2017 Atlanta Braves: Improving in the Field, Part 1
By Ryan Cothran
As the 2016 Atlanta Braves Season…draws mercifully to an end, our beloved team is playing some pretty good baseball. But it’s time to start looking forward.
In my other 2 pieces thinking forward about the Atlanta Braves 2017 season we have taken a look at the Outfield conundrum of 4 and the um…less than ideal Starting Pitching market for 2017. Today, we will start going around the horn and look at the offense, pick apart players’ 2016 results, and see if there any solutions on where the Braves can improve from a position players’ perspective for 2017. Today, we will cover Catcher, 1st Base, 2nd base, and 3rd base.
Catching
Tyler Flowers
The Good- The Braves signed “T-Flow” in the off-season off the scrap-heap as the White Sox decided to non-tender him, making him a free agent. Immediately I pined for the Braves to go after him as I knew the reputation that Tyler had of being a good game-caller and a good framer.
Those 2 skills still ring true as, according to StatCorner as he’s rated 4th best catcher in the bigs in framing and would likely be 3rd if he’d been the primary catcher all year. He has also handled the bat quite nicely in his first year as a Brave, carrying a .786 OPS through 292 plate appearances and boasts a 1.1 WAR according to Fangraphs.
The Bad- The BABIP monster: Flowers sports a .370 BABIP. The tutelage of Kevin Seitzer might have something to do with some of this, but as we know from the “Chris Johnson mistake”, trusting this as the norm isn’t wise.
The biggest problem for Flowers lies within the inability to hold base-runners. Out of 58 chances to throw out a would be base-thief, Flowers has thrown out 2. Do I need to repeat that? Yes…that’s a 3.5% caught stealing. There’s no need to look it up as I assure you that’s the worst in the league. Lastly, he’ll be on the wrong side of 30 next year. Does the good outweigh the bad?
Anthony Recker
The Good- Anthony Recker has simply destroyed the baseball in his 96 plate appearances with the Braves.He only has 1 home run, but he’s had multiple hard doubles (7) and loud outs that are caught on the warning track (8 to be exact according to his spray chart). He’s a bat-first catcher that sports a 0.7 WAR in part-time duty according to Fangraphs.
The Bad- The BABIP monster strikes again! While not as high has Flowers, Recker’s BABIP is sitting at an unsustainable .362. He might also be a product of Seitzer’s line drive approach, but expecting those numbers to duplicate in 2017 is like expecting American Cheese to taste good after traveling abroad in France. In regards to framing, Recker has been the anti-Flowers as, according to StatCorner, he’s actually cost his team strikes over the course of the year.