Way Too Early Impressions

striker42

striker42

Well-known member
After not getting to see really any of ST with my own eyes, I finally got to see this team play yesterday. One game is not nearly enough to draw conclusions but here are some way too early impressions.

-Julio Tehran looked good but has to figure out how to keep the ball in the park. He's hanging too many pitches in the zone and needs to figure it out if he wants to be anything more than a middle of the rotation starter.

-Winkler looked awesome. I expect hitters to get better looks at him once the book gets out on him more. They definitely had trouble picking up the ball off of him yesterday. However, that arm slot will always be tough on right handers. I see no reason why we should have to worry about offering him back to the Rockies.

-Adonis Garcia's power is for real. He smoked that ball he hit out. Whether he'll keep hitting balls out will depend on whether or not he can force pitchers to work in the zone. All the power in the world doesn't help you when you chase pitches you can't reach.

-Hector Olivera could very well be in for some more struggles. He looked a lot like the inept hitter weakly grounding out and popping the ball up last year. The bat wrap is still bad and it's making his swing longer than it needs to be. I had gotten progressively more optimistic as the spring went along but watching him hit yesterday brought a lot of pessimism back.

-This team has no chemistry yet. I'm not talking about personalities meshing, I'm talking about guys trusting each other to make plays, knowing what they have to do, and knowing what their teammates are going to do. With all the turnover this isn't surprising. Still, it's annoying to watch.

-This team isn't good enough to make mistakes or catch any bad luck. The Braves should have won that game. However, poor defensive plays and some rotten luck sunk them. This kind of stuff happens to every team but the good teams are good enough to overcome it. The Braves aren't. The second Grilli didn't get the strike call on the 1-0 pitch to Werth, it was like the rest of the inning was pre-ordained.

-Fredi is still Fredi. I have no idea why we put the shift on for Ramos after walking Werth. Down by one, Ramos just wanted to get a hit and get Werth into scoring position with no outs. You were offering him a single and he took it.

So what are everyone else's way too early impressions after the first game?
 
1) The Braves can't afford AJ's crummy defense this season. Flowers is a superior catch and throw guy; I want him in the lineup in lieu of a dea for Lucroy.

2) If somebody wants Grilli, deal him. Viz needs to be the closer nine out of 10 times, although I get why Fredi used the pen the way he did Monday.

3) I'll chalk up Olivera to facing the league's toughest righty Monday. Nobody else looked good against him either.

4) Beckham is not a defensive upgrade in any way shape or form. I can think of at least five guys, including Bourn, I would rather have had make the team.

5) Inciarte will be outstanding.
 
I agree with all of the observations here—Rico's and Striker's. I'll reserve judgement on chemistry. I particularly agree about defensive miscues and mental lapses. We left the door open for a good team, and they rolled right through it.

I have no problem with Viz pitching the eighth in this game, but I want him to be the stopper, whether it means pitching the 8th or the 9th. I'm content to chalk Olivera's bad game up to facing a tough pitcher, but I agree that his swing looks really long.

As for Beckham, I won't be sorry if he goes away. Castro might not hit enough to get regular reps, but I'd rather see him than Beckham as a late-inning guy or spot starter.

I'm a reason-to-believer in Garcia, subject to the usual caveats about strike zone judgement.

Neck doesn't look good at all, but I imagine he'll be his usual self soon enough.
 
Julio3000 said:
I agree with all of the observations here—Rico's and Striker's. I'll reserve judgement on chemistry. I particularly agree about defensive miscues and mental lapses. We left the door open for a good team, and they rolled right through it.

I have no problem with Viz pitching the eighth in this game, but I want him to be the stopper, whether it means pitching the 8th or the 9th. I'm content to chalk Olivera's bad game up to facing a tough pitcher, but I agree that his swing looks really long.

As for Beckham, I won't be sorry if he goes away. Castro might not hit enough to get regular reps, but I'd rather see him than Beckham as a late-inning guy or spot starter.

I'm a reason-to-believer in Garcia, subject to the usual caveats about strike zone judgement.

Neck doesn't look good at all, but I imagine he'll be his usual self soon enough.
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I'm not high on Beckham either. Castro would almost certainly be an improvement defensively over Beckham and can't be any worse of a hitter.
 
I am concerned about defense.

Inciarte is oustanding defensively.

But Olivera, AJ and Garcia are butchers in the field.

Aybar and Markakis are declining defensively and probably now below average at their positions.

Peterson and Freeman are about average defensively.

It is not a strong defense and in general we do not have the kind of high strikeout pitching staff that would minimize defensive deficiencies.

If Mallex Smith and Daniel Castro come up mid-season and get playing time, it would help a lot on defense.

I hope Fredi is liberal in his use of late game defensive replacements in left and third.
 
To try and stay positive....

I love Inciarte and am glad we did not trade him. He is going to bring a lot of good things to this team if we can regain competitiveness.

I love the way Winkler came out strong. No one even fouled the ball off on him. DOMINANT!

Frenchy drew a walk!

EOF looked good, but got crappy luck

Our starter made it 6 innings. Last year it seemed like we never had that
 
nsacpi said:
I am concerned about defense.

Inciarte is oustanding defensively.

But Olivera, AJ and Garcia are butchers in the field.

Aybar and Markakis are declining defensively and probably now below average at their positions.

Peterson and Freeman are about average defensively.

It is not a strong defense and in general we do not have the kind of high strikeout pitching staff that would minimize defensive deficiencies.

If Mallex Smith and Daniel Castro come up mid-season and get playing time, it would help a lot on defense.
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Good call. I still don't get moving Olivera to left and playing Garcia. Instead of having a butcher at third we now have butchers at third and left.
 
nsacpi said:
It is not a strong defense and in general we do not have the kind of high strikeout pitching staff that would minimize defensive deficiencies.
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We don't have the pitching to overcome it. And they are not good enough hitters to justify having them out there. It's not like they're 30 homer players where you live with bad defense
 
Doesn't look like we will fake contend this year...so lets keep this rebuild goin'

Like Inciarte a lot

Winkler is a stud dog.

Grilli looked healthy for the most part at least... thats a positive in my book as he probably shouldn't even be ready at this point. Should have value if he can maintain what he did last year

Freeman looks locked in

Optimistic on Adonis. Guy has legit power, but everyone points to his milb numbers. Since he has been up, he has shown pop at the highest level. Hard to ignore at this point.

I cannot stand walking the first batter on 4 straight. I know one was probably a strike, but still. I'd rather have him swing the bat and try to tie it up himself.

IF AJ COULD CATCH WE WOULD BE LEADING THE DIVISION!
 
sturg33 said:
We don't have the pitching to overcome it. And they are not good enough hitters to justify having them out there. It's not like they're 30 homer players where you live with bad defense
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They are what we have and I'm ok with having an extended look at Garcia and Olivera.
 
msstate7 said:
Anyone know the plan with Aj? Is he or flowers gonna be the primary catcher?
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My guess is it will be close to a 50-50 split until one of them shows he deserves more/less playing time. Flowers will probably catch Norris tomorrow. The Cards have a lefty going on Friday, so I think he will be in there too. And they will split the weekend games.
 
nsacpi said:
I am concerned about defense.

Inciarte is oustanding defensively.

But Olivera, AJ and Garcia are butchers in the field.

Aybar and Markakis are declining defensively and probably now below average at their positions.

Peterson and Freeman are about average defensively.

It is not a strong defense and in general we do not have the kind of high strikeout pitching staff that would minimize defensive deficiencies.

If Mallex Smith and Daniel Castro come up mid-season and get playing time, it would help a lot on defense.

I hope Fredi is liberal in his use of late game defensive replacements in left and third.
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Agree with all of this. Defense has been my biggest concern with this team since jump street. Even more so than the uncertain rotation. Also, it only took one game to show we need a second lefty. That situation just baffles me. It's like they're asleep at the wheel.
 
dak said:
Agree with all of this. Defense has been my biggest concern with this team since jump street. Even more so than the uncertain rotation. Also, it only took one game to show we need a second lefty. That situation just baffles me. It's like they're asleep at the wheel.
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When do we expect paco back?
 
The good news, though, is that Swanson and Albies will instantly make our MIF defense extremely good, so up the middle we're going to be good starting probably late this year. The main things we need to find defensively are a 3B and a RF. Mar kakis can be serviceable once he moves to LF, but I'm not sure what to do with Olivera then because he's not good at 3B, either.
 
I think we'll have a second lefty by sometime next week. Hand would be my choice. He is in DFA limbo at the moment. We could trade for him, but I think we might be waiting to see if we can get him for nothing.
 
The Olivera/Adonis situation is a unique one, because when you look at it, you got two guys that play 3B, but you can only play one at third base. One guy is Tony Batista, middle of the order power bat that can really swing it but not really pick it at third, while the other is Travis Fryman. What do you do, Batista can't play third and he can't play LF, while Fryman is great at third and can play adequate in LF, so you keep Batista at third and put Fryman in left to get them both in the lineup.
 
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