Atlanta Braves 1st 2015 Morning Chop

New Year’s Resolutions for Braves

CORY McCARTNEY / FOX SPORTS SOUTH

Find some power — or embrace the small-ball ways

Despite getting 29 home runs out of Justin Upton and 22 via Evan Gattis, the Braves were tied for 22nd in the majors with 123 in all as their formula for winning fall apart.

It was simple: ride pitching and the long ball. It worked in 2013 in the form of a runaway National League East title, but the problem last year was that the pitching was there and the long ball was not.

With Upton since traded to the Padres and Jason Heyward, who had 11 a year ago now with the Cardinals, could Atlanta be in for even more of a power outage in ’15?

In taking a stab at the 25-man roster based on current parts, let’s go into this with the expectation of an Opening Day collection of Freddie Freeman, Alberto Callaspo, Andrelton Simmons, Chris Johnson, Christian Bethancourt, Gattis, B.J. Upton and Nick Markakis in the starting lineup. The bench would then consist of a mix of Phil Gosselin, A.J. Pierzynski, Joey Terdoslavich, Jose Constanza, Kyle Kubitza, Jace Petereson, Elmer Reyes, Zoilo Almonte and Tyler Pastornicky and franchise minor league Player of the Year Jose Peraza could also challenge for one of those spots.

If we take the 162-game average of all those players (keep in mind that Bethancourt, Terdoslavich and Peraza don’t have a major league homer), we’d be looking at 148 combined HRs. That figure would have been 12th in the majors a year ago.

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[Editor’s note:  that’s one resolution – four more are available at the link above]

Next: Somebody is likely to get David Price... why not us?

Happy New Year from the Freeman’s

Calendar Markers for 2015

• 20 FEB* – PITCHERS AND CATCHERS Reporting Date
• 21 FEB – 1st Workout
• 25 FEB – POSITION PLAYERS Reporting Date
• 26 FEB – 1st Full Team workout
• 4 MAR – 1st Spring Game (1:05 EST vs. Mets/Disney)
• 7 MAR/13 MAR/21 MAR – Split Squad games
• 4 APR – Last Spring Game (3:05 EST vs. Orioles/Disney)

• 6 APR – OPENING DAY (4:10pm EST vs. MARLINS/Miami)
• 10 APR – Opening Day in Atlanta (7:35pm EST vs. METS)
• 13 JUL – 16 JUL – ALL-STAR BREAK
• 4 OCT** – LAST REGULAR SEASON GAME (1:35pm vs. CARDINALS/Turner Field)

* – “Camp Roger” starts roughly a couple of weeks before that.
** – Braves finish with series’ against the Phillies, Mets, Marlins, Nationals, and Cardinals in succession… and Toronto before all that.  Go get ’em, boys.

And Finally…

Nothing says “let’s get ready for baseball” as much as hockey being played in Nats Park today.  Weird.

Photo from washingtonpost.com via Google. AP photo, 12/27/2014