Are the Braves as hopeless as it may seem?

B

Braves78

Arizona Fall Leaguer
The Braves still have a fantastic rotation and bullpen. As for the lineup yes we have lost some power but gained some OBP. We still have Freeman and Simmons both of whom I believe will continue to progress. There will be an improvement at 2B whether it's Peraza or Callaspo. CJ at 3B can only improve from last year. Markakis isn't a huge drop off from Heywards production last couple seasons (I'm not talking about potential here.) Also, I believe Simmons will be a much better at the plate this year than last year and Freeman will be even better IMO.

Then we are left with Catcher, LF, and Center. Although I find it unlikely, but if BJ can return to any resemblance of his previous self that would be huge. Maybe being on same team as his brother and trying to out duel his brother hurt his psyche unlikely but like they say half of this game is mental. As for LF and Catcher there will be huge drop offs in power numbers and this will ultimately IMO be what determines whether we finish in last or near a .500 team.

I don't believe we will win the Division but there could be a slim chance (
 
Low to mid 70's this year and low to mid 80's next year. THen 2017 could set up nicely to compete for the division/wild card.
 
I think this team could surprise us by being better than many of us have projected, but that's only if almost everything (health in the rotation, bounce-back years from some guys the OP mentioned) breaks our way. Even at that, it doesn't look like a WC club. Not enough OB or power, not enough D.
 
I'm oddly optimistic. I think that if the team has a strong first half Hart won't hesitate to add pieces mid-season.
 
I'd say the best case scenario we could win around 85 games if everything falls right, but most likely we are around a 72-75 win ballclub.
 
Short of miracles we're likely to suck. From last year to this year we've lost Jason, Justin, Gattis, Bonerfacio, Pena, TLS, Schafer, Uggla and Doumit offensively. Some of those are good to lose, but fWAR lost is 10.1 on the offensive side, for pitching, we lost Ervin, Harang, Walden, Kimbrel, Carpenter, Floyd, Varvaro, and Shreve for a net loss of 7.8 fWAR. Did we do enough to fill that void on either part of the team? I'm not 100% sure. Then you have to factor in injuries, you don't know how they hit us. If Freddie gets seriously hurt we're thoroughly boned beyond belief.
 
The pitching has to be insane to surprise.

I like our pitching but the offense is god awful.
 
About a 75 win team imo. Like the returns from the La Stella, Carpenter and Kubitza deals. Don't like the moves involving Heyward, Upton, Gattis and Markakis.
 
I think the offense wildly underperformed last year for various reasons so I don't look at it as an offense that scored 575 runs minus 3 of our 4 best hitters. Justin put up under a .800 OPS after the first 2 weeks of the season. Heywood was never above .800 and Gattis contributed nothing after his shoulder injury. The offense was decent until the last 6 weeks when they took a nose dive.

I hate baseball projections and predictions. Who predicted Chris Davis' s 2013? Who predicted Corey Kluber 's 2014? I say this every offseason. The game isn't played on paper. I won't be surprised if we are a .500 team this year.
 
I don't think we're as bad as some of you think. Our rotation alone will keep us in most games.
 
emk418 said:
I don't think we're as bad as some of you think. Our rotation alone will keep us in most games.
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We won't lose 100 games, at least without a trainwreck health season. But we're gonna be one of the worst teams in the NL. We're gonna be in the mix for worst team in the NL East.
 
Make sure that this thread doesn't disappear down the black hole. We really need to put WAR to the test. Just because they "lost 10. fWAR" doesn't mean it will automatically translate that way in actual results. In consecutive seasons, the Mariners lost Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson and Alex Rodgriguez, then got better. Presumably, their WAR must have declined, yet they somehow managed to parlay that into a 100+ win season. This isn't to compare the current Braves situation with the M's, but over the next 2 seasons, the team may pan out better than than many here expect.
 
Knucksie said:
Make sure that this thread doesn't disappear down the black hole. We really need to put WAR to the test. Just because they "lost 10. fWAR" doesn't mean it will automatically translate that way in actual results. In consecutive seasons, the Mariners lost Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson and Alex Rodgriguez, then got better. Presumably, their WAR must have declined, yet they somehow managed to parlay that into a 100+ win season. This isn't to compare the current Braves situation with the M's, but over the next 2 seasons, the team may pan out better than than many here expect.
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Well, part of it is recovering with other players. Talk about the Ms. They lost A-Rod, but added Ichiro and He Who Shouldn't be Named. and had an improvement from Mike Cameron. He who shouldn't be Named almost certainly aided by PEDs. When they traded Randy Johnson they got back Freddy Garcia who was very important in 2001. They signed Aaron Sele who was great for them, same with Arthur Rhodes. Basically they got good return for RJ that took a few years to fully come to form in the way of Carlos Guillen, Freddy Garcia and John Halama. If our return from our trades pan out then we'll be in a great position in a few years similar to the RJ trade for the Mariners. It's not something that's a given, and I don't think we're gonna make a FA signing as impactful as Ichiro or He Who Shouldn't be Named. I mean aside from signing Jason or Justin next year and odds are they won't quite be there haha.
 
I think we can compete for a wc spot if our starting pitching carries us.

I mean Teheran and Wood better than last and Minor back to boss status.
 
Heywood said:
I think we can compete for a wc spot if our starting pitching carries us.

I mean Teheran and Wood better than last and Minor back to boss status.
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PItching should be fine, Freddie should be fine, Markakis and Johnson should be averagish hitters, pen will be strong, we could win about what we won last year cause of the Fredi steered epic collapse.
 
I believe some of the young guys will surprise and breakout. The rotation will be solid, and the OBP will be enough higher that the offense will actually be slightly better than last year.

Not a championship team, but certainly not the train wreck many of you are predicting.
 
mfree80 said:
I believe some of the young guys will surprise and breakout. The rotation will be solid, and the OBP will be enough higher that the offense will actually be slightly better than last year.

Not a championship team, but certainly not the train wreck many of you are predicting.
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We traded 2 of our best OBP guys.

In fact of players with 200 PA (we had 8) 2 through 5 are gone. Leaving 1, 6, 7, and 8. Markakis would probably slot around where Justin was so in the 3-4 range from last year. We still have Simmons who doesn't get on base, we still have Christian Bethancourt, a man who hasn't walked more that 5% of the time at any step in the minors since he was 17. Chris Johnson, same thing. Callaspo is a solid walk guy who could replace what we got from say TLS. I hope Peterson gets a long look he could be a good OBP and maybe come close to replacing Jason. Overall I don't see aside from BJ having a high average season, the idea that out OBP will be higher is very unlikely.
 
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