 2015, 2016, or 2017, and his aggregate production from 2015 forward. This was made a little annoying by the fact that there’s a small group of players switching teams, including midseason, but there are so few young players that move the needle here that it isn’t really salient — especially not as far as the Braves are concerned.

The disparity is less large, and hey, the Braves aren’t last. But they’re almost last, and that’s not great. On a rate basis, they’re a little better: sixth-worst for position players, and fifth-worst for pitchers. But, it’s still very disappointing, in that a rebuild that is very much oriented around young players (is there any other kind?) has largely seen bottom-of-the-pack performance from said players.

Nor can the issue be entirely blamed on certain particularly poor performances dragging down the aggregate. If every negative fWAR figure is set to zero instead, the Braves are still fourth-worst in aggregate terms (fifth-worst for position players; seventh-worst for pitchers). On a rate basis, with the sub-replacement-level performances removed, they finally start looking respectable: ninth-worst for position players, and 12th-worst for pitchers. Still, there’s a long way to go for the Braves to catch up to some of the frontrunners on the charts above.

This whole state of affairs also leads to some dubious trivia. For example, can you name the best rookie pitching performance (by fWAR, not on a rate basis) for Braves pitchers in the 2015-2017 period? It’s Arodys Vizcaino, and his 0.8 fWAR in 33 and ²⁄₃ innings back in 2015. Even second place here isn’t a starter, but Mauricio Cabrera’s 0.6 fWAR in 38 and ¹⁄₃ innings. Only after that do you get Sean Newcomb’s debut this season, and then, wonder of wonders, the next four rookie pitching performances are by guys that aren’t even with the team any more (Casey Kelly, John Gant, Dario Alvarez, and Hunter Cervenka).

On an aggregate basis, the best young Brave (where “young” equals being a rookie in 2015 or later) pitcher has been Mike Foltynewicz, with his whopping (hint, not really whopping) 2.3 fWAR in 337 innings.

On the position player end, Jace Peterson and Johan Camargo are tied for the best rookie season production with 1.0 fWAR. Camargo, though, gets the clear edge for doing in under 200 PAs what it took Jace Peterson nearly 600 PAs to achieve. Next on the list? Adonis Garcia. Surely, the Braves can be forgiven here to some extent, as they really didn’t debut any exciting position player prospects until Dansby Swanson, and yet Swanson’s disastrous beginning to the 2017 season is a huge reason for why the Braves rank so poorly throughout the numbers focused on here.

Speaking of dubious trivia, can you name the Atlanta Braves position player with the most fWAR, among those players registering their rookie seasons in 2015 or later? I’ll wait. It’s Adonis Garcia, whose rookie season came when he was 30 years old, and who has managed 1.2 fWAR in over 900 PAs so far. I suppose this helps contextualize the Johan Camargo excitement from the fan base — he’s essentially the only young position player who hasn’t fallen on his metaphorical face through about 200 PAs (although his batting line has its own quirks and pratfalls, which I won’t rehash here).

In any case, the good news is that none of this is particularly worrisome for the future, or at least it doesn’t have to be. Dansby Swanson might be turning a corner, Ozzie Albies is up and will probably boost the Braves’ numbers in this regard if he stops uppercutting everything, and Ronald Acuña seems poised to come up to the majors and obliterate everything in his path (hopefully). On the pitching end, the Braves should have ample reserves to work through even if nothing of particular use ends up coming out of Mike Foltynewicz, Sean Newcomb, Lucas Sims, Aaron Blair, and Matt Wisler.

Of course, if you’re pessimistic, you could say that the Braves either haven’t targeted the right prospects in their trades, have failed to develop them into productive major leaguers, or some mix of the two. I’m not sure that’s really the case, and it’s definitely a fairly dour outlook on the future. The next few years will be telling in that regard, moreso than the previous ones have been.

So, there may not be much reason to worry. But as the Braves careen towards another poor record in a rebuilding season, it might be useful to remember that it is hasn’t necessarily been the placeholder veterans and retreads playing out the string that have led to the team’s myriad defeats. The Braves’ young players have been pretty bad so far, and this needs to change if the Braves are going to springboard back into contention.