Morning Chop: Atlanta Braves are still excelling in one key category
The offense has been consistent; the pitching is coming around… but there’s one aspect of this game where the Atlanta Braves are beating their rivals into the ground.
Remember one of the first priorities of Alex Anthopoulos when he took over the Atlanta Braves‘ General Manager chair? It was all about defense:
But the backdrop of everything we’ve talked about is, what can we do to get ourselves better defensively. And that ultimately should help the entire (pitching) staff.
That was from December of 2017, and the statement has been one consistent principle that has survived the trades, signings, non-signings, non-trades, and even the ‘financial flexibility’ of the past 2 Winters.
The numbers this season truly couldn’t be much more clear:
DEFENSIVE RUNS SAVED – NL EAST
- Braves: +18 (MLB Rank: 9th overall)
- Marlins: -10 (22nd)
- Phillies: -22 (25th)
- Nationals: -27 (28th)
- Mets: -35 (29th)
Those are almost stunning numbers. To put them into perspective, consider this: a matchup between the Braves and Mets would effectively start the game with Atlanta leading 1-0.
That’s because the difference between Atlanta’s +18 and the Mets -35 is 53 runs… more than the games played by either club this year.
That’s nearly true for the Braves and Nationals as well, though in their case, the Nationals are least getting some of their better fielders back after injury.
The Braves aren’t without some compromises on the field, of course: Austin Riley is playing out of position and their Gold Glove centerfielder (Wally Pipp?) is out for a bit with an injury of his own.
Still, Riley hasn’t been a liability thus far in Left Field like some have been in the past (ahem… Matt Kemp) and early indications suggest that the Braves are content to continue with this experiment while reaping the benefits of an improved offense.
Is it only about DRS?
Sure: taking just Defensive Runs Saved to draw conclusions about an entire body of fielding work could be akin to ‘cherry picking’ a stat in which the Braves are doing particularly well.
I will suggest that DRS is more of a ‘bottom line’ stat that emphasizes run-prevention. At the same time, we’ll note that not all errors are ‘cashed in’ and not all poor fielding decisions result in runs, either.
With that said, let’s still check some of the other NL East data…
- ERRORS:
- ATL 24
- MIA 25
- PHL 31
- WSH 32
- NYM 35
- TOTAL FANGRAPHS DEFENSIVE RATING:
- PHL: 10.0 (admittedly, this seems bizarre, given other data… 3rd overall in the majors!)
- ATL: 2.7
- MIA: -4.2
- WSH: -11
- NYM: -15.3
- RZR – REVISED ZONE RATING (“the proportion of balls hit into a fielder’s zone that he successfully converted into an out” )
- ATL: 82.3%
- WSH: 80.4%
- MIA: 79.8%
- NYM: 79.4%
- PHL: 79.0%
- TOTAL PLAYS
- ATL: 498
- PHL: 493
- NYM: 455
- MIA: 426
- WSH: 422
That’s a lot of numbers, but I want to note a couple of things about this last group – the total plays.
The Braves – as of Tuesday morning’s data – have played 48 games. Phillies and Nats are at 47, Mets 46, and Marlins 44.
Teams with more strikeouts (Nats, 2nd highest rate in majors; Mets 8th, Marlins 16th, Braves 20th, Phils 23rd) will see fewer fielding plays… conversely, the Braves (and Phillies) will have to do more fielding.
Therefore, as Anthopoulos suggested, it is beneficial to have a great team defense behind these pitchers – and in effect, it is more important to Atlanta to have such a defense since the pitching staff K’s batters at a rate below league average.
This also makes the Nationals’ defensive miscues all the more striking, since they have experienced significantly fewer defensive chances than most other NL East teams.
The best fielding team right now is the Dodgers, with an incredible +58 Defensive Runs Saved score. Next are the Astros (41) and our current opponents: the Giants (36, despite their outfield turmoils).
Next. Revisiting that West Coast Win. dark
But aside from pitching and offense, the Atlanta Braves do have this big advantage going for them: their fielders can pick it and they turn those plays into outs better than nearly anyone… certainly much better than the teams they especially need to be compared against.