Poll: Which Grinds Your Gears More – Atlanta Braves Hitting or Pitching?

It’s not a secret that the Atlanta Braves production did a complete 360 this season compared to previous ones.  The pitching staff, which has been the Braves bread and butter throughout the years, has been the let down in 2015.  While the lineup, which has been the Braves trouble area at times, has been on fire to start the 2015 season.

How about we take a look at the numbers in 2014 compared to this season.

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Batting in 2014

BA – .249

OBP – .315

SLG – .375

2B – 237

3B – 22

HR – 122

SO – 1,227

BB – 465

Batting in 2015 (63 games into season)

BA – .268

OBP – .334

SLG – .390

2B – 108

3B – 8

HR – 41

SO – 371 (on pace for under 1,000)

BB – 189

Pitching in 2014

ERA – 3.38

WHIP – 1.265

H9 – 8.5

HR9 – 0.7

BB9 – 2.9

SO9 – 8.0

FIP – 3.47

Pitching in 2015

ERA – 4.23

WHIP – 1.357

H9 – 8.8

HR9 – 1.0

BB9 – 3.5

SO9 – 7.3

FIP – 4.24

Obvious change in statistics there and that’s not diving deep into the sabermetrics.

We kinda expected this to happen though, right?  At least with the bullpen when we traded Craig Kimbrel, Chasen Shreve, David Carpenter, David Hale and Gus Schlosser.  Then Andrew McKirahan and Arodys Vizcaino were both suspended for PED usage.  Also, injures with Shae Simmons, Mike Minor and Daniel Winkler and Chris Withrow (both acquired in trades, but still on the 40-man roster).

The pitching this season, especially the bullpen has been nothing but a huge disappointment and very frustrating to not only us as fans, but the players, front office and manager Fredi Gonzalez.

But now, as we watch the Braves games every night, we see this outpour of offense!  And this offseason we got rid of offensive hitters like Justin Upton, Evan Gattis, Jason Heyward, Tommy La Stella and lol B.J. Upton.

The strikeouts are down, we aren’t hitting the home runs (our cleanup hitter has zero home runs), but we are playing fundamental baseball.  Which has been very enjoyable to watch!

So this leads me to my question…

We’ve taken pitching for granite for so many years because of dominance and we’ve accepted not so great offense.  Now, our offense is putting up the runs, but our pitching staff can’t get anyone out!

Let your voices be heard, which grinds your gears more??