The answer is “no” and also “never” but one can still plead…
It’s a bit of a deviation from the norm for me and the daily questions post today, but that seems somewhat apt given that the Braves are also deviating from the natural order of things by a fair bit as well. Normally, these daily questions posts actually ask a question that can be answered in the comments, and while I cheese it sometimes, there are usually multiple answers. Not so with this one — it’s really more a question to the organization than the commentariat, and we all already know the answer. Still, I’m going to wax prosaic about it.
The Braves are bad. They are so bad that they opted out of “linger with the faint spark of potential relevance through the summer” and straight-up into “hahahaha, wait, let me take a breath and laugh harder” territory. On June 2, they still had 50 percent playoff odds, which sucked relative to where they started, but a coin flip is a coin flip. On the morning of July 7, those odds are down to six percent. Even that sort of undersells it, though. 25 percent odds were shed between June 2 and June 8; the remainder were shed this past week. At some point, a run could’ve saved them and the season. That point has largely passed, unless it’s an epic, all-time, history books-esque winning streak. And that’s so unlikely to happen given the specific injuries and foibles the team has suffered, that there’s not much point fantasizing anymore.
But the kicker is that while this may be an organizational problem, there’s no real reason to think it’s a persistent one. The Braves are tenth in xwOBA, 12th in xwOBA-against, have a top-five defense, and have baseball’s third-best xFIP-. They are 45-44 by BaseRuns, which isn’t good, but that team could plan to add at the Trade Deadline and play for something. Do you know why I wrote that Greek-esque comedy? Well, for one, it was fun. But it was also to make a point: this isn’t normal. The Braves have a ton of injuries (again), a massive xwOBA underperformance now (again), and are now an absurd 11-22 in one-run games. No team is underplaying its run differential more; only two teams are worse in one-run games (the Red Sox seem similarly cursed), only two teams are underplaying their BaseRuns more. The Braves are now fifth-worst in HR/FB rate on the pitching side. You run into any one of these problems for a large part of a season and the story becomes “boy, that was the season when X.” The Braves are going to run out variable indicators at this point. “2025 was the year the Braves ran into injuries, xwOBA underperformance, an unthinkably bad record in one-run games, bad sequencing, oh and a bunch of real problems they weren’t ordained with from on high but caused for themselves?” No one wants to type that, or read it. Just throw the season in the bin…
…which is what you could say, except, there’s a solution. Well, it’s not a solution, but it’s something to keep things interesting for the remaining two-and-a-half-ish months, because “See if the Braves will lose because Sean Murphy’s barrel bounced back into play because it didn’t go four inches further,” is not actually interesting, since we already know the answer is “Yes, they will lose for that exact reason.” What’s the solution? It’s simple.
Baseball lab
No, not a dog. I mean that would be a separate solution, but the novelty would wear off after a few weeks.
A team that is going nowhere, but with no reason to think the cumulative crush of issues will persist, has a golden opportunity. There are 73 games remaining, which is way more than you need, sample size-wise, to figure some stuff out. In those games, you could try to learn all sorts of things that you wouldn’t dare learn in games that mattered, like…
Can anyone on the team play a different position?
If they can’t, cool, you learned something. Do you wanna try one of the catchers in left field? Ozzie Albies in left field for some reason? Eli White getting a long run at shortstop? Matt Olson was forced into the outfield at some point.
The Braves once played Freddie Freeman at third base to get Matt Adams’ bat into the lineup in a season that didn’t matter. For the sake of knowledge, they can start here.
Maybe random guys in the minors can get major league hitters out?
I’m not stumping for any guys in particular. But the Braves could let Pierce Johnson, Aaron Bummer, and basically everyone else go to a team that is actually trying to win and has a decent chance of doing so, and use the rest of their relief innings figuring out whether anyone not currently in the bullpen can actually be useful. If not, you’ve lost basically nothing. It’s not like we need more innings to determine things about Aaron Bummer, or whether they should pick up Pierce Johnson’s option or whatever. But more innings are definitely needed to figure out why Hayden Harris seems to stall out in Triple-A, whether Daysbel Hernandez can do more than cosplay as a good relief option, and I’m sure there are going to be dozens of semi-interesting guys on the waiver wire in mid-July through early August, many of whom might have team control. Get to it.
Can you make non-traditional pitching management work for half a season?
The Tigers did it last year. They’re not coming over to share their knowledge. If the Braves ever want to figure this out, both from a player buy-in perspective and from pure logistics, in terms of what happens when things go wrong, how to check in with hurlers about their arm health, and everything in between, they’re probably going to need to start from scratch, and right now is the best time to do it.
The team currently has one real starter (Spencer Strider). Even if you want to insist that Grant Holmes can at least spend the rest of the year giving the team information on whether he will figure out lineups a second or third time, that’s just two. For everyone else? The strategic sky’s the limit. Openers? Piggybacking? A very straightforward, regimented situation where 1-2 guys go 1TTO instead of a rotation spot, allowing the team to figure out if Bryce Elder, Nathan Wiles, whichever Connor Johnstone-esque randos they have starting at Gwinnett, and any Yonny Chirinos-esque waiver wire claims can harangue nine batters at a time? You can do some or all of it. It literally won’t even be worse from a pitcher health perspective than using Elder, Didier Fuentes, and a bullpen game every three of five days. Especially since, right now, the team still somehow doesn’t understand the concept of a “bullpen game” and thinks it means letting the first pitcher out keep pitching until he gets blasted, even if he’s a reliever that never faces batters a second time.
Lineup stuff
I don’t know if there are alternative theories about lineup optimization that matter. But, if anyone has them, may as well try them out now, even if it’s just to get guys comfortable about batting anywhere, and more importantly, not worrying about where they’re batting. You could just stack OBP at the top. Or do some kind of oddly specific sequence thing that I can’t fathom but maybe someone can. The point is, if anyone ever had a thought or theory about something that might work better than however the Braves have been operating now, but were too afraid to try it because of the downside risk, well — there’s no downside risk anymore.
Wanna see if these guys can actually play small ball?
Seriously, rather than sometimes bunting, have everyone see if they can try to reach on a bunt once a game. Yes, everyone. Want to force guys to hit like there might be a hit-and-run called? Put the hit-and-run on literally every single time. “Oh no, that’ll be too predictable?” Uhhh the whole season has been too predictable, what’s the worst that could happen? Don’t want to do it every time? Use a random number generator with a series of specific plays as the outcomes in the dugout and fire it for every player’s PA.
And this is all just the start. You could go full Savannah Bananas for the rest of the year if you wanted. But whether for entertainment or knowledge, can we avoid letting the rest of the year go to waste?
Daily Notes
Record: 39-50
Earlier wOBA and xwOBA: (Season rank: 21st / 10th)
- Friday: .258 / .330
- Saturday: .369 / .347
- Sunday: .269 / .300
Earlier opponent wOBA and xwOBA: (Season rank: 12th / 11th)
- Friday: .275 / .270
- Saturday: .363 / .289
- Sunday: .285 / .249
Earlier homers: 1 Friday, 2 Saturday, 1 Sunday
Earlier homers allowed: 2 Friday, 3 Saturday, 1 Sunday
Record when out-xwOBAing: 28-18 (League: 982-352)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 11-32 (League: 352-982)
Record when out-wOBAing: 34-8 (League: 1,131-206)
Record when out-wOBAed: 5-42 (League: 206-1,131)
Record when outhomering: 21-8 (League: 736-207)
Record when outhomered: 6-26 (League: 207-736)