Divisional Foe Defeated; How to Keep It Rolling
The Braves are fresh off a series win against the divisional foe Miami Marlins; putting them in a tie for 2nd place in the National League East. Eight games behind the New York Mets, the Braves likely won’t have the luxury in 2022 of New York sputtering until they squander. Even when the advanced analytics suggest that the Mets shouldn’t be anywhere near as good as they have been so far, wins are wins; and they’re currently without Jacob deGrom & Max Scherzer. The two aces returning to the Mets will only make the mountain steeper to climb from Atlanta, Georgia.
Braves’ Strengths
Ronald Acuña Jr.
The Braves bullpen is exactly what we all thought it would be after Anthopoulos worked his magic post-lockout. They’re dealing. Their only weakness is the man who decides how long they’re out there…*cough* “Snitker” *cough*
The rotation is nearly as dominant as the bullpen, now that Charlie is pitching more like the Charlie that we’ve all grown to love. Kyle Wright is still dealing. Max Fried has entered elite territory. Tucker Davidson’s looking like a man on a mission to never see Gwinnett again. And Ian Anderson is approaching his standard.
Braves’ Weaknesses
The Braves high-powered offense that surged to a postseason berth & World Series title is looking like a shell of itself. It hasn’t seemed like more than two hitters at a time have been hot.
Matt Olson has been slumping lately. Ozzie is frustrating to watch at times. Dansby was nonexistent in the batter’s box until last week. Marcell Ozuna has started mashing. d’Arnaud is doing his thing. Adam Duvall looks ABSOLUTELY LOST. And Travis Demeritte has become unplayable. But when Acuña is in the lineup, the offense plays inspired & energetic baseball.
Demeritte, more than anyone, is letting his struggles at the plate spill over into his defense. When he first came up he was making play after play in the outfield. Now he’s making bad reads, taking bad angles, & losing count of the outs in the inning. He needs to ride the pine for a bit.
Solutions
Right now we’re rolling out the Ozuna-Duvall-Demeritte with Acuña as DH or Arcia-Duvall-Acuña with Ozuna as DH.
At minimum, Demeritte needs to be replaced with Acuña in right field on non-turf surfaces. On turf surfaces, I’d roll out an outfield of Arcia-Heredia-Ozuna with Acuña as DH.
Or, crazy idea, we call up Drew Waters and let him play center field.
With Waters in Atlanta we’d have an outfield of Duvall-Waters-Acuña & Ozuna DH or Duvall-Waters-Ozuna with Acuña as DH.
Waters being called up sends Demeritte to Gwinnett. It also gives Duvall his natural position back. He’s a good hitter, he led the National League in RBI last season; but he’s proven that he’s best at the plate when he’s defensively in the corner. Just because Duvall’s our best center fielder currently in Atlanta doesn’t mean he should be the center fielder for Atlanta.
Now that we’ve got the outfield sorted out, we need to figure out how to get William Contreras consistent at-bats…