re: Official 2021 Atlanta Braves Season Thread.(88-73)

Luke is a solid major league middle reliever.

I also cannot watch Luke pitch. I readily accept that he should be out there, I just can't watch the way he works through an inning without having a hernia. Though, at this point, it isn't any worse than Matzek. Both of them throw probably 25-30% of their pitches as absolute wastes in which there is a 2% chance the batter will swing. But their stuff is so hard and so good that the other 70% make up for most of it, and the strikeouts enable them to work out of self inflicted jams.

In short, they're relief pitchers.

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I can’t stand Jackson and wish he was DFA’d into oblivion.

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I can't stand him either but I also just have forced myself to realize that he's clearly better than all but a couple of our curent options and certainly better than the rotating cluster of horse shite that makes up the Gwinnett/Bottom half of Atlanta pen.

But he's insufferable to watch pitch. The "4 straight pitches all 2 feet off the plate" walk that happens every inning makes me want to stab myself in the eye with an ice pick. I know it is coming at some point, but even that doesn't help.

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I'll be honest, I can't figure out why we haven't attempted to do what the Dodgers do and put some of our more mature starting arms out in the pen. I assume it's because we want them to keep starting so that we can dangle them at the deadline (and not trade them, because we never trade them), but I just don't get it.

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We have tried in the past and it didn't go well. They should have traded Touki, Newcomb, and Wright back when they had some value left but AA won't do it because of what happened with the Dickey trade in Toronto. I think he significantly overvalues prospects because of all that. He won't move anyone who has even a hint of MLB ability. It isn't fair to the players, who may just need a change of scenery to get their careers back on track, and it hurts the organization by clogging up the farm system and delaying the development of younger players.

#MyGeneralManager

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AA is awful.

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Signed Josh Donaldson:

In 2019 he batted .259/.379/.521 with 37 home runs and 94 RBIs. He made contact with the lowest percentage of pitches he swung at in the strike zone (76.6%) of all NL batters.[62] On defense in 2019, he had a 15 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) rating, the best in the National League among third basemen.[63] He was named the 2019 NL Comeback Player of the Year.

Signed Marcel Ozuna:

In 2020 he batted .338/.431/.636 (each 3rd in the NL) with an NL-leading 18 home runs, 56 RBIs, and 145 total bases during the shortened 60-game season.[33] Ozuna won his second Silver Slugger Award after the 2020 season; it was the first-ever Silver Slugger for designated hitter in the National League as a result of the universal DH rule implemented league-wide as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Travis D’Arnaud:

In 2020, at 31 years of age, he had his breakout season. He batted .321/.386/.533 with nine home runs and 34 RBIs in 165 at bats.[61] He was also awarded his first Silver Slugger Award as the best offensive catcher in the National League.

Got Mark melancon, Shane Greene, Chris Martin, Panda and Adam Duvall at trade deadline for basically nothing.

But yea, “awful”.

Yea, he's not awful. He's been a mixed bag.


Pros
- short term deals for position players
- work around the fringes
- deadline deals
- signing Ozzie/Acuna to long term deals for pennies on the dollar right before other young players started getting locked up for much, much more


Cons
- short term deals for starting pitchers
- reluctance to move prospects from a position of strength and allowing their value to depreciate
- the entire 2021 offseason
- whatever the hell we did with Freddie with offseason


TBD - drafting

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I haven’t given up on Touki yet. I still think he is gonna be very good

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I'll be honest, I pretty much have. At least as a starter. He just doesn't seem to have the ability to repeat his mechanics. Hopefully he figures it out.

However, it is easy to forget that he's still just 24 years old.

One of the biggest failures of the AA era, to me, has been pitcher development in the upper level of the minor leagues. We have 3-4 guys with similar makeups - raw, great stuff, mechanical flaws that flare up and completely destroy whatever positives a guy has going. Those flaws are magnified once they reach the majors - both because of pressure to be perfect and because the margin of error on stuff is so much smaller.

All of those guys - Wright, Touki, Newk, Wilson - have had the same issues for going on 3+ years now. None of them have matured into guys with repeatable deliveries who have gotten better with their ability to locate and control themselves on the mound mentally and physically. They put up 1 great start where it all flows correctly followed by 3 starts where they can't make it out of the 4th due to pitch count from wildness or getting shelled.

And that's 100% flat out a developmental failure. And I don't quite understand why the same guys who have probably ruined (or at least not developed) a generation of talented pitchers are still there.

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I'd hesitate to put Wilson in that group just yet. He's younger than the rest and I think if he develops a 3rd pitch he's comfortable with he will be a decent back of the rotation guy.

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Agree - he definitely had the farthest to come in terms of being raw and he's seemingly improved bit by bit each year. His fastball/slider right now is MLB good enough when he's on top of things, but when he isn't he doesn't have the ability to scuffle through it very well. And, like you said, I think a lot of that is that he doesn't have a 3rd pitch. And his fastball/slider can be very comparable at times, which is obviously a disaster.

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Wright is by far the biggest disappointment to me though. He's just not any good and I'm not sure it's just a mechanical issue. Even his best outings aren't pretty and you have to look for stuff to convince yourself it wasn't just a fluke.

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Without a doubt. His issues feel, to me at least, like a guy who realizes what he have isn't good enough and he's trying to overcompensate for it.

Then you have Touki, which was always kind of a project. I kind of at least expected him to be able to hone things to the point of being semi-effective though. He's still got some time, though, but it doesn't feel like much progress has been made the last 24-36 months.

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mystery ailment the Rangers made our people aware of is a back issue.

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Makes sense - random days where your back tightens up or something. Makes much more sense than the other possibilities I saw bouncing around - mental health, religion or irritable bowel syndrome

I like Heredia in the starting lineup better than Adrianza. At least there's no Camargo. He'd K 3 times in 4 ABs on ~15 pitches. Ender is Ender but he's still a fantastic defender and he's hitting soft line drives instead of soft ground balls in his limited action this season, so at least some of those fall for hits.

I really like Contreras. He needs work on blocking and framing, but he looks like he will be a good OBP bat with above average pop, which is about as good as you can ask for out of a catcher at the plate.