What Concerns you most about 2014?

I have two fears for 2014. One that Fredi will cost us an important game when it matters, and two that Gattis will join Uggla and BJ (assuming they don't improve) to form 3 bhos in the lineup. I don't think we can overcome the latter.
 
I hope your right, but frankly you're just like all of Nats nation last year...overconfident. When we made up ground on them last year because we were some better than we were the year before, but mostly it was on them because they didn't hit the first 3/4 of the season. Do you remember how it was before Galvine's departure? The Braves went out every night with a pitcher capable of putting up a zero. The Braves won 3 of 5 consistently and thus a whole bunch of division titles. The Nats have gone out added Fister to Overratedburg and Co., there is not a soft spot in that rotation. There is no way the Braves can match that with this rotation.
 
zitothebrave said:
I'm not scared ****less of the Nats. But you never know what can happen in a season. Nats could get a ton of bounces their way and our head to head could flip. Nats won a lot of games 2 years ago and still have largely the same team as then.

I think it's fair to say the Braves and the Nats are both great teams who're barring something crazy both gonna be in the playoffs. Braves were better last year, Nats were better in 2012. That's really about as simple as you can make it.
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The Braves team of 2012 and of 2013/2014 are not the same team. The Nationals may have a lot of the same players they had in 2012 but what everyone is forgetting about that team is guys like Adam LaRoche had career years and there's no reason to expect that to ever happen again. They had a career year from Jayson Werth last year and they're offense was still bad. Werth is not having that kind of year again. The only offensive players the Nats have that are to be taken really serious are Ryan Zimmermann and Bryce Harper and the Braves over the years have done a pretty good job of handling both.
 
VirginiaBrave said:
I hope your right, but frankly you're just like all of Nats nation last year...overconfident. When we made up ground on them last year because we were some better than we were the year before, but mostly it was on them because they didn't hit the first 3/4 of the season. Do you remember how it was before Galvine's departure? The Braves went out every night with a pitcher capable of putting up a zero. The Braves won 3 of 5 consistently and thus a whole bunch of division titles. The Nats have gone out added Fister to Overratedburg and Co., there is not a soft spot in that rotation. There is no way the Braves can match that with this rotation.
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Mike Minor matches up very well with Gio Gonzalez.
Kris Medlen matches up very well with Doug Fister
A healthy Brandon Beachy matches up very well with Stephen Strasburg.
Hopefully Julio Teheran takes the next step that would allow him to matchup against Jordan Zimmermann.

Jordan Zimmermann is the only advantage the Nats have over the Braves in the rotation.
 
By far the most worrying player for 2014 is BJ, and it isn't even close. He is coming into year 2 of a huge 5 year deal, and if he doesn't figure it out he will represent a HUGE sunken cost on a team that can't afford to waste money.

Uggla and CJ could suck, but them being terrible isn't going to hamstring the team for the rest of this decade like BJ will.
 
Tapate50 said:
I have two fears for 2014. One that Fredi will cost us an important game when it matters, and two that Gattis will join Uggla and BJ (assuming they don't improve) to form 3 bhos in the lineup. I don't think we can overcome the latter.
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Why do people think Gattis won't hit? He was better than McCann last year. He and Chris Johnson were the only two Braves to hit in the playoffs. There's no reason to think Gattis won't at least repeat what he did in 2013. Here, get educated.

Linkage
 
You mean LaRoche who overachieved similar to Chris Johnson.

What they lost in Werth they'd more than make up with a healthy Harper.

Nats lineup is very strong with Harper, Werth, Zimmerman, Desmond, Rendon, Ramos, LaRoche, and Span are all above average hitters or better. LaRoche is the only one likely at his position who's below average.

Pitching wise they have Strasburg, Fister, Gio, and Zimmerman all great starters. In the BP they have Raffy, Clippard, and Storen. Nationals across the board have a strong team just like us.
 
AUTiger7222 said:
Why do people think Gattis won't hit? He was better than McCann last year. He and Chris Johnson were the only two Braves to hit in the playoffs. There's no reason to think Gattis won't at least repeat what he did in 2013. Here, get educated.

Linkage
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Why be concerned about Gattis? His plate discipline is a big one.

Last year he walked a bad 5.5% and Kd 21.2% only really positive for him was his awesome .237 iso. If he maintains his numbers from last year he's about a 2.5 fWAR catcher, worse than what Mac did in only 2/3 of a season. His 110 wRC+ wasn't anything special. He could be better, he could be worse, he could be the same. There's tons of ways to go. He has lots of issues with his approach he could Francoeur out of hitting for all we know.
 
zitothebrave said:
You mean LaRoche who overachieved similar to Chris Johnson.

What they lost in Werth they'd more than make up with a healthy Harper.

Nats lineup is very strong with Harper, Werth, Zimmerman, Desmond, Rendon, Ramos, LaRoche, and Span are all above average hitters or better. LaRoche is the only one likely at his position who's below average.

Pitching wise they have Strasburg, Fister, Gio, and Zimmerman all great starters. In the BP they have Raffy, Clippard, and Storen. Nationals across the board have a strong team just like us.
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Did you just say Denard Span is an above average hitter?

wRC+ (100 is average)
2008 - 122
2009 - 118
2010 - 88
2011 - 91
2012 - 105
2013 - 97

Rendon? In 98 games last year as a rookie his wRC+ was 100, dead average. Will he improve? More than likely, but it's no guarantee.

Wilson Ramos has been pretty good for a catcher posting wRC+ of 91 (2010), 111 (2011), 103 (2012) and 114 (2013).

The Braves own Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen is up and down. Soriano's good but he has moments where he tends to blow saves in bunches, you should know that from having seen him with the Braves. Last year he experienced a huge decline in K/9. Was that a fluke or has Soriano started to decline? If you look at his fastball velocity the answer is yes. His velocity has declined 5 straight years.

2009 - 93.5
2010 - 93.4
2011 - 92.8
2012 - 92.3
2013 - 91.4

Also in 2013 Soriano threw his slider only 16.2% of the time, the lowest of his career and the only time he's ever thrown it less than 20% of the time. Age appears to be catching up with Soriano.
 
zitothebrave said:
Why be concerned about Gattis? His plate discipline is a big one.

Last year he walked a bad 5.5% and Kd 21.2% only really positive for him was his awesome .237 iso. If he maintains his numbers from last year he's about a 2.5 fWAR catcher, worse than what Mac did in only 2/3 of a season. His 110 wRC+ wasn't anything special. He could be better, he could be worse, he could be the same. There's tons of ways to go. He has lots of issues with his approach he could Francoeur out of hitting for all we know.
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Even if he is just the same the drop off from McCann to him isn't enough to consider him a blackhole and put him in the same league is what Uggla and B.J. did last year.
 
We only play the Nats a handful of times. Us ripping a player is only part of it for the season.

And Span is above average. He has a 103 wRC+ for his career. That's above average.

Basically you just confimred what I said, that Nats have an across the board above average offense.
 
Whose in the Nationals bullpen these days? Is Storen still giong to have weeks of absolute suckage? Is Clippard going to blow a bunch of games for them? What else do they have?
 
AUTiger7222 said:
Even if he is just the same the drop off from McCann to him isn't enough to consider him a blackhole and put him in the same league is what Uggla and B.J. did last year.
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No it's not. But that's the if he stays the same. He may be worse he may be better. We dont know.
 
They had three 23-year-old position players -- Freeman, Heyward and shortstop Andrelton Simmons -- who got 400-plus plate appearances. You should know that no National League team has had three regulars that young get that much playing time while finishing with a winning record in more than a quarter-century (since Pete Rose's 1987 Reds).

And you should especially know that no team in either league has done it and had that good a winning percentage since the 1975 Red Sox of Fred Lynn, Jim Rice and Dwight Evans. That was nearly 40 years ago.

Another tidbit to file away: According to baseball-reference.com, the Braves got an incredible 18.7 Wins Above Replacement last year from players 25 or under. The next-closest team in either league was the Angels, with 11.3 -- except that 81 percent of those Angels Wins Above Replacement came from one player (some guy named Trout).

http://espn.go.com/b...g-on-core-group
 
zitothebrave said:
We only play the Nats a handful of times. Us ripping a player is only part of it for the season.

And Span is above average. He has a 103 wRC+ for his career. That's above average.

Basically you just confimred what I said, that Nats have an across the board above average offense.
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Did you not see the numbers I posted? Only one time in the last 4 years has Span had a wRC+ above 100 and that year he barely made the cut at 105.
 
AUTiger7222 said:
Did you not see the numbers I posted? Only one time in the last 4 years has Span had a wRC+ above 100 and that year he barely made the cut at 105.
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Why stop at 4? Why not go to 5? Or 6 which is his whole career? It's because 4 makes your argument best.

If you go 2 he's at +0.9 runs, 3 years he's at -2.3 4 years he's at -12, 5 years he's at +3 and for his career he's at +14.3

You literally took the one sample he looks really bad in. Every other one he looks average or above average.
 
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