Atlanta Braves: Diving Deeper into the Playoff Roster
By James Kunkle
As you probably know by now, the Atlanta Braves roster for the Division Series was announced earlier. No major surprises, but maybe a few minor ones to some people. Let’s take a deeper dive into them
First off, the most noteworthy thing to come out was the news we all basically already knew, and that is that Dansby Swanson‘s torn ligament in his hand will prevent him from playing the divisional round. Will it prevent him from playing if the NLCS if the Atlanta Braves advance? Only time will tell.
But more than losing his glove, the effect of not having Dansby is felt a little more. The Braves were counting on Charlie Culberson to be a threat off the bench in this series. Obviously, with him thrust into the starting role though, that will change. It basically left no choice to the Braves but to carry 3 catchers. Now, Brian Snitker has the option to put Tyler Flowers or Kurt Suzuki in a high leverage pinch-hitting role and not worry about not having a backup catcher on the roster.
Keeping with the bats, Lane Adams was awarded a bench spot for this series over Preston Tucker and Adam Duvall. It wasn’t hard to see that after being acquired by Atlanta, Adam Duvall struggled mightily and clearly couldn’t be trusted with the bat anymore. Adams had an advantage over both players also due to his speed, as I’m sure he will be used as a pinch-runner late in these upcoming games.
Moving on to pitchers, the Braves opted to go with 12 pitchers on the roster including 7 starters. Among those 7 starters are Max Fried and Touki Toussaint who both have seen action from the bullpen this season. It still remains to be seen whether Julio Teheran or Sean Newcomb will get the 4th spot in the rotation. One would assume Kevin Gausman will get the ball in Game 3 after it was announced Anibal Sanchez would start Game 2. The Braves could also turn to Foltynewicz on short order in Game 4 as well.
The bullpen is where most of the intrigue was lying. Since the Braves opted to carry 7 starters and only 12 pitchers, that left room for only 5 bullpen guys. We all knew AJ Minter, Arodys Vizcaino, and Jonny Venters would surely make the team. After bursting on the scene, Chad Sobotka looked assured of making the roster as well.
That left the Braves to select from Brad Brach, Sam Freeman, Shane Carle, Jesse Biddle, and Dan Winkler. They obviously went with the in-season transaction piece of Brach. Biddle had only 1 clean appearance throughout September and his last 6 outing were particularly bad. Sam Freeman was the one I thought would win the spot due to him being left-handed and had lowered his ERA over a run since returning from the DL.
Shane Carle is a bit of a mystery, since returning from the DL in early September, the Braves only used him on back to back days once. He also hasn’t pitched since September 23rd, leading me to wonder if he is fully healthy. The last one is Dan Winkler. I think it’s fair to say Winkler had hit a wall because his September was pretty disastrous. He did not have a single clean inning in the month and his era soared over a run also.
So now we all know what 25 players will hopefully lead the Atlanta Braves to big things this Choptober. This should be a fun ride. Hold on to your tomahawks.