Looking Ahead - The 2020 Offseason Thread

bravesfanMatt said:
We would also need to do that on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. Not having the DH weakens our team from both an offensive and defensive standpoint.

Ultimately, I guess it is how we define dramatically . I would say we stay on par with maybe a slight edge up because of pitching. I also think we might have a surprise prospect or two step up big this year. But you can’t really project those surprises.
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The lack of the DH hurts all NL teams offensively. You'd have to figure out how much it hurts Atlanta as opposed to other teams to really have a sense of what it means.

I personally think the upgrade in the rotation is a hell of a lot bigger than any Atlanta specific downgrade in offense and the pen. But that's about as good as the health and effectiveness of the players involved.

Still, it is hard to see how a rotation that has Morton, Smyly, Soroka, Anderson, plus more experience for Wright and Wilson, for a full season isn't better than the crap the Braves put out there for much of the season last year.

Bullpens are funny things. I think the Braves are two relievers worse than last season, but you never really know what reclamation project pops or who is more or less effective than the year before. No one probably saw Matzek coming.
 
Southcack77 said:
The lack of the DH hurts all NL teams offensively. You'd have to figure out how much it hurts Atlanta as opposed to other teams to really have a sense of what it means.

I personally think the upgrade in the rotation is a hell of a lot bigger than any Atlanta specific downgrade in offense and the pen. But that's about as good as the health and effectiveness of the players involved.

Still, it is hard to see how a rotation that has Morton, Smyly, Soroka, Anderson, plus more experience for Wright and Wilson, for a full season isn't better than the crap the Braves put out there for much of the season last year.

Bullpens are funny things. I think the Braves are two relievers worse than last season, but you never really know what reclamation project pops or who is more or less effective than the year before. No one probably saw Matzek coming.
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I understand that the lack of DH hurts all teams. But we are specifically talking about the Braves in a vacuum. Compared to last year we are weaker.

I also agree our pitching is a huge improvement on the starter side. But I also would like to point to the shortened season saving our asses. We used a superior bullpen to hold on to or stay in games so our offense could catch up. Our pen would have never held up over 162 and we would have tanked last year in a full season.

My biggest worry is positional player injuries and offensive regression. I think one major injury and we could be done. Or if our catcher position becomes a black hole then we might be eyeing a wild card birth.
 
Ozuna was worth 2.6 WAR in 2020 extrapolated to 7 WAR over 162 games. Fangraphs predicts he'll be worth 3.4 WAR this year. That's a 3.6 WAR dropoff due to an almost certain decline in production from his otherworldly 60 games last year, but mostly because his negative defense having to roam left field in 2021 vs being the DH.
 
skillet said:
Fangraphs predicts Soroka/Morton/Smyly/Anderson to combine for 7.5 WAR in 2021. The combination of Soroka/Anderson/Wright/Wilson combined for 2.2 WAR in 2020 extrapolated to 6 WAR over the same 162 games. That would be a 1.5 WAR improvement over last year. Still doesn't make up for the bullpen loss nor weaker bench.
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That is pretty pessimistic considering Soroka was a 5-6 WAR pitcher by himself in 2019. Providing health, I would expect Anderson/Smyly/Morton to combine for at least 6 WAR between those 3 pitchers. And the majority of production lost from Melancon/Greene/O'Day will be off-set by the pitchers replacing them, along with having competent starting pitchers that go longer into games.

Yes we're likely to be worse offensively since Ozuna isn't likely to be one of the 5 best hitters in baseball again. But you're over estimating how much affect the bench has.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
My biggest worry is positional player injuries and offensive regression. I think one major injury and we could be done. Or if our catcher position becomes a black hole then we might be eyeing a wild card birth.
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Depth is definitely the team's sore spot right now. There are no good options for losing someone like Freeman or Acuna for a month, but right now if Freeman gets hurt it looks like the replacement is either going to be Sandoval or Kipnis, and that's not good. It's the glaring red weak spot on the boss fight that is the Atlanta Braves.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
I understand that the lack of DH hurts all teams. But we are specifically talking about the Braves in a vacuum. Compared to last year we are weaker.

I also agree our pitching is a huge improvement on the starter side. But I also would like to point to the shortened season saving our asses. We used a superior bullpen to hold on to or stay in games so our offense could catch up. Our pen would have never held up over 162 and we would have tanked last year in a full season.

My biggest worry is positional player injuries and offensive regression. I think one major injury and we could be done. Or if our catcher position becomes a black hole then we might be eyeing a wild card birth.
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I'm not sure that not being able to sustain the peak performance from last season over 162 games is the same as getting worse.

Maybe it's close enough to be semantics though.

The Braves don't figure to have to score as many runs or rally from as many deficits as they did last season.

This team is probably better than the 2019 group.

The world is not going to end if the Braves win 90 games and don't make the wild card. It'll suck if that is the way it goes down, but they'll be in good position to go again in 2022.
 
skillet said:
Fangraphs predicts Soroka/Morton/Smyly/Anderson to combine for 7.5 WAR in 2021. The combination of Soroka/Anderson/Wright/Wilson combined for 2.2 WAR in 2020 extrapolated to 6 WAR over the same 162 games. That would be a 1.5 WAR improvement over last year. Still doesn't make up for the bullpen loss nor weaker bench.
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The problem is: projecting reliever WAR is an exercise in futility. For all we know, Carl Edwards, Jr might put up a surprise 1.0+ WAR season (he's done it twice before) and throw all these calculations out of whack. Meanwhile, that Melancon–Greene–O'Day triumvirate is only projected to notch 0.5–1.1 WAR combined in 2021, and their hitting the low estimate there wouldn't surprise me.

The bench issue is, however, worth a little teeth-gnashing, I agree.
 
MadduxFanII said:
Depth is definitely the team's sore spot right now. There are no good options for losing someone like Freeman or Acuna for a month, but right now if Freeman gets hurt it looks like the replacement is either going to be Sandoval or Kipnis, and that's not good. It's the glaring red weak spot on the boss fight that is the Atlanta Braves.
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I mean if any team loses their MVP candidate, they're gonna be in a tight spot. I imagine we'd have to make a trade at that point regardless who our back-up 1b was.

Had we signed Cabrera and Bruce as many here seemed to be on board with, would you really be comfortable with either of them taking over for an injured Freddie?
 
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skillet said:
Fangraphs predicts Soroka/Morton/Smyly/Anderson to combine for 7.5 WAR in 2021. The combination of Soroka/Anderson/Wright/Wilson combined for 2.2 WAR in 2020 extrapolated to 6 WAR over the same 162 games. That would be a 1.5 WAR improvement over last year. Still doesn't make up for the bullpen loss nor weaker bench.
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We aren't talking about improving over projections that are 12 months old.

We are talking about improving over the actual team that was 1 win from the WS.
 
You're absolutely right that the Braves bench is currently trash though. I do think that matters a fair amount. It's not going to knock them out of the race at the outset, but injuries could well be a problem if they don't find answers.

I guess they will start with catching lightning in a bottle with discards and then maybe try the farm and then major deadline deals. But Anthopolous is so rigid about not overpaying that it might not end up being feasible.

FWIW, I don't mind that rigidity. Holding the line on being sure the team can address its needs in the future is valuable for a team like Atlanta. I'd much rather take my chances at falling short than handcuff the team into a situation where it cannot make moves down the line.
 
jpx7 said:
The problem is: projecting reliever WAR is an exercise in futility. For all we know, Carl Edwards, Jr might put up a surprise 1.0+ WAR season (he's done it twice before) and throw all these calculations out of whack. Meanwhile, that Melancon–Greene–O'Day triumvirate is only projected to notch 0.5–1.1 WAR combined in 2021, and their hitting the low estimate there wouldn't surprise me.

The bench issue is, however, worth a little teeth-gnashing, I agree.
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The terrible bench is definitely an issue. Championship contenders need a bench full of MLB caliber players. The Braves don't have that yet, but I expect AA to add 1-2 more guys (I count Kipnis as an MLB caliber player).
 
Carp said:
I mean if any team loses their MVP candidate, they're gonna be in a tight spot. I imagine we'd have to make a trade at that point regardless who our back-up 1b was.
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Long-term, sure. Freeman or Acuna tears an ACL and you're basically screwed and there's nothing you can do to prepare for that (well, you can be the Dodgers and have 87 layers of redundancy built in to your roster, but that's a whole other thing). But my point is that even a fairly routine injury that keeps Freeman out for, say, a month really puts us behind the eight ball. Frankly, that's true of a lot of positions on the roster.
 
skillet said:
Ozuna was worth 2.6 WAR in 2020 extrapolated to 7 WAR over 162 games. Fangraphs predicts he'll be worth 3.4 WAR this year. That's a 3.6 WAR dropoff due to an almost certain decline in production from his otherworldly 60 games last year, but mostly because his negative defense having to roam left field in 2021 vs being the DH.
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I'm pretty sure that isn't true, for two reasons: (i) his defense isn't projected to be that bad, and (ii) there is a pretty substantial WAR penalty for playing as a DH. For an example of the latter point, from Fangraph's analysis of Ozuna's new contract:

Ignore that 2025 projection for his option year for a moment. For the other four seasons, Ozuna is projected to produce 13.5 WAR, which comes out to just $4.8 million per projected win. [...] Ozuna’s ZiPS presupposes that he’s playing left field, and doing so at an appreciably above-average clip (DR is defensive runs). If he’s DHing, according to Dan his annual WAR projections drop to 3.6, 3.2, 2.7, 2.1, and then 1.4 for the option year; that’s 11.6 WAR for the first four seasons, about $5.6 million per win, which is at least in the ballpark of LeMahieu’s average.
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Of course, that's projecting him to not be terrible in the field—which, at least by DRS, has never been the case, when he's been kept to LF (he was at 0 DRS last year, for reference). But he should never play anywhere else in the OF—speaking to the whole "we need more bench depth" point.
 
MadduxFanII said:
Long-term, sure. Freeman or Acuna tears an ACL and you're basically screwed and there's nothing you can do to prepare for that (well, you can be the Dodgers and have 87 layers of redundancy built in to your roster, but that's a whole other thing). But my point is that even a fairly routine injury that keeps Freeman out for, say, a month really puts us behind the eight ball. Frankly, that's true of a lot of positions on the roster.
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If Freddie misses a month, the Braves might not even lose ground. It just sort of depends on how things go. I think the Braves have some depth in the lineup to where losing one of the big three might not be fatal.

I think Dansby and Ozzie are potentially capable of more. I guess that Riley could be as well.

But yeah, losing a big gun would be bad and the Braves don't really have anyone on the bench that could really even fake it. It would be good to get better, but I guess it isn't too terribly likely.
 
MadduxFanII said:
Depth is definitely the team's sore spot right now. There are no good options for losing someone like Freeman or Acuna for a month, but right now if Freeman gets hurt it looks like the replacement is either going to be Sandoval or Kipnis, and that's not good. It's the glaring red weak spot on the boss fight that is the Atlanta Braves.
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In the event Freeman goes down for a month, I'd expect to see Riley at 1B unless they thought they could catch lightning in a bottle with Ball (like Riley's first month).

Really won't matter - if either of those two misses extended time the pitching staff will need to be completely lights-out.
 
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