Atlanta Braves: Brian Snitker continues to overuse best players

After watching several Atlanta Braves players struggle at the plate in the second half in 2018 because of overuse, Brian  Snitker is doing the same thing in 2019.

One of the bigger storylines after the 2018 season was about how Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker planned to give players more rest.

Our bench was thought to be much deeper in 2019, which in turn would allow Snitker to give guys a day off hear-and-there to keep them fresh down the stretch.

But as soon as the season started it seemed like that all went out the window.

David O’Brien of the Athletic (subscription required), asked Alex Anthopoulos about this very thing the other day, but the general manger’s answer basically puts the onus on the manger, which is where it should be.

The thought was that Johan Camargo, who was the full-time third baseman in 2018, would spell players throughout the week and still get regular playing time.

Unfortunately, Camargo has struggled mightily in 2019 — possibly due to inconsistent playing time.

And for whatever reason, Snitker seemingly refused early in the season to let Charlie Culberson start games to give players a break.

Specifically, Snitker doesn’t seem to give Ozzie Albies a break at second when he’s clearly struggling.

Freddie Freeman, Ronald Acuna Jr., and Albies are all tied for the league lead in games played this year having played in 134 of the Atlanta Braves 135 games.

Josh Donaldson is not far behind at 131 games played.

Had Nick Markakis not suffered an injury he’d be up at the top of this list as well.

I understand the desire to run your best players out there every day as a manager. As a fan, I want to see those players out there as well.

And I’m sure these players would rather be playing than sitting on the bench.

But as the manager, Brian Snitker has to do what is best for the team. And it seems pretty obvious that what is best for the team is to give his best players a break every now and then.

There are 162 games in a season, there is no longer an expectation for a player to play in every game, and certainly not start every game.

The goal in today’s game should be to have your best players start in around 150 games and play in 155. That gives them close to 10 games sprinkled throughout the season to take a breather and get refreshed.

It was pretty obvious last year that Freeman and Markakis were gassed down the stretch. I had hoped that would teach Snit a lesson that he wouldn’t repeat.

The way he manged this past week had me irate and shows that he still hasn’t learned his lesson.

With the crazy travel scheduled the Atlanta Braves had going from New York to Denver to Toronto, there is no way his top four in the lineup should have played in all of those games.

You give a couple a break in Denver and then the others a break for the first game in Toronto and then have them all play in the final game in Toronto. And then everybody gets an off day on Thursday.

How does that not make sense to a Major League manager!?

It was the perfect opportunity for him to give his top guys some much-needed rest, but instead, he continued to run them out there and they continued to struggle and look tired.

Here is what those top four hitters did in the last three games:

Acuna: 2-14, 1 BB, 1 R, 2 RBI, 8 K

Albies: 1-11, 3 BB, 1 R, 1 RBI, 4 K

Freeman: 2-11, 2BB, 1 HR, 2 R, 2 RBI, 3 K

Donaldson: 0-11, 2 BB, 1 R, 3 K

Combined, that’s 5-for-47 (.106) form your top four hitters in the lineup over the last three games. You aren’t going to win a lot of games with that production from the top of your lineup.

And the sad thing is, the bottom of the lineup has been getting on base, but the top of the lineup hasn’t been bringing them in.

And the struggles at the top go beyond the past three games. These guys have needed a break for a while now.

Let me stop and say that I love Brian Snitker. I think he is a very good players manager and the guys love playing for him.

But it’s so frustrating to see him continue to overuse his top players instead of keeping them fresh for what is about to be the most important 14-game stretch of the season.