Historic Erick Aybar and the Now TANKING Braves
Erick Aybar is epically bad, and his playing time may betray that yes, the Braves are now indeed tanking.
Aybar has performed nearly perfectly by one metric though: he’s played in 43 of the Braves 46 contests.
I may have begun a bit of an evolution of thought. Since the early days of last winter, I’ve held the view that the Braves are not Tanking. They are plotting and scheming for the future, I’ve claimed, but striving to win as many games as possible in the meantime. I wrote as much for Modern Pastime when the Braves brought Kelly Johnson back.
Here’s the pertinent excerpt from my #hottake on the day of the KJ signing:
"“the Braves went out and spent 2 million buckaroos to secure some marginal upside in a backup. That sum of money on it’s own shouldn’t speak very loudly. This sounds a bit odd, but it’s the smallness of the move that signals something more to me. Johnson isn’t about taking the place of someone else more expensive, who can then be shipped out. He isn’t a long-term solution somewhere. He isn’t a pitching prospect. He could be a trade chip again this year, which would be further chuckle-worthy, but he is one year older and whatever the Braves could get for him would only amount to system depth in light of the Prospect Parade© that the club has already assembled. By my calculus, the only reason to sign Kelly Johnson is to be as good as possible in 2016 within the parameters of the philosophy guiding the rebuild. Teams that are after a draft position-driven Tank Job don’t make chess moves to improve the productivity of their bench."
That was then.
Enter the epic dumpster fire of 2016
There truly is no need to recount ANYTHING about how disastrous the club has been so far. Because it’s well-documented, and because it’s not fun to mull over.
Perhaps more palatable is a quick look at Erick Aybar’s prolific failure. Not because it’s fun to mull over, either. Not because I want to enjoy his misery. It’s just that Aybar is on a historic pace here; one that puts the artist formerly known as BJ to shame.
Jeff Passan recently chronicled Aybar’s journey into the abyss, excerpted here:
"“…Aybar, the Atlanta Braves’ 32-year-old shortstop, is currently on pace to post the single worst season for a hitter in the past century. His line: .175/.216/.204. That .420 OPS would shatter the record of .461. Aybar’s OBP would be the worst as would his SLG. Same for his batting average, if not for Ryan Howard. And then to have the indignity of missing a game because he got a chicken bone stuck in his throat. If Aybar weren’t making $8.5 million for this festival of sucktitude, you might feel bad for him.”"
Indeed, Aybar has managed to settle to the bottom of the barrel nearly across the board. Here is a quick list of offensive stats by which he ranks DEAD LAST among qualified starters in MLB: On Base Percentage, Slugging, Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+), and Offensive Runs Above Average (Off).
I quit looking for last place rankings at that point. Check out the leaderboards from Fangraphs yourself. There may be more. Hell, there are probably more.
Aybar has performed nearly perfectly by one metric though: he’s played in 43 of the Braves 46 contests.
Flip-Flopping
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This is not a condemnation of the Braves approach, but I’m having a hard time resolving that a team that cares about winning would run Aybar out there this often.
No doubt the club knew that they had assembled a lousy 2016 squad. If you thought otherwise, well, that’s on you. But my previous view was that the Braves bigwigs were trying in earnest to make the rebuild as painless as possible. From my vantage, they were clearly not trying to lose as many games as possible. The losing was a symptom, not the plan.
I’m pretty sure I don’t feel that way about the present mindset of the front office.
My flip-flopping of positions on this isn’t because it’s election season, though it’s a tempting assumption. It’s not just Aybar, either. There was a reasonable chance that the Braves would be palatable this year. It wasn’t complete hot air that the team could be better offensively this year. Neither of those things are true anymore.
Sober thinking leads us to a pretty clear conclusion: why in the world would the Braves inconvenience their future whatsoever to improve on Aybar? Why would they move their prized middle infield prospects until they are absolutely ready? Sure. Daniel Castro. He’s a better defensive player, but his offensive is without fail as tragic as present day Aybar’s. Given that, why not leave Aybar in there and cross your fingers for some trade value?
Basing your rebuild on draft positioning is a slow and very risky strategy. The Braves have much more than tanking up their sleeve. At this point however, the top pick in next year’s draft is the only trophy suitable for our longing.