Serious Baseball: The Atlanta Braves

by Frank Bundy
May 7, 2006

The New York Mets must be ecstatic. Not only are they playing very well, but their traditional chief divisional rival, the Atlanta Braves, are playing horribly. This combination has given the Mets a sizable lead over not only the Braves, but the entire division. As of this writing, they hold a seven-game lead over Atlanta, and a five-game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies.

At only 12-17, however, the Braves are an astounding case. Many analysts, including me, predicted that they would win the NL East this season for the 15th consecutive time. On the other hand, coming into this season, more than half of the Braves starting position players — Brian McCann, Adam LaRoche, Ryan Langerhans, and Jeff Francouer — have each had less than 800 ABs of major league experience. Their new shortstop, Edgar Renteria, is on the downside of his career. Additionally, Renteria really isn't that good a fielder, nor has he ever been; and John Smoltz is like 76 years old. Nevertheless, their bad start remains an interesting one, and, since they were predicted to be so good, I think it is only fitting to try to figure out what is going on.

To start, let's take a look at their offense. To make this as simple as possible, I will be looking at the RC27 (Runs Created per 27 Outs), as found at ESPN.com for each of the Braves' main offensive contributors (50+ AB's). This statistic does not reflect how many runs a player is scoring or driving in, nor does it represent, when totaled, how many runs the Braves are scoring as a team. It is just a thumbnail estimation of how well a player is or is not performing. For a more detailed description of the stat and its definition, click here. Each player's 2006 production is listed along with his 2005 output:

*Note: Edgar Renteria's numbers are compared to those of the Braves' 2005 shortstop, Rafael Furcal.

The final column (+/-) is the difference between the 2005 and 2006 RC27 figures, and shows whether a player is performing better or worse this year. As a whole, the Braves' main contributors are creating 5.18 fewer runs per game than they were last season, when they won 90 games (remember, this does not mean the Braves are scoring 5.18 fewer runs per game).

Obviously, these numbers will fluctuate as the season wears on, but for now we can see that the Braves offense is not what it was last season. The most glaring factor in this decline is the struggling of Jeff Francouer. The difference between his 2005 and 2006 RC27 alone is enough to cover the gap between last season's team offense and this season's.

While it is reasonable to say that Francouer will get better as the season progresses, I do not think it is reasonable to say that he will match last season's production. Francouer is so impatient at the plate that in his 104 plate appearances this season, he has not drawn one single walk! When a player has as little patience as Francouer has, there is no guarantee that he will be very productive. In fact, it's actually a good bet to say that he would most likely be below average offensively.

On the other hand, there are Braves hitters who are over performing right now, and will most likely regress towards their average later in the season. The most notable of these is Edgar Renteria. Currently in the midst of a 17-game hitting streak, Renteria has made his below-average 2005 season a distant memory with his phenomenal production thus far in 2006. However, Renteria is now 30 years old, and has a very pedestrian career OPS of .743. As such, all indications point to a decline from the former St. Louis Cardinal.

Luckily for the Braves though, if Chipper Jones is healthy, he will unquestionably rebound from his early season slump. Simply put, Chipper Jones is one of the most productive - and least noticed, despite his career .939 OPS - hitters of the past 10 years, and will not be held down. His rebound should cancel out Renteria's downfall.

Another player who will rebound and help to neutralize Renteria's downfall is Marcus Giles. The young second baseman is a very good player entering the prime of his career and has put up numbers (.831 career OPS, .931 Minor League OPS) that are far better than his 2006 ones currently stand (.688 OPS). Actually, since this year is Giles' age-28 season, look for a possible career year.

Now we come to Brian McCann. The rookie catcher is almost guaranteed to decline as the season progresses. Quite simply, his minor league OPS was .795, and his current 2006 OPS is .880. Combined with the fact that he has never caught a full season at the big league level, this makes it almost impossible for him to avoid declining.

The only other player on the Braves producing at a rate much different from that of last season is Andruw Jones. Before I determine whether Jones will continue his great production or not, I'd like to first point out how pedestrian the NL MVP runner-up actually was last season. The 5.6 RC27 that he posted in 2005 ranked behind 37 players in the NL. Some of the players who had a higher rate than Jones in 2005 were superstars such as Nick Johnson, Juan Encarnacion, Chad Tracy, David Eckstein, Geoff Jenkins, and Luis Castillo; well, you get the point.

Anyway, Jones will not produce at his current rate all season long. He simply is just not good enough of an offensive player to do so. It's amazing how 50 HRs in a single season (2005) will make people forget this. Now, this doesn't mean that Jones isn't good; he is, and his career .847 OPS attests to that. But his OPS so far this season is .945; the difference between this number and career OPS should get the point across. However, he is 29 years old, so a split between his career and last season's OPS (.922) isn't out of the question. However, the final season result will still be worse than the rate at which he's producing at now.

On the whole, I do see the Braves offense remaining as productive as it was last season. This is a good thing, since they ranked fourth in the NL in runs scored (769) last season. This means that in order to win 90 games again, the Braves pitching staff is going to have to pitch as well as it did last season. So far in 2006, they haven't.

Last season, Braves starting pitchers posted a 3.65 ERA, while their relievers posted a 4.74 ERA. So far this young season, the starters have been worse than last year with a 4.37 ERA, but the relievers have improved from last year, posting a 4.46 ERA this year.

Looking at some individual names on this year's starting staff, we can easily identify where the problems lie thus far.

Tim Hudson has a 4.54 ERA in 39.7 IP, and John Smoltz has a 4.05 ERA in 40 IP. Both these pitchers will improve as the season wears on, and the discussion ends there. I don't care how old John Smoltz is, he is still an absolute ace. He proved all he had to prove last season by posting a 3.06 ERA in 229.7 IP after spending four seasons as a reliever.

Starter Kyle Davies (4.70 ERA in 30.7 IP) is still very young and had great numbers in the minor leagues (3.03 ERA in 443 IP, and 9.3 K/9) but is actually pitching as well right now as I expect him to do all season. After all, he is still very young, and it's not as if that ERA from a 23 year old isn't good.

John Thomson is simply dealing so far this season (1.32 ERA in 27.3 IP), but has nowhere to go but down. He is coming off an injury-riddled season in 2005 and is now 32 years old. Also, not to be ignored is that his career ERA is 4.69.

The last starter remaining is 29-year-old Jorge Sosa, who, after three unsuccessful seasons for the Tampa Devil Rays, pitched a great half-season as a Brave last year. In 134 IP, Sosa posted a 2.55 ERA. Lying underneath that spiffy ERA, though, was an 85/64 K/BB ratio (1.3 / 1), which is not very good to say the least. But, Sosa has been that way his entire career; his career K/BB is 310/241, exactly 1.3 / 1! Yet, his career ERA is a not-so-good 4.51. You can see that if he pitches as he has his entire career, he will not be anywhere near as productive as last season. Sosa will go through a major decline, which has actually already started. In 21.7 IP so far he has a 6.65 ERA and an 11/9 K/BB ratio. While he will surely end up with a better ERA than 6.65, he will not have one as low as 2.55.

Therefore, I see the Braves starting staff getting worse as a unit. While Hudson and Smoltz will improve, Thomson and Sosa will worsen.

Lastly, we must look at the Braves bullpen, which, except for Chris Reitsma, is an entirely different group of players than it was in 2005. Most likely, this change won't be for the better.

Newcomers Lance Cormier and Oscar Villarreal have little experience and sub-1.70 K/BB ratios. Mike Remlinger is 157 years old and had a 6.58 ERA in 39.7 IP last season. Ken Ray is a career minor leaguer who has been in professional baseball since 1993 yet only has 22 innings of major league experience.

Chuck James could be a bright spot in this bullpen, as he is only 24 years old and has phenomenal minor league numbers (2.04 ERA in 3.43 IP and 10.9 K/9). But he is still very young. The only sure thing in this bullpen is Chris Reitsma, and the only thing he's sure to be is slightly better than average.

This bullpen will not be a good one and will most likely repeat the performance the Braves got from their relievers last season (12th in the NL in Bullpen ERA).

All in all, the Braves offense looks to be identical to last season, but their pitching staff seems to be worse. Look for the Braves to make some deals this season to try to improve their pitching staff in any way possible because they badly need it. If they don't make a move, they could be looking at their first second place finish in 15 years. This team's pitching staff simply isn't good enough to compete for a division title.

Thus, the evidence is there, and the Mets are extremely good. But, am I picking against the Braves? No! On paper they shouldn't be that good, and I may sound like an idiot for saying they will win the division after I just wrote an article giving legitimate reasons why they won't. But they've always found a way in the past, and will probably do the same this year.

So look at this article as one that can give Braves haters reasons to pick against them. I'm sure not.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email me at frnkbndy@yahoo.com.