Power Outage: Hitting 30 HRs in a Year

striker42

striker42

Well-known member
Since the start of 2007, the Braves have had exactly one player hit 30 HRs in a season. That was Dan Uggla in 2011. He hit 36 HRs but slashed .233/.311/.453. Our only 30 HR hitter since the start of 2007 couldn't even break .800 with his OPS.

Right now, Freddie Freeman leads the team with 13 HRs. He's currently pacing 27 HRs this year. If he doesn't hit 30 we'll have gone a decade with only one player cracking 30 HRs.

For context, here are the number of players to hit at least 30 HRs by year:

2015- 20

2014- 11

2013- 14

2012- 27

2011- 24

2010- 18

2009- 30

2008- 28

2007- 26

Over those nine year, players have hit 30 HRs in a season 198 times. Only one of those 198 times was a Brave.

There are currently about 40 players on pace to hit 30 HRs this year, none of them Braves.

I knew we hadn't had many guys hit 30 in recent years but I never expected it to be this bad. Going a decade and only having one guy break 30 one time? I wonder how often that's happened in the modern era.
 
striker42 said:
Since the start of 2007, the Braves have had exactly one player hit 30 HRs in a season. That was Dan Uggla in 2011. He hit 36 HRs but slashed .233/.311/.453. Our only 30 HR hitter since the start of 2007 couldn't even break .800 with his OPS.

Right now, Freddie Freeman leads the team with 13 HRs. He's currently pacing 27 HRs this year. If he doesn't hit 30 we'll have gone a decade with only one player cracking 30 HRs.

For context, here are the number of players to hit at least 30 HRs by year:

2015- 20
2014- 11
2013- 14
2012- 27
2011- 24
2010- 18
2009- 30
2008- 28
2007- 26

Over those nine year, players have hit 30 HRs in a season 198 times. Only one of those 198 times was a Brave.

There are currently about 40 players on pace to hit 30 HRs this year, none of them Braves.

I knew we hadn't had many guys hit 30 in recent years but I never expected it to be this bad. Going a decade and only having one guy break 30 one time? I wonder how often that's happened in the modern era.
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I've been saying this for a while but you've put it in a different light. My point has been that GOOD teams, contending teams, typically have league average HR power or better.

The Braves teams have been poorly constructed over the last ten years when it comes to offense.

In 2010, the Braves had 4 starting hitters with an OPS of .800 or better, had 139 total Team HR (league average was 150HR), and finished 2nd behind Philly. The other playoff teams that year were SFG (162HR), Philly(166HR) and Cincy(188HR). The Braves finished 6 games back in the Division and lost to the Giants in the Division series 3-1.

In 2012, the next time the Braves went to the playoffs, the Braves had 2 starting hitters with an OPS of .800 or better with one of those being Chipper who missed a ton of time, and had 149 team HR (league average was 152) and finished 4 games back of Washington. The other NL playoff Teams that year were Washington with 194HR, Cincy 172HR, STL 159HR, SFG 103HR
. The Braves finished 4 games back and lost to STL in the one game WC playoff. Everybody points to SFG as the team that won without power and that is certainly true. However, they play in a pitchers park, in a pitching division and made a move to bring in Hunter Pence at the deadline that year.

In 2013, The Braves had 181 Team HR, 4 starting hitters with an OPS of .800 or better and 2 others at .775 or better with the white bull playing about 50% of the time and contributing 21HR (league average HR was 144), they won the Division by 10 games over Washington and lost to the Dodgers in the LDS. Other NL playoff Teams were the Dodgers (138HR), STL(125HR), Pirates(161HR), Reds (155HR).

Power, specifically HR power, is a must. Can you win without HR power? Sure. If everything aligns just right, the right teams stumble and a team gets hot at the right time. But, mostly, teams without League average power don't make it to the playoffs.

So, 30 HR by one player as part of the total can be a pretty big deal. The traditional place to get a 30 HR guy is 1B, then LF/RF, then 3B and the Braves haven't come close to having that in years. Freddie isn't that guy at 1B. He's a mid 20HR guy who's going to get on base and play good defense. He's a very good 1B, but not a Great one. Heyward in RF wasn't that guy either.

Essentially, outside of the few home grown attempts that haven't really succeeded as well as desired (Freeman, Heyward), the Braves have been pretty horrible in getting power at traditional power positions - 1B, RF, LF, 3B. The one time where they made an attempt led to a fleetingly good offense (2013) that collapsed as marginal offensive players came back to earth (Simmons, Melvin, Uggla, Johnson).

Instead of fixing the traditional power positions, Wren tried to find his power elsewhere with Uggla at 2B and Melvin in CF.
 
To add to this, so far this year we have hit 39 homers as a team which is by far dead last in baseball. The next lowest is the Giants with 66. Our team OPS this year is .642, again dead last with the next worst being the Phillies at .671.

Last year we only hit 100 homers with an OPS of .674, again dead last in both categories.
 
In 2013 and 2014 we had a team with a lot of power hitters, though the overall results in those two years were very different.
 
there is no one formula to win a championship except bring in good players and good coaches and you have a shot to win. Sorry, but I think a team of Clayton Kershaws would be pretty hard to beat. We need a better hitting coach.. that should be addressed at the end of the season... that is really all I have to say on this.
 
bravesfanMatt said:
there is no one formula to win a championship except bring in good players and good coaches and you have a shot to win. Sorry, but I think a team of Clayton Kershaws would be pretty hard to beat. We need a better hitting coach.. that should be addressed at the end of the season... that is really all I have to say on this.
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I agree. And offensively speaking I think you have to be around league average or better. If your lacking in power but make that up in base running/OBP I don't think it matters that much. But you rarely see that because it's easier to field the traditional team with power. In the end it's about having good players.
 
Enscheff said:
But, but, but, the Royals!!
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Giants have played over .600 ball so far this year while hitting the second fewest home runs.

No one is saying power doesn't matter or is not a good thing. It is just an ingredient. Better to have but not indispensable. When we evaluate options for trades and player acquisition generally, the emphasis should be on value not a particular component of value. The only exception is when you have a clear positional need. Catcher being the biggest area of need for next year.
 
thewupk said:
I agree. And offensively speaking I think you have to be around league average or better. If your lacking in power but make that up in base running/OBP I don't think it matters that much. But you rarely see that because it's easier to field the traditional team with power. In the end it's about having good players.
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Yep. I don't think anyone thinks we should go out and get a bunch of low contact, high K guys who will mash 30 HRs a year. That leads to other issues. It really is about having good players. Whether you win through small ball or 3 run homers doesn't matter.

The thing that's shocking though is the sheer futility we've seen with having big time power hitters. We're likely going to have a decade with only one guy hitting over 30 HRs in a season. You might go through a few seasons where the talent you has makes you focus on small ball but eventually you think you'd luck into a few years of power.
 
Enscheff said:
But, but, but, the Royals!!
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Fair point - UNTIL you compare the teams...

C- Sal Perez is FAR better than anyone the Braves have had in years.
1B- Hosmer has been better than Freddie.
3B- The Braves' group of 3Bs might not have caught Moustakas' production yet, and he's been out for a month.
CF- Cain...any need to make a comparison?

If you discount the fact that KC has far better production from 4 of 8 positions, we obviously should be winning without power just like they are.
 
clvclv said:
Fair point - UNTIL you compare the teams...

C- Sal Perez is FAR better than anyone the Braves have had in years.
1B- Hosmer has been better than Freddie.
3B- The Braves' group of 3Bs might not have caught Moustakas' production yet, and he's been out for a month.
CF- Cain...any need to make a comparison?

If you discount the fact that KC has far better production from 4 of 8 positions, we obviously should be winning without power just like they are.
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You missed my sarcasm. I was poking fun at the folks who think having power in your lineup is unimportant and point to rare teams like KC and the Giants this year as "proof". Much like they point to rare late bloomers like Bautista as "proof" someone like Adonis Garcia will suddenly become a good baseball player.
 
Well we haven't been very good since 2007, so this shouldn't be all that surprising. Coincidently, this also the year that Wren took over as GM.

The Astros and Mariners also have had only one 30 homer hitter from 2007 through 2013. They also were pretty terrible over this same span.
 
To me, the perfect hitting team is the Yankees of the mid 90s.

In the middle of the steroids era, they generally did not have any player who 30 HRs. What they did have was pretty good power up and own the lineup and all of their players tended to get on base and work counts.

There are a lot of different ways to skin the cat, but I do think you need power in your order.

Atlanta had power before the tear down. I'm sure they will be looking to add some as time goes on, but they really are just starting the organizational change. They put their focus where it has always been, pitching, and I am sure they are going to work on power as well. But its going to take time. Talk about world series team construction is a little silly at the moment. They aren't anywhere close to thinking about that right now.
 
zbhargrove said:
I'm honestly worried about our ability to scout and/or develop hitting
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To be fair, we really don't have any idea how good or bad our current group of decision makers are at finding hitters. You can look at our offense and rightfully say it's a trainwreck, but it's not like this year's team has much of anything to do with our long term vision. The only evidence I can really see that would cast doubt on our ability to scout hitters is the Olivera deal, but mistakes happen.
 
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