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Will The Braves contend this season ?...

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Comments

  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Kirb, the rotation has been very thin at best so far, at least that's my opinion. It's reliant on so many young arms and fragile bodies that I have little idea how it will play out over the course of the remaining 144 games in the regular season.

    That said, there is potential, but a whole lot will need to go right.

  • YaleDawgYaleDawg Posts: 7,303 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Braves will fight for 3rd in the east this season. Bullpen will blow a lot of games

  • coastaldawgcoastaldawg Posts: 1,411 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Our bullpen won’t stay this bad, Soroka and Minter have the talent to be good relievers, Parsons has looked pretty good, and a couple of our other relievers (Venters, Biddle, Winkler, or Jackson) will hopefully be able to come in and provide long relief or be situational pitchers. If Folty gets healthy, and Soroka can stay healthy, we could be moving Touki or Tehran to the pen. Seems like every year we end up having a reliever you’ve never heard of come in and pitch effectively, for a while at least. All these walks the bullpen has been issuing has been hard to watch, hopefully some of them will figure things out soon. If we can sign Kimbrel for $45 million over 3 years, then I would do so and give up the draft pick. With our offense and starting pitching, we’ll be competitive enough to make spending that much on a closer a good investment.

  • volatilisvolatilis Posts: 3,239 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    If they don't fix their bullpen, they won't be contenders. I also still think Acuna should be leading off. I think it was Glavine that addressed Acuna batting cleanup by stating it would be best for the team for him to hit a 2 or 3 run homer opposed to a lead off homer. Makes sense except he seems to fire his team up when he leads off homering or even getting on base. JMO

  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Acuna is a traditional 3 hitter. If Freeman doesn't re-gain his HR **** I might try RA at 4 though. It's looking more and more like Freddie isn't going to be a 30 to 40 HR player again.

  • donmdonm Posts: 10,241 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    DeGrom got sent home for an MRI. If he goes on the IL, the Mets will suffer and the Bravos chances of making the playoffs go up a bit. What is it with the Met's pitching staff? They seem to have a dark cloud hovering over their heads.

  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Coastal. I assume you meant Sobotka is going to be a good reliever, Soroka is a starter.

  • coastaldawgcoastaldawg Posts: 1,411 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    WC. You’re right, meant Sabotka. Was glad to see Soroka finally come back and start the other night. Would like to see him stay healthy and stay in the rotation for the rest of the season. Him, Fried, and Touki have been the most impressive to me in their appearances with the big Braves. Sabotka has shown great stuff, expect big things out of him when he gets back to throwing strikes.

  • KirbstomperKirbstomper Posts: 1,102 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate
    edited April 2019

    You want a high OBP guy to lead off. Some people say you don’t wanna waste too many homers there. You definitely don’t want to be stealing and risking outs in front of your best hitters.

    Freeman for leadoff hitter 2019

    PS freeman has hit between 30-40 homers only once in his career, he’s never really been a big home run guy. But 20-25 with a high OBP and plenty of extra base hits is still plenty good.

    Also, analytics say the 3 hole is not where you want your best hitters to hit. Because they have the most at bats with 0 on and 2 outs

  • WCDawgWCDawg Posts: 17,293 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Kirb. FF had 34 hrs when he was 26, about the age many players realize their power potential. He got off to a similar start the next season, then he got injured. He's never re-gained that power level, which is what I was referring to earlier. Freddie is so big and his swing is so controlled, power should come easily as just a biproduct of making consistently good contact.

  • RDDawgRDDawg Posts: 235 ✭✭✭ Junior
  • bmauldinbmauldin Posts: 4,807 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Offense looks good, defense looks good, bullpen is ABSOLUTE trash...

  • AndersonDawgAndersonDawg Posts: 1,978 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Like the energy of the team. Relief pitchers toss batting practice. Need a reliable closer. They had the best and let him go to Boston.

    I hope I am wrong but I am afraid they will contend and then pretend.

  • AndersonDawgAndersonDawg Posts: 1,978 ✭✭✭✭✭ Graduate

    Question for baseball experts. When opposing teams put exaggerated shift on for Freeman, why doesn’t he bunt down third base line. Seems to me if he started doing this, either he gets a single every time or opposing teams would modify shift and open up some holes on the right side.

    What’s wrong with my thinking?

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