The Braves are 52-43 at the ASB, tied with the Nationals atop the East. Right now there are 7 NL teams bunched together between 51-53 wins, so the Wild Card race could go depend on a few lucky bounces or one crucial win or one boneheaded managerial decision. This leads into my first and maybe most important thought:
1) Fredi Gonzalez is tactically hurting this baseball team. The Braves starting 8 position players get on base at the following percent of plate appearances: 38.4, 37.1, 34.9, 34.2, 34.2, 30.9, 30.1, and 27.7. Naturally Fredi has decided that the guy who will receive the most plate appearances by batting leadoff is the man with by far the lowest on-base percentage. And this is not a confusing optics thing either. No one except Fredi thinks that B.J. Upton is a viable leadoff hitter. Of course Fredi compounds this problem by batting the 30.9% guy (Andrelton) second now. This is not rocket science. In fact this is basic, elementary-school mathematics. In baseball you get 27 outs and your lineup should be structured to avoid making those precious outs rather than maximizing the chances. Fredi's use of the bullpen and the bench also drives me insane, but the lineup construction is the most egregious and the most likely to cost the Braves a playoff spot. Overall Fredi keeps making facially questionable decisions that don't work out (starting Uggla, demoting Wood, subbing Pena for TLS, letting anyone on the bench play, etc) and then backtracks into the obvious solution. Maybe we here at Chasing Steve Avery will start posting more and can get Fredi to heed our advice. Once again, here is my suggested lineup (which is based on realism because personally I'd bat Freddie 2nd and Heyward 4th):
Heyward-TLS-Justin-Freeman-Gattis-Johnson-Simmons-BJ
2) The new guys are better than I expected. In my season preview and first week review, I was clamoring for Tommy La Stella and Christian Bethancourt to get opportunities to play. La Stella has been incredible for the Braves. And this is exactly what we expected of him. Out of all of the Braves, I think only the unbelievable Freddie Freeman has a better "hit" tool than TLS. TLS has also turned out to be a pretty competent defender. He's not Andrelton, but he's also not Dan Uggla. FanGraphs even has him as providing positive value fielding (granted it's a ridiculously small sample size for fielding, but my eyes also think that as well), which is why it was so frustrating to see Fredi substitute in Ramiro Pena as a defensive replacement late in games so often when TLS came up. That seems to have changed recently. TLS is also the anti-Dan Uggla. In high leverage spots I feel confident when our line-drive machine 2B comes up to the plate. The power is not here yet (only 9 extra base hits so far), but TLS has a BB:K ratio of 21:20 and he has an OBP of .371. It is absurd that he is only batting 7th in this lineup, but that will probably change in due time (Fredi is allowing the meager 8 games that he allowed TLS to bat at the top of the order to justify not batting him there more). We will have a lot more to say about Tommy La Stella during the dog days of summer.
Moving on to Bethancourt, he has not had the impact that La Stella has had, but I think he has been more than adequate in his brief role filling in for the injured Evan Gattis. In fact I think Bethancourt has proven that the best move for this Braves team would be to move Gattis to left and bench Bossman. The catching statistics do not show Bethancourt as even average right now. Somehow he has allowed 6 stolen bases and only thrown out one runner. Also pitch framing has not been his friend lately, but based solely on anecdotal evidence I believe that is a problem with the umpires not Christian. Bethancourt is probably the leanest catcher in major league baseball. He does not block the umpire's view on balls that McCann or Gattis (or the Molinas) do. However Bethancourt is still and quiet. He is impressively smooth in receiving pitches (three passed balls notwithstanding). I think the umpires will come around. Remember it's only been 11 games, and I think he is the defensive catcher that we need. Don't forget that Gattis is an absolute human tire fire behind home plate (33 "wild pitches" is a joke and would lead the league by a wide margin if he had a caught a comparable number of innings). Yes Gattis is also terrible in the outfield, but I think this is the move the Braves should make.
3) The bullpen has been interesting. On one hand, there's Kimbrel/Walden/Simmons which is quickly becoming the new version of the dominant trio of Bravo relievers. Vavarro is making for an interesting 4th piece, although I think he's better as a low-leverage type rather than a reliever you can trust to put out the fire in a bases loaded, tie game. On the other side, there's Avilan, Carpernter, and all the other guys Atlanta has thrown out there. Carpenter's lack of success seems to be fueled by small samples and a ludicrous .448 BABIP, so hopefully the Braves keep throwing him out there in lower leverage situations.
The Avilan magic appears to have run out. He's walking more men, giving up more home runs, and giving up more hits in general. 2012-13 were probably unsustainable BABIPs and HR/9 rates, but this has been even worse. It certainly doesn't help that Fredi insists on running him out there all of the time. He's made 47 appearances even though he essentially took the last week off! Fortunately there are alternatives. Frank Wren has made a clear statement that the Braves are looking for LHP, and the Braves have been linked to Andrew Miller, which would be interesting and might not cost too much. We have seen Ian Thomas and Ryan Buchter this year already; both are intriguing options especially Buchter. Thomas is currently rehabbing in rookie ball, and Buchter has seen control problems return in Gwinnett. There is one interesting option hiding in Mississippi: Chasen Shreve. Truthfully I don't know much about Shreve except what you can read on Baseball America. He apparently was a JUCO teammate of Bryce Harper. He's tall (6'3) and a lefty. Most importantly, he appears to have figured it out: 35 games, 54 IP, 76 Ks, 9 BBs this season. I think it's time to at least give Shreve a shot and see if he can solve or at least assist the lefty situation out of the bullpen.
4) The rotation: smoke, mirrors, and Julio Teheran. Teheran is a bona fide ace. Some of the regression models think less of him because he is a flyball pitcher who doesn't strike out Kimbrel-levels of batters, but Teheran is an innings-gobbling, weak-contact inducing ace. Fangraphs ludicrously ranked Teheran lower than Chris Archer of Tampa on its annual Trade Value rankings. Moving on, the Braves have seen solid performances from Aaron Harang and Ervin Santana. I said in the preseason that I wouldn't be shocked if Harang outperformed Santana, and lo-and-behold he has. It remains to be seen if Harang can hold up for the rest of the season and through the playoffs. Alex Wood has been fantastic as a starter. Mike Minor has struggled all season long, but he is allowing a lot of home runs this year at a far greater clip than his career average (1.51 this year vs 1.14 career). Hopefully Minor will turn it around because the Braves need him to be the #2 starter due to the losses of Beachy, Medlen, and Gavin Floyd.
5) I love the idea of trading for David Price, but I wouldn't sell the house to get him. Also in any David Price deal, I'd want Ben Zobrist included because Zobrist would give the Braves a super-utility player who likely would start in RF, shifting Heyward to CF. Surely the Rays would inquire about Alex Wood, Christian Bethancourt, and Jose Peraza, but personally I would resist their inclusion. I would be willing to consider the minor league pitchers just below Wood, including David Hale, JR Graham, Lucas Sims, Jason Hursch, Wes Parsons, Mauricio Cabrera, among others. As you can see by the list, Atlanta has a lot of pitching depth. If the Braves could acquire Price/Zobrist for 3 or even 4 pitchers off that list plus another position prospect (Victor Caratini or Josh Elander maybe?), then I would pull the trigger. Note that ESPN/Jim Bowden is claiming that the Rays will require "an elite prospect and a top prospect" for Price. I don't think the Braves even have what anyone would consider an "elite prospect" (although 24-year-olds Freeman, Simmons, and Heyward would rank 1-2-3 if they were added to any current Top Prospects list -- not saying the Braves would remotely consider trading them for Price though). Maybe a team like the Cardinals will cough up that bounty for less than 1.5 years of Price, but I certainly wouldn't. Flags fly forever, but dynasties and long-term playoff success makes more money.
Other moves I think the Braves need to make: (a) DFA Dan Uggla. He's a sunk cost at this point and is worthless to the Braves. (b) Waive BJ Upton. This suggestion comes with three caveats. Justin must sign off which might not be likely. This move only could come after the acquisition of an alternative, at least another bench OF if not Zobrist. And if anyone puts in a claim on BJ, the Braves should just let him fly away. (c) Acquire bench help. Lots of it. I don't know who. But I said in the preseason Doumit was bad and I was correct. Pena and Schafer have also been terrible and could easily be upgraded.
6) This is not a fun team to watch. But this is a fun team to watch. This team is incredibly frustrating. Blown leads. Ridiculous management decisions. Ridiculous plate discipline (Andrelton do you really need to swing at the first pitch in every at-bat??). Yet there's Andrelton being the wizard that he is. TLS just hits line drives. Heyward and Justin and Freeman are fun to watch at the plate. Heyward defensively is a thing of beauty. Gattis hits magestic home runs. Kimbrel makes me laugh out loud at least once per appearance in how comically good he is.
Looking forward to the second half, the Braves are the team to beat in the NL East. The projections don't necessarily love the Braves over the Nationals, but quite frankly those projection systems are just wrong. I think a few minor tweaks would make the Braves strong favorites, and the acquisition of a David Price or Ben Zobrist would make them prohibitive favorites in my opinion.
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