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2022 Atlanta Braves Season Thread: off season decisions loom

Acuna can take over games with his offensive ability; he never did that in Dodger series. Maybe he was banged up, but he didn't play his best, when the Braves needed offense. Freddie and Ozuna hit the ball hard last night, but they either were right at people or spectacular plays were made against them - that's baseball. Travis D'Arnaud returned to reality after being the best offensive catcher in the game for the regular season and the Marlins series. 100% agree that heading into game 6 and 7, Snit or anyone supporting the Braves, would've loved their chances if they were told that the Braves would hold the Dodgers to a total of 7 runs in the last two games. BTW, the loss of Duval hurt. Pache will be a player, but the Braves ability to tack on runs would've been ramped up if Duval had been in the lineup.

Also, don't buy blaming Ron Washington for the base-running blunder. Players learn from little league that when you are not forced and there are less than two outs, you follow the runner in front of you on the bases. If he goes, you go (if the defense reacts to get Riley out at third, Swanson scores easily). If he stays you stay. Inexplicably, Riley ran back toward to 2nd base when Swanson broke for home on the ground ball to Turner. At that point, he was dead if he went to third, but what does Riley do, after going back to 2nd, he then tries to run third. The worst of all possible options, and no MLB player (no minor league player) should run himself into an out in that situation. Just a total bonehead play.
 
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Tomahawk "choke"-----little league base running-----just like last year,get up in games and cannot close out
 
AGING DEAC said:
Tomahawk "choke"-----little league base running-----just like last year,get up in games and cannot close out
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This is what lost the series. Two games with little league base running which is just simple execution of what a player has been doing all his lfe in baseball. Not on teh manager at all but totally on Ozuna, Swanston and Riley for those bonehead plays.
 
My only criticism of Snitker is that D’Arnaud should have gotten an off day on one of the the middle games.
 
The only good thing about last night is that the Dodgers pitching is completely depleted.

If teams are going to employ the shift as much as they did in this series, the Braves would be wise to refocus on push bunts. A safety squeeze by Markakis last night would have scored a run and might not have even cost an out.

Baserunning was really bad for the Braves. Swanson should have had a lead off of third as far away as Turner was from the base (Turner was almost in a SS position), his secondary lead when the ball was hit should have had him score. Riley running was just dumb, commit or go back. He decided too late.
 
The Braves got unlucky on the Markakis ground ball to Turner covering the left-side of the infield. Taking advantage of the Dodgers' shift, Markakis hit a bullet to the left side of the infield; exactly the opposite of what the Dodgers wanted. The hit percentage on a ground ball to that side was really high given that only one defender was over there. Also, Markakis hit it hard. On a slower ground ball hit right at Turner, Swanson scores easily. If Markakis hit 100 balls to the left-side against that shift, he gets a hit on about 70 of them, and of the remaining 30, Dansby scores on an out, on about 25 of them. Baseball is an unfair game sometimes.
 
The Braves were also lucky the Dodgers didn't score more when they were walking a ton and blasting outs at guys. I will say, LAD is super annoying in how good their defensive positioning is.
 
That base running killed what looked to be a big inning. No excuse for that.

Duvall was a big loss. He kills lefties and his spot in the order kept coming up in big situations. Riley hitting 7th vs. 9th shows how it weakened the offense.
 
A couple of valuable bullpen guys are FAs - Melancon, Greene, & O’Day. We will also need to find another catcher to platoon with or give d’Arnaud more days off than he was getting at the end of the season. Flowers is washed.
 
YoungBuck95 said:
A couple of valuable bullpen guys are FAs - Melancon, Greene, & O’Day. We will also need to find another catcher to platoon with or give d’Arnaud more days off than he was getting at the end of the season. Flowers is washed.
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I’m almost certain William Contreras will be the other catcher with d’Arnaud next year. Bullpen re-signings should be interesting, wouldn’t be surprised if they let some of those guys walk but they need to find replacements.
 
YoungBuck95 said:
A couple of valuable bullpen guys are FAs - Melancon, Greene, & O’Day. We will also need to find another catcher to platoon with or give d’Arnaud more days off than he was getting at the end of the season. Flowers is washed.
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hope one of the C prospects is ready next season
 
Ron Washington has been a great asset for the Braves. However, he has to take a major share of the blame for last night's base running blunders by Swanson and Riley.
Prior to the play, it was his responsibility to cover with Swanson what to do whenever the ball was hit to any of the Dodger infielders. No way should he have not told Swanson to hold if the ball was hit to third base, especially a hard hit ball. There were no outs.
Secondly, when Swanson got in the rundown, it was Washington's responsibility to get Riley to third. Swanson was a dead duck. The odds of getting out of a major league rundown are probably less than 5%. Washington should have been screaming for Riley to come on to third so that at least there would be a runner on third with less than two outs. Riley should not have hesitated.
A total screw up by everybody involved, the two baserunners and the third base coach.
 
deacon14 said:
I’m almost certain William Contreras will be the other catcher with d’Arnaud next year. Bullpen re-signings should be interesting, wouldn’t be surprised if they let some of those guys walk but they need to find replacements.
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I think this might be wishful thinking. He's had 64 games at AA or higher. I get Ian only had x amount of innings at AA or above but he certainly performed better in those innings than Contreras did. I think we'll sign somebody to a 1 year deal and see how Contreras does in the early parts of the AAA season before we bring him up.
 
2020 Atlanta Braves Season Thread: Playoffs!

Is it safe to assume Pache stays up?
 
JOJESMA said:
Ron Washington has been a great asset for the Braves. However, he has to take a major share of the blame for last night's base running blunders by Swanson and Riley.
Prior to the play, it was his responsibility to cover with Swanson what to do whenever the ball was hit to any of the Dodger infielders. No way should he have not told Swanson to hold if the ball was hit to third base, especially a hard hit ball. There were no outs.
Secondly, when Swanson got in the rundown, it was Washington's responsibility to get Riley to third. Swanson was a dead duck. The odds of getting out of a major league rundown are probably less than 5%. Washington should have been screaming for Riley to come on to third so that at least there would be a runner on third with less than two outs. Riley should not have hesitated.
A total screw up by everybody involved, the two baserunners and the third base coach.
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I’m pretty confident that the plan was that Swanson was going on contact pretty much regardless. If that’s not right at Turner he’s probably safe. If it’s hit softer to Turner he has a chance to be safe. It took perfectly bad luck for the Braves for going on contact to be the wrong call with how the defense was aligned (all pretty deep, only Turner on the left side).

The real problem was with Riley, who clearly just panicked. If Dansby is going on contact, he should’ve been as well, as they cannot possibly have gotten both of them out. I get your point that Wash should have been screaming to get Riley to third, but what probably happened is that he was screaming, and by the time Riley stopped panicking and listened, it was too late to go anymore but Riley did anyways.

Overall I think that play was 60% shit luck for the Braves and 40% on Riley for panicking and reacting to the situation way way too late.
 
YoungBuck95 said:
I think this might be wishful thinking. He's had 64 games at AA or higher. I get Ian only had x amount of innings at AA or above but he certainly performed better in those innings than Contreras did. I think we'll sign somebody to a 1 year deal and see how Contreras does in the early parts of the AAA season before we bring him up.
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Meh. He clearly leapfrogged Alex Jackson this year and would have had a year at AAA this year. Those in game reps are gone due to covid, but it’s not like the development time didn’t happen. I think there’s better options to spend money this offseason (Bauer plz) with how d’Arnaud hit this year, as a platoon isn’t necessary.
DeaconCav06 said:
Is it safe to assume Pache stays up?
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Almost definitely. Outfield of Duvall Pache Acuña next year.
 
I hope I'm wrong but Travis is not going to repeat how productive he was this year. His walk rate was essentially 2x his career rate and he had an absolutely absurd BABIP of .411. If he had enough ABs to be qualified to be on leaderboards, that would put him second behind Conforto at .412. d'Arnaud's career babip is .280. There is going to be some, likely a good bit of, regression from him. But again, I hope I am wrong.
 
YoungBuck95 said:
I hope I'm wrong but Travis is not going to repeat how productive he was this year. His walk rate was essentially 2x his career rate and he had an absolutely absurd BABIP of .411. If he had enough ABs to be qualified to be on leaderboards, that would put him second behind Conforto at .412. d'Arnaud's career babip is .280. There is going to be some, likely a good bit of, regression from him. But again, I hope I am wrong.
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I agree with this take, I had no idea his BABIP was that high. With the prospect capital we have at C (Jackson, Contreras, Langeliers), I still think I’d prefer it if the FA focus was elsewhere (SP, BP, Ozuna), but if we strike out on big names there, a guy like James McCann could make sense. I just don’t want a one year guy that isn’t going to hit any better than Contreras. If we’re signing someone who’s going to have a wRC+ of 80, we may as well let the young guy get acclimated instead.
 
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