PHILADELPHIA, PA - MAY 5: Philadelphia Phillies bat boy Tucker Colton sits on the dugout near the bat rack before the start of a game against the Miami Marlins in a MLB baseball game on May 5, 2013 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Rich Schultz/Getty Images) The Atlanta Braves were shut down by the New York Mets ace starter on Wednesday night, but losing to their #4 had some worried about how the team could handle playoff pitching. The Atlanta Braves are preparing for the National League playoffs at this point, heading into their final weekend series against the Philadelphia Phillies. Some fans have worries about the Braves ability with top pitchers, however, specifically the type of pitchers that usually populate a postseason rotation. Though it took an incredible performance from Jacob deGrom in order to salvage even one victory over the Atlanta Braves on his season in six starts, deGrom had dominated the Braves on the stat sheet on the season, posting an incredible 0.88 ERA and 0.78 WHIP over 41 innings against the Atlanta Braves on the season with 50 strikeouts, but just Wednesday night’s victory on the win tally for the season. To see how the Braves have performed against the best arms in the league, I took the top 10 pitchers in each of the American and National Leagues for 2018 in each of bWAR, fWAR, and WARP. That gave 27 pitchers that appeared on at least one of those top 10 lists, 14 of whom faced the Braves this year. Adding in some of the considered elite arms in the game who didn’t make those ranks only added Clayton Kershaw and Stephen Strasburg to the list of top pitchers the Braves faced. So against those 16 elite pitchers in 2018, how have the Atlanta Braves fared? Overall Braves W/L: 24-14 Games: 38 Opponent starter W/L: 13-16 (Braves have won 16 decisions over these “aces”) IP: 219 2/3 ERA: 3.28 WHIP: 1.14 HR: 20 BB: 56 K: 233 To put it lightly, the Atlanta Braves have done very well against top pitchers overall. In fact, the only “ace” the Braves did not collect a home run against as a team is Clayton Kershaw. That brings up an interesting point. Of the list, there is not a single member of the Dodgers, Cubs, or Brewers in that list. The Colorado Rockies do have two pitchers, Kyle Freeland and German Marquez, on the list, but the Braves have put up 13 runs in 23 and 2/3 innings against those two this season. If they get past the NL, then what? For the Braves, running the gauntlet of the National League would likely not lead to a lot more depth of elite starters down the road outside of one team. Houston has two starters that made all three lists (and one that made one). Boston has just Chris Sale on all three (though David Price also was on one). The team with the loaded rotation in this view is the Cleveland Indians, who placed three pitchers on all three lists, one on two lists, and another in the top 20 on Fangraphs. The rotation has needed to be good as the Indians bullpen is rough, to say the least. Want your voice heard? Join the Puckett's Pond team! Write for us! Losing a pair to the Mets doesn’t feel great, but for Atlanta Braves fans, it’s good to remember that the Braves are in good shape to keep playing much beyond this weekend, especially if their performance against top pitchers is any indication.<doc-sep>PHOENIX, AZ - SEPTEMBER 07: Kevin Gausman #45 of the Atlanta Braves delivers a pitch during the first inning of the MLB game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on September 7, 2018 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Jennifer Stewart/Getty Images) Atlanta Braves: 10 reasons why we are now at this point Atlanta Braves: 10 reasons why we are now at this point by James Kunkle Atlanta Braves: The things to know before today’s game vs. the Phillies Atlanta Braves: The things to know before today’s game vs. the Phillies by John Le Home or Away? That’s a big question coming into this season’s final 9 games, and it could be a bigger factor in the week thereafter. For the purposes of this effort, we are simply going to assume that the Atlanta Braves will be your NL East champions. If somehow that fails to be the case, you can forget this topic ever came up, but at least we can consider the implications until then. The Braves have robust road record this year at 45-30, yet a pedestrian home mark of 40-38. We’ve talked about this several times, including Kyle’s take just a couple of days ago. Also a couple of days ago, Fred wondered who we could trust from the rotation to deliver a credible start… and who we couldn’t. Today, we’ll strictly look at home/road pitching splits and how this might dictate a course of action for the 1st round. The Schedule… helps Let’s dig into the pitching, then, but let’s also start off by looking at the assumed schedule coming up (note how that word ‘assume’ continues to rise). If the current rotation continues as scheduled – it won’t – then here’s the starting assignments: 9/21: TEHERAN (Philly) 9/22: FOLTYNEWICZ (Philly) 9/23: SANCHEZ (Philly) 9/25: NEWCOMB (Mets) 9/26: TOUSSAINT (Mets) 9/27: GAUSMAN (Mets) 9/28: TEHERAN (Philly) 9/29: FOLTY (Philly) 9/30: SANCHEZ (Philly) Okay, that’s the regular season. The Playoff schedule begins like this: 10/2: Wild Card game 10/4: NLDS Game 1 (both games) (both games) 10/5: NLDS Game 2 10/6: Off Day/Travel Day 10/7: NLDS Game 3 10/8: NLDS Game 4 if necessary if necessary 10/9: Off Day/Travel Day 10/10: NLDS Game 5 if necessary I’ll stop here. So the Braves – regardless of their opponent and regardless of the city they start in – will have days off on October 1st through 3rd, then again on the 6th and possibly the 9th. The standings currently sit like this: Cubs ahead of Atlanta by 4½ – they almost certainly will have the top seed. Atlanta tied with Dodgers for 2nd seeding. The Dodgers own the tie-breaker, thanks to a 5-2 season series margin If it happens that the Rockies end up winning the division, the Braves also lose that tie-breaker. with Dodgers for 2nd seeding. Expectations: Based on schedules and current leads, I am expecting the following: A very-close-race for the second Wild Card position with Cardinals and Rockies fighting for the right to play in Milwaukee Wild Card winner plays the Cubs Braves travel to Los Angeles to play the Dodgers Back to the Pitching Clinching the division before the last series will be important so that the top 3 in the rotation – Gausman, Folty, and Sanchez – won’t necessarily have to be go deep into meaningful games for their last starts. This will also (clearly) allow for additional rest, which could be an even larger factor than anything else I’m about to get into. Among the Braves’ starters, here are their ranked ERA stats AT HOME: 2.81 – Gausman 2.89 – Fried (just sayin’…not that he’ll get the nod) 3.10 – Sanchez 3.25 – Folty (his last outing vs. St. Louis made this look bad, but he also yielded 4 to the Cubs on August 30) 3.84 – Teheran 4.67 – Toussaint 5.12 – Newcomb Now here’s the road chart: 2.52 – Folty 2.78 – Gausman 2.92 – Sanchez 3.00 – Newcomb 3.18 – Toussaint 4.13 – Teheran Well, that pretty much dictates it, right? Start Mike Foltynewicz and Kevin Gausman out in LA? If you want a ‘hot backup’ option in case of emergency, it would seem that any of the rest could assist (even Teheran: the Dodgers haven’t seen him this year, though clearly there’s been ‘good Teheran’ and ‘bad Teheran’ without much in between). WHO’S THE GAME 1 GUY? While you might figure on Folty getting the Game 1 nod, that might not be the case, given a number of factors: The current pitching order (see above – Gausman is ahead of Foltynewicz) The game schedule (Gausman would be full regular rest; delaying him further might put him out of his routine). Switching these players could actually mess up either or both of them. When facing the Dodgers earlier in the year (in Atlanta), Folty got banged up a bit: 4 earned runs in 5 innings. Gausman has not seen them. Hey – Gausman has been terrific since arriving in the South, so why not? Home Cooking Once returning to Atlanta Anibal Sanchez making the most sense for Game 3 once the games come to Atlanta. If the optional games happen, Game 4 could be a ‘bullpen game’ by piggybacking multiple starters together. Game 5 would then be the Game 1 starter again on full rest. Turning things around Let’s suppose that the Braves somehow end up ahead of LA and get that 2nd seed – along with home field rights for the NLDS. In that case, you might actually feel a bit better using Gausman and Folty at home. The road ERA’s of the rest of the staff are roughly equal-or-better than their home marks… at least that’s the case with Newcomb and Toussaint. Teheran might need to be relegated to long relief at home for the first two games in this scenario, so it’s unclear whether (or how) he might be employed. A Very Quick Look at the bullpen At home, the relief corps… all of them… have recorded a 3.95 ERA (with 306 walks in 722 innings). On the road, the numbers are a bit better: 3.61 ERA, though with a slightly higher rate on the walks (289 in 657.2 innings). The opponents are hitting .225 as opposed to a .232 rate at home. The bullpen is tough to gauge overall since (a) a ton of arms have been involved throughout the year that we won’t see in October; and (b) it doesn’t account for recent performance. So we’ll leave the rest of that topic alone for now. With the rotation, the sample sizes aren’t terrific, so there could still be some ‘going with the gut’ moves made here – regardless of what the numbers seem to indicate, but if you’ve got to play the Dodgers, then going on the road probably isn’t such a terrible idea. Of more concern: the fact that the Dodgers will come riding into a series high confidence and the knowledge that Atlanta had significant trouble against them in the regular season. But this is a new ‘mini-season’, and the rest opportunities that the Braves will have could also serve to be a terrific boon for this club… on both sides of the ball.<doc-sep>
The Braves are heading to the playoffs for the first time since 2013, and we still have the final week of the regular season to go before postseason play begins. While the Braves spent Saturday night celebrating, everyone else battling in the Central, West and Wild Card races had to play meaningful baseball. That isn’t to say there won’t be a handful of storylines for the Braves over their final seven games. They’ll play their final home game of the regular season on Sunday before heading to New York and Philadelphia to finish the year. Here are some of the things to keep an eye on as the club prepares for the playoffs. How does Brian Snitker rest his players? It’s safe to say we’ll get the Hangover Lineup on Sunday afternoon after a night of celebrating. After that (and Monday’s day off) it’s anyone’s guess how Snitker will rest his starters. With seven games left and a current six-man rotation, it seems likely everyone will make one final tune-up start. Perhaps we’ll get a Kyle Wright or Max Fried start on the final weekend. Either way, it’s hard to envision any of the starters being pushed to their limits this week, particularly the trio (Folty, Gausman, Sanchez) most likely to start Games 1, 2 and 3 of the NLDS. And speaking of the playoff rotation, it’s down to Julio Teheran, Sean Newcomb and Touki Toussaint for a possible Game 4 situation. Teheran has been more consistent than Newcomb over the last six weeks, posting a 3.32 ERA (4.02 FIP) compared to Newcomb’s ugly 5.06 ERA (4.24 FIP). It seems the young southpaw has hit a wall in his first full season after an impressive first half. Toussaint, just 22 years old with 4 big league starts under his belt, seems unlikely to start in the postseason, although he certainly has the stuff to do so if called upon. Consider his possible role in October to be up in the air at the moment. How he, Teheran and Newcomb fare during their final starts this upcoming week will likely determine who makes the roster and who doesn't. Can the bullpen stabilize? The bullpen has not been good in September. The bullpen needs to be much better if they hope to make a run in October. I would hope that Brian Snitker is able to stay away from the relievers he’s used so frequently over the last six months, namely Jesse Biddle, Dan Winkler and A.J. Minter. They look gassed and a week off should do them a lot of good. The good news is that there is plenty of depth in the pen with the expanded rosters. Which leads us to... Who wins the final bullpen spots on the playoff roster? Barring injury or a complete blowup this week, Minter, Winkler, Biddle, Brad Brach, Jonny Venters and Shane Carle seem like locks for the NLDS. Arodys Vizcaino needs to prove he’s able to pitch back-to-back nights effectively, but he’s looked good since his return from the DL. Chad Sobotka has appeared in only 12 games, although he displayed wicked stuff while serving in a late-inning role this weekend against the Phillies and did not seem rattled by the moment. A strong finish to the season would likely punch his ticket for the playoffs. If you assume those eight guys are on the playoff roster, that likely leaves one more spot (assuming the roster is made of 9 relievers, 4 starters and 12 hitters). Touki Toussaint seems like the natural choice here — in this scenario he is not one of the club’s starters — although the likes of Sam Freeman, Luke Jackson and others will get a look. Does anyone make a push for award voting? Brian Snitker should be the NL’s Manager of the Year. No one else is more deserving. Freddie Freeman’s sub-par August likely took him out of the running for NL MVP honors, although he should still see some votes. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Nick Markakis could also see a few votes come their way. Acuña seems like the favorite to win NL Rookie of the Year, although Juan Soto is more than deserving as well. A strong final week from the Braves’ young phenom should solidify his case as the league’s top rookie.