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Braves Ongoing Season Comments Thread..
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Markakis and Dansby put on IL, Duvall called up and Fried activated. Could start seeing an outfield platoon with Duvall, Riley, and Acuna playing vs lefties and Ender, Acuna, and Joyce vs righties (with Camargo factoring in when Dansby returns.
Don’t forget about Charlie Clutch. Culberson should be in the platoon too
I meant to post on base percentage in the attached post. OPS is very good but getting on base/avoiding an out is essential.
Same here, I am shame. Joyce is that utility guy every good team seems to have.
At this point, I would rather see Culberson playing than any of our outfielders other than Acuna. Seems like he’s made himself so valuable coming off the bench that they would rather keep him in that role.
Be nice to see Duvall hit for us like he has been down there.
I dont see him, Ender, or Markakis in Brave uniforms next year.
Guys who hit that well off the bench are rare. Plus, hes Charlie Ball Game, he can play everywhere. Hes a super valuable commodity.
Not an impressive bottom of the order for Braves tonight :
5th - Camargo SS
6th - Duvall LF
7th - Flowers C
8th - Inciarte CF
going to need good pitching and for the top of the order to produce runs with Dansby and Markakis out.
Inciarte starting with a bang, or a blast.
Looking good so far.
Is this really happening tonight with this lineup? Whoa! 5-8 is suspect at best.
Oh, ye of little faith.
The Dodgers whipped up on Washington again tonight, so we're picking up a game on both Philly and Washington. Snitker keeps demonstrating a Bobby Cox like ability to keep the team up.
Has anybody in the history of people ever apprenticed for a job as long as Snitker did ? He was in the Braves organization for 39 years and managed 6 different Braves' minor league teams before getting his opportunity at 61 years old. It's well earned to say the least.
Good to see Duvall hit again.
At the risk of belaboring a point. Of the 6 MLB teams with the highest on base percentage, 5 lead their divisions. Show me an advanced stat as predictive as this basic measure. Get on base, don't make an out and have teammates who do the same, scoring runs at a high rate will be the bi-product.
I kind of looked at this real quick and dirty. I'm not really an expert in statistic or analyzing sensitivity of data, maybe someone on here is smart and could help.
What I saw is that team OBP doesn't seem to be a better indicator of team success than anything else you could think of (I did runs, not wins since pitching should be ignored in this context). This doesn't really give any answers but kind of makes me curious how you could parse this out in a smart way.
OBP = consistency. The great Yankees teams in the late 90s didn't have a 40 HR hitter and they weren't the highest scoring teams. What they had was a relentless lineup. They weren't as prone to draughts because getting on base at a high rate as a team is more conducive to avoiding draughts and beating postseason pitchers than being prolific HR hitters.
The 2 semi dynasties over the past 23 years were The Yankees and Red Sox. Those championship teams had higher ranked OBP than HRs almost every year, and all 9 were very dominant at getting on base.
Yankees' 5 title teams OBP. 4th, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st____ HRs. 16th, 7th, 13th, 8th, 1st
Boston. OBP 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st.____ HRs. 5th, 18th, 6th, 9th
That is 9 titles with 6 being 1st in OBP, 2 being 2nd in OBP and 1 being 4th in OBP
What that shows is to be consistently successful in postseason play being dominant in OBP is more important to being dominant in hitting HRs/power.
This is why I harp on building with players from 1 thru 8 who get on base at high rates. It's very, very tough to shut that type of offense down and they are generally better against top pitchers like you face in postseason because they are the most skilled hitters.
I give Bill James credit for looking at actual results as opposed to launch angle, exit velocity, bat speed, etc. Not that I'm opposed to measuring those things, as long as they aren't confused with actual production.
But those things equal actual production. Its why they are measuring them.
I'm a huge believer in the value of high OPS from top to bottom of the lineup.
This is how Bill James changed the game.
Baseball is a game of out avoidance. There is no clock. Theoretically if a team never makes an out they will continue to score forever.
Common sense tells you if you avoid making outs better than your opponent, and when you do get hits they are homers instead of singles, your chances of winning go way way up.
Seems simple buts its amazing how long it took for teams to figure this out.
It's 27 outs in increments of 3 to get around 4 squared bases more times than your opponent. 1st player, don't make an out, get on base. 2nd player, see 1st player.
If you think of baseball as a 3 dimensional board game it's not complicated at all in it's formula. The various skills needed to accomplish the specifics at this level are rare though.
I well recall facing those Yankee teams, particularly in 1998 when we won more regular season games but their lineup was so skilled and consistent as hitters they just kept coming and kept coming. Don't get me wrong, you need power too. The difference is you can have the 10th best power numbers and be 1st in OBP and you'll beat a team in a 7 game series that is 1st in power and 10th in OBP more times than not.