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Will The Braves contend this season ?...

WCDawg

After 18 games they define average statistically. In both hitting and pitching they rank in the middle of the MLB pack. There are some excellent young components, particularly position players, but do they have enough ?

I'm still of the mind changing pitching coaches could set the young starters back, so far it looks like that may be the case. Also with their closer now out for the season, signing Kimbrel seems to make more sense, but without a good rotation, he would be wasted.

I think the prognosticators probably got it right, we have maybe a 2nd or 3rd place team.

Thoughts ?

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donm

Young guys like Soroka, Freid and Toussaint seem worth throwing out there on a regular basis and let's see what happens. If Folty and Newk can stay solid (big if for Newk) we'll have a nice rotation. In the meantime, Gaussman looks to fill the role of Sanchez last year...just need some consistent production throughout the lineup and we'll be better.

TNDawg71

I think they will hang in there a while, but come up a little short. A few of the guys my fall a little of their current pace offensively but still have good seasons. The starting rotation will be solid but not quite there yet.

WCDawg

Donm. Do you think the team will be better than last season's team ? I think the team ERA was 7th in MLB in 2018 and only 2 teams had substantially better ERAs, that is going to be hard to match.

GeorgiaGirl

The starting pitching has settled in and will continue to after a bad look in Philly. It's the relief pitching that has been a HUGE issue because of a risk that they took...for reasons nobody will understand.

GeorgiaGirl

And to add, Newcomb was already regressing under your golden boy pitching coach after he got figured out like a back of a hand. There's nothing indicating that there's a problem with the starting pitchers yet, guys like Wright needed more refinement anyway. It's all in the relief pitching and it's a major major issue.

donm

https://forum.dawgnation.com/discussion/comment/234992#Comment_234992

No, I don't think they'll be as good -at least not in terms of #s of wins. For me, I just want to see the young pitchers get out there, get knocked around ab bit and learn what it's all about. A lot of factors have to come together, IMO, for us to make the playoffs.

Kirbstomper

I agree with Georgia girl. So far starting rotation has actually been good save for Newk, offense has been top 10. Bullpen has been very bad. Hard to say how much the bad bullpen has hurt us thus far, but it is disappointing because any knowledgeable fan could have told you it was a weak spot in December and we didn’t to do nearly enough to shore it up. In fact we didn’t do anything at all from the looks of it.

Newk was already regressing hard last year, this year hasn’t come out of nowhere for him. He tried sacrificing some velo for command but command never came, so now he has worse quality stuff and bad control/command to boot. Still some semblance of hope he gets it together but it doesn’t usually work like that. After 3 years you kind of are who you are more often than not and don’t change direction of your career.

TNDawg71

The starting rotation needs to get a little deeper into games. I know the modern game is different, but that extra inning is a big deal. 5 innings is what we are getting too often. The bullpen can't through strikes and it's embarrassing.

donm

that's what killed me about Newk. It would take him 17-20 pitches to get through an inning. He was toast by the 6th, if he got that far. We've got a good defense, maybe even better than good. Let them hit the ball and go catch it.

Kirbstomper

I will add that I expect us to play musical chairs with our rotation this year, simply because we have so many MLB capable arms. Once the rotation kind of stabilizes a bit I would think they would try to get some young starters into the pen.

we still need folty to get healthy, see if soroka is healthy enough to pitch a lot of innings, see if Fried throwing strikes is real if statistical variance, see if newk is actually broken, see if Tehran is a major league starter or not, see if gohara can find his 2017 self again, see if Wright is a bust or if he just needs more time in AAA, see if Tuoki can throw strikes with his nasty stuff, etc.

So still a lot to figure out with our arms. Ideally we have some kind of role for all our quality arms and don’t keep trotting our Shane Carle and Sobotka.

LD10

This is the same bullpen that could not throw strikes last year and I wonder what made them think it would be any different this year. I think Camargo should be starting somewhere in the lineup. Phillies are loaded, but that did not work for the Nats. Have not given up on them, but have plenty of doubt on them winning the division.

WCDawg

Kirbstoper. Fried and Gausman have had 5 good starts out of 6 so far. Teheran has had 2 out of 3 good starts. There's not much past those 3 though. We can expect Julio to be his usual schizoid self, so there are many more questions than reliable solutions right now.

WCDawg

The pen had a 4.15 ERA and was tied for 3rd in most walks allowed last season. The plan for this season was to use several of the young starters who didn't make the rotation in the pen this year. So far there haven't been enough healthy arms between them to be of much use.

GeorgiaGirl

I don't think putting starters in the bullpen was the plan, the plan that looks awful now is they thought they would be okay with was relying on the following as 3 of the 4 big pieces of the bullpen:

A 36 year old in O'Day to return and keep up good form. The injury is something different this time (which is making me wonder if he'll even pitch as it's arm related), but still.

Tommy John Warrior in Jonny Venters to repeat 2018.

Arodys Vizcaino, he of the shoulder problems of last year, he was a real non-tender threat, but then they decided they'd rely on him. Then he had shoulder surgery and he's now done for the year.

And so far, TBD but I'm leaning towards strike out, likely strike out, and strike out for sure.

And the only thing I ask is...why? The offseason was so bizarre now that you really think it through, because relying on injury risks is asking to get burned. How did they translate injury risks into value? Why?

To add onto the above, the 4th big piece of the bullpen has blown up so far in Minter. Add all that together and you have huge issues.

Kirbstomper

https://forum.dawgnation.com/discussion/comment/235020#Comment_235020

I mean then you can count tuoki’s brilliant psuedo start, and soroka yeaterday. Wright hasn’t been good and Newk hasn’t been good, aside from that we have been strong in the rotation IMO. Still not really a believer fried can keep it up, and I need to see folty replicate 2018, but so far it has given me some confidence