Official 2024 Off-Season Thread!

GovClintonTyree said:
Not necessarily. Murphy hit .999 the first half and .585 the second half. He was awful. Yes he's the superior defensive catcher. But after the all star break, he couldn't hit water from a boat.
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The decline in xwoba was much less extreme, and his second-half xwoba was still quite good—meaning he was still hitting the piss out of the ball, but was awfully unlucky, and decidedly not "awful."

d'Arnaud also suffered from an xwoba under-performance in 2023, but it was less extreme, and regression there takes him more to "average bat" than Murphy's baseline of "above-average bat" (and ceiling of "well above-average bat"). Either way, things should be fine for 2024—but at some point soon the Braves will need to reallocate those ~$8m from backup catcher to somewhere else on the roster (perhaps replacing d'Arnaud with Drake Baldwin, if everything breaks right).
 
bravesfanMatt said:
Maddux is by far my favorite pitcher to watch. That cutter to lefties was insane.
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For me, it wasn't the cutter. It was the four-seamer that he would start at the lefty's hip and bend back and snick the inside black.

He did it for 15+ years and never had to change it. An incredible pitch.
 
jpx7 said:
Even guys who ultimately succeed at the MLB level sometimes fail with what made them good at lower levels. Longenhagen cites a couple in his 2017 retrospective, in fact: Lucas Giolito, who he notes aced through lesser competition with a big, bendy curveball that was too identifiable for big leaguers (while the changeup he developed along the way became his best pitch); and our own Ozhaino Albies, who both Longenhagen and the industry at large forecast to derive offensive value from a contact-oriented approach, but who's become one of the most productive players in the 2017 class through big-bopping.

Just another example of "development is not linear," even for guys who are highly-rated and pan out pretty quickly.
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I love how so many lauded Ozzie's contact approach. I did it. Then he turned out to be a totally different guy.

Kind of like Pedro, or even Strider. You looked at them and said, no way this guy's a power pitcher. He's only 5'10". Then, boom, bum, bam
 
Not sure where else to put this - Cole Phillips, the only real prospect we gave up in the Kelenic deal, has been recovering from Tommy John that he had right before the 2022 draft. Well he hasn’t pitched in a game since and just had his second Tommy John a few weeks ago.
 
CJ9 said:
Not sure where else to put this - Cole Phillips, the only real prospect we gave up in the Kelenic deal, has been recovering from Tommy John that he had right before the 2022 draft. Well he hasn’t pitched in a game since and just had his second Tommy John a few weeks ago.
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He was pretty much the centerpiece to the deal in terms of acquisitions from their end and it's too bad that he's out of at least another year.
 
So this is a bit disappointing to read: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ml...n&cvid=9993a841ae7a4fbaa97a6071cec5d418&ei=12

AA basically saying they can't build a good bench because they have a dinosaur manager who can't utilize a strong bench, so good part-time players don't want to sign.

Someone like Grichuk really only makes sense if Snit uses him 1 game a week to rest each of Kelenic, Harris, Acuna, and Ozuna once a month. If the bench options are literally going to rot on the bench for 6 months, very few quality MLB players want to sign up for that. Then when the inevitable injury happens we are stuck watching Luplow everyday in the OF for 2 weeks. Very disappointing to have this theory we all had about Snit confirmed by AA.
 
I which the Braves would try AI as the manager that makes lineups and playing times and pitching changes and just install twitner as a bench coach who has more opportunities to take naps or say really good to himself.
 
There is nothing about the “human element” that causes snit to play guys 162 games a year.

This team is talented and wins despite snit being a dinosaur tactician. This notion that he is some great leader of young men is silly. He is a competent people manager, who is also terrible with in game strategy. Give this roster to any such manager and they would win just as many or more games.
 
It's not a defense of the team's approach to allocating playing time to suggest that this might not be strictly a Snitker fetish. I'm pretty skeptical that Anthopolous is up there in his box every game, grinding his teeth in fury because Snitker keeps playing the core guys every single day. We heard a lot last year about the team's apparently sincere belief in the culture benefits of stars who play 155+ games per season, and it seems reasonable that Anthopolous probably buys into that as well -- at least to some extent.

Again, that's not to say that the Braves are right about this. It's not how I would use the bench, and I think they're leaving at least a little meat on the bone with this approach. If they have another 100+ win season that ends in an NLDS defeat, maybe that sparks a conversation about the team running its stars into the ground during the regular season. But it's probably wise not to look at the organization through a lens of "Snitker dumb, Anthopolous smart, all good things are because of Anthopolous, all bad things are because of Snitker."

It is funny how we used to blame this on Freeman.
 
MadduxFanII said:
It's not a defense of the team's approach to allocating playing time to suggest that this might not be strictly a Snitker fetish. I'm pretty skeptical that Anthopolous is up there in his box every game, grinding his teeth in fury because Snitker keeps playing the core guys every single day. We heard a lot last year about the team's apparently sincere belief in the culture benefits of stars who play 155+ games per season, and it seems reasonable that Anthopolous probably buys into that as well -- at least to some extent.

Again, that's not to say that the Braves are right about this. It's not how I would use the bench, and I think they're leaving at least a little meat on the bone with this approach. If they have another 100+ win season that ends in an NLDS defeat, maybe that sparks a conversation about the team running its stars into the ground during the regular season. But it's probably wise not to look at the organization through a lens of "Snitker dumb, Anthopolous smart, all good things are because of Anthopolous, all bad things are because of Snitker."

It is funny how we used to blame this on Freeman.
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100%. AA is Snit's boss and AA doesn't strike me as the hands off type. I think AA is in a lot more agreement with how Snit handles games than some think.
 
striker42 said:
100%. AA is Snit's boss and AA doesn't strike me as the hands off type. I think AA is in a lot more agreement with how Snit handles games than some think.
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It's a little funny because Snitker played Nicky Lopez with some regularity after he was acquired last year. He was picked up at the trade deadline and started 19 games in 9 weeks. Granted, the division was in the bag so a lot of usage patterns totally go out the window (and Albies was nicked up a bit), but Snitker used Lopez appropriately.

I agree that if Anthopoulos wanted the usage patterns to change, they would.
 
MadduxFanII said:
It's not a defense of the team's approach to allocating playing time to suggest that this might not be strictly a Snitker fetish. I'm pretty skeptical that Anthopolous is up there in his box every game, grinding his teeth in fury because Snitker keeps playing the core guys every single day. We heard a lot last year about the team's apparently sincere belief in the culture benefits of stars who play 155+ games per season, and it seems reasonable that Anthopolous probably buys into that as well -- at least to some extent.

Again, that's not to say that the Braves are right about this. It's not how I would use the bench, and I think they're leaving at least a little meat on the bone with this approach. If they have another 100+ win season that ends in an NLDS defeat, maybe that sparks a conversation about the team running its stars into the ground during the regular season. But it's probably wise not to look at the organization through a lens of "Snitker dumb, Anthopolous smart, all good things are because of Anthopolous, all bad things are because of Snitker."

It is funny how we used to blame this on Freeman.
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155+ games is exactly what I’m suggesting. Giving each of Acuna, Kelenic, Harris and Ozuna 1 day off a month means they still play 156 games…or 155+. It also gets a player like Grichuk 4-5 PAs per week, which keeps him sharp in the event he’s needed longer term as an injury replacement.

This is not rocket science, and Cox used to do it all the time with those infamous “Sunday lineups”. This notion that players benefit from playing 162 games vs 156 games is complete nonsense, and I doubt it comes from AA.
 
Yeah. Seems AA just publicly says that stuff to take heat off Snit because everyone knows how more analytics oriented the Braves are now than before but he also acknowledges Snit is a players manager so he’s not gonna straight up say we can’t manage player loads and bench rotations.
 
Enscheff said:
155+ games is exactly what I’m suggesting. Giving each of Acuna, Kelenic, Harris and Ozuna 1 day off a month means they still play 156 games…or 155+. It also gets a player like Grichuk 4-5 PAs per week, which keeps him sharp in the event he’s needed longer term as an injury replacement.

This is not rocket science, and Cox used to do it all the time with those infamous “Sunday lineups”. This notion that players benefit from playing 162 games vs 156 games is complete nonsense, and I doubt it comes from AA.
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With the DH there is even less excuse for playing the core every day in the field. It's not going to kill us to have Ozuna stand in LF 5-6 times per year if necessary to let Acuna, Harris, or Kelenic DH every now and then while still keeping the lineup intact. Same for sticking Riley at 1st or giving the backup IF a few games at 3rd to rest the corner guys.
 
Enscheff said:
There is nothing about the “human element” that causes snit to play guys 162 games a year.

This team is talented and wins despite snit being a dinosaur tactician. This notion that he is some great leader of young men is silly. He is a competent people manager, who is also terrible with in game strategy. Give this roster to any such manager and they would win just as many or more games.
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There is. Some players pride themselves on playing 162 games like Freeman. Do you really want to upset star players for one game off a month? Snitker talks to all these players regularly. I would think if they feel tired is something they would discuss. Many players feel more time off throws them off. They arent playing 162 games straight, they get days off including several during the all star break. I find it hard to believe 1 day off a month would make a significant difference. Someone like Ozuna sure as hell doesnt need a day off he only hits.
 
cajunrevenge said:
There is. Some players pride themselves on playing 162 games like Freeman. Do you really want to upset star players for one game off a month? Snitker talks to all these players regularly. I would think if they feel tired is something they would discuss. Many players feel more time off throws them off. They arent playing 162 games straight, they get days off including several during the all star break. I find it hard to believe 1 day off a month would make a significant difference. Someone like Ozuna sure as hell doesnt need a day off he only hits.
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Getting a day off in the middle of a 10 straight game stretch makes a difference. That’s why we always hear about how tough those stretches are, and how happy everyone is for the off day. It’s why they call it a grind. It’s referenced regularly.
 
And you give Ozuna a day off as a means to keep Acuna’s bat in the lineup on his day off.

This is not rocket science. It’s very basic load management spread over a 6 month season. Anyone living outside the Jurassic can understand it.
 
It’s a managers jobs to convince players their personal accolades should never interfere with ultimate team goals. “Playing 162” hurts the team when it matters most.
 
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