In what is the most
surprising baseball story of the year, the Atlanta Braves, despite having
almost no national buzz going into the season, currently have the best record
in the National League.
This, of course, is
fantastic news for me. My earliest sports memories are almost all baseball ones,
and they begin with the fantastic Atlanta teams of the 1990s and 2000s that won
14 straight division titles. They spoiled me, and tricked me into thinking that
the Braves would field playoff-level teams every single year, stacked with
Hall of Famers like Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, and Chipper Jones.
Those days have been gone
for a long time. Between then and now there’s been a lot of average to
downright awful baseball. There was the blown 8 and half game lead in the Wild
Card race during the 2011 season, the “Infield Fly Rule” game in the 2012 NL
Wild Card Game, the Upton Brothers Atlanta teams in ’13 and ’14 that struck out
a ton and weren’t all that likeable, and a three year record from ’15-’17 that was a
ghastly 207-278.
This 2018 team is the one
we’ve all been hearing about, the one the organization has been building since
they blew everything up following Atlanta's disastrous 2014 season. It just looks like they arrived a year or two earlier than everyone thought.
A couple things have
happened that not everyone expected:
1. Ozzie Albies is really freaking good
Yeah,
not breaking any news here, but the man can flat out play. He’s my new favorite
Brave, thanks to his powerful bat (he’s tied for the league lead in home runs,
total bases, and extra base hits), his excellent defense, and the signature way
his helmet always flies off his head as he attempts to stretch his single into
a double. Never change Ozzie! He’s a sure-fire All Star and MVP candidate.
2. Nick Markakis is no longer a corpse
Markakis
was the most frustrating Brave for me the last three seasons, mostly because I
had no idea why he was on the roster. He wasn’t a home-grown guy, and Atlanta
had no reason to throw money at him in the middle of their rebuild. Plus, he
hadn’t hit over .300 since 2008, or had more than 23 home runs or 100 RBIs
since 2009. The guy was in his early 30s and just seemed more washed up than
King Theoden at the beginning of The Two
Towers.
Which
is why his sudden resurgence the first quarter of the season was totally unexpected.
Did Gandalf kick in the door to Braves spring training and command Saruman to
leave him? What else could possibly explain his .333 batting average, or
league-leading 54 hits?
3. Freddie Freeman is probably the National
League MVP through the first quarter of the season
If
Albies isn’t the NL MVP, than it’s assuredly Freeman, who is the top ten in all
of baseball in batting average, on base percentage, OPS, and RBIs. Freeman has
always been a solid, borderline All Star, but he’s jumped to another level this
season. I never feel like he’s going to get out in a big spot, and despite the
fact that he runs without using his arms, he’s on his way to the best season of
his career.
4. No major injuries (knock on wood)
Jesus,
I feel stupid for even putting this out there. I swear, if Albies blows out his
knee sliding into second tomorrow, I’m going to have a “who can slam their head
into the coffee table the most times without getting a concussion” contest all
by myself. Let’s just move on and pretend I never brought this up.
5. The best offense in the National League
Atlanta
is tops in the NL in runs, hits, total bases, batting average, on base
percentage, and slugging, all while having the second fewest strikeouts.
6. A young pitching staff that’s (mostly)
held up
The
Braves have the eighth best team ERA in all of baseball, and have posted the
ninth most strikeouts and ninth best batting average against. The starters have
been the real standouts, which has been a shock considering Atlanta had only
two pitchers, Julio Teheran and Brandon McCarthy, who had more than 65 career
starts entering the season. Mike Foltynewicz has had easily the best season of
his career (2.87 ERA), and Sean Newcomb hasn’t allowed a run in his last three
starts.
Not everything has worked
out, of course….
1. Jose Bautista has been a giant
disappointment
I
don’t think anyone expected Bautista to be a 50 home run, 100 RBI machine like
he was during his prime in Toronto, but to have him bat a paltry .156 with just
2 home runs and 5 RBIs in 11 games makes me wonder why he’s even been in the
Atlanta lineup with any consistency. Plus, it’s not like he’s anything special
in the field defensively. Are we sure Rougned Odor didn’t knock his brain loose
when he punched him in the jaw two years ago this week? Bautista was fresh off
6 straight All Star games appearances and four 35 homer, 100 RBI seasons, but since
the punch, the only thing that’s plummeted faster than his career is his
batting average. He played 157 games in 2017, and hit 23 home runs, drove in 69
runs, and struck out 170 times. In
153 games in 2015, he hit 40 home runs, knocked in 114 runs, and struck out
just 106 times. Not since Ron Artest has a fight altered a players career so
significantly.
Side
note: Odor-Bautista was the biggest sports fight since the Malice in the
Palace, and the best in baseball since Pedro Martinez threw Don Zimmer to the
ground by his bald head during the 2003 ALCS. The most incredible thing about
it was the fact that Bautista got absolutely clocked and somehow didn’t
collapse to the ground completely concussed. I’m fairly certain that if anyone
punched me like that, I’d literally have stars swiveling around my head like a
cartoon character.
2. They don’t have a reliable closer
You
can never have enough arms on a baseball team, but the biggest flaw on this Atlanta
team is the fact that they don’t have anyone they can consistently trust to get
3 outs in the 9th inning. Arodys Vizcaino isn’t good enough; he
couldn’t get outs on Tuesday night against the Cubs and blew another save. A.J.
Minter looked shaky as hell in Monday’s game against Chicago, as he loaded the
bases and walked home a run by hitting a batter. I don’t think the closer they
need for the postseason is anywhere on this roster, though some people seem to
think right handed Dan Winkler has potential to be the guy. This is all assuming
he can stay healthy, of course. Winkler has already had Tommy John surgery, and
he missed most of 2016 and ’17 with a broken elbow. I’d see what he has in that
role, but I’d also be looking around the trade market to see if I could add
someone. This all assumes Atlanta themselves thinks they’re contenders. Which
leads us to our next point….
3. I’m not sure the Braves think, or want to
be, contenders this season
Again,
this season has been totally unexpected. I think the Braves assumed they were
going to suck again, as did most people, and that’s why they left a few holes
on their roster. If I were them, and I was the best team in the National League
a quarter of the way into the season, I’d be going for it. Why? Because sports
is weird, championships are nearly impossible to come by, and you never know
when you’ll be in this situation again. In 2012, the Washington Nationals
entered the postseason with the best record in the National League, and were
considered to be the World Series favorites. If anyone was ever going to go all
out for a championship, it should’ve been that team, right? Wrong. In
September, the Nats decided to shut down their young starter Stephen Strasburg
for the rest of the season after he’d reached the innings restriction they
placed on him due to the fact that he’d had Tommy John surgery the year prior.
It was a mistake then, and it was proven so when the Cardinals eliminated them
in the NLDS. Look, I’m not saying they definitely win the World Series with
Strasburg, but he was also one of their best starters that year, and a guy
capable of a big outing if you needed one. But they pissed it all away, I guess
because they assumed they had a young team, and that they’d be in this position
for years to come. And sure, while they’ve been to multiple postseasons since
then, they still haven’t won a playoff series. Maybe things turn out differently
in 2012 if they had him. We’ll never know.
The
Oklahoma City Thunder are another example of this. OKC made the Finals in 2012
a year or two earlier than anyone expected, and were favorites to get back to their in
2013 as the season began. Or, at least they should’ve been the favorites, until
they stupidly decided to trade their third best player and, at the time, sixth
man James Harden, to Houston, basically because they didn’t want to pay him in
at the end of the year when his contract expired. There was no reason they couldn’t
have just held onto him for all of the 2013 season and pushed all in for another run
at the title. But they didn’t, I’m assuming because they thought they’d been so
lucky in the draft that they’d just be able to draft another Harden that they
could pay next-to-nothing for the next couple of years. This, of course, worked
out horribly for them. Harden became an MVP candidate with the Rockets, and the
Thunder never made it back to the Finals after the trade. Russell Westbrook got
hurt in 2013, which torpedoed their chances; they lost to the Spurs in the 2014
Western Conference Finals; Kevin Durant broke his foot in 2015; and the 2016 team
blew a 3 games to 1 lead against the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals.
Four years, no rings, and a waste of the first half Durant’s and Westbrook’s career. You had
all three of those guys before their primes? That should’ve been MULTIPLE
titles. But it wasn’t, all because they were too cheap.
Which
brings us back to Atlanta. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, next
season, or in ten years. Freeman could break his leg in ten places, Albies
could stop suddenly stop hitting, and Ronald Acuna Jr. could just be another
Jason Heyward. When you’ve got a chance for a title, you have to go for it. You
can’t assume you’ll be back next year, or have the same shot again, no matter
how bright you think your future is. Because it can change in an instant. Which
is why they should be active buyers on the trade market the next few months. I’d
be taking any bullpen arms they could get. Go for it!
Regardless
of what happens, this is definitely the most fun and loveable Braves team in
years. Fans always gravitate towards the home grown guys, because there’s a
sense that they’re really “our guys”, and not a bunch of hired guns. This
Atlanta team is full of “our guys”, and it’s been a great first month and a
half. Here’s to hoping it continues.
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