Atlanta Braves: Time for Snit to Shake Up the Batting Order

While the Atlanta Braves lineup order has been consistent for most of the year, the production hasn’t — it’s time to shake things up. 

We all know Atlanta Braves manager Brian Snitker loves consistency in the batting order, running out the same lineup day after day.

And that can sometimes be good for players knowing where they’re going to be every day and have that comfortability with that — but sometimes you just have to shake things up.

Right now they are not getting enough production out of the middle of the order and it’s keeping this offense from scoring consistently.

Ronald Acuna Jr. has 11 hits, 6 walks, and 5 stolen bases in 10 games hitting at the top of the lineup, but has scored just 4 runs — and two of those were created by himself with home runs.

You can’t have a guy as electric as Acuna getting on base nearly 40 percent of the time and scoring just 20 percent of the time he gets on base.

Much of that is due to the fact the guys behind him are all currently slumping at the same time. Matt Oslon, Austin Riley, Marcell Ozuna, and Ozzie Albies are all hitting .243 or less in the month of May.

It’s really hard to win and consistently generate runs when the middle of your order is slumping at the same time — that will turn around at some point.

But until they get going, Snitker has to make some adjustments to the roster.

Braves Lineup Construction

Acuna stays at the top. I’ve heard some grumblings about moving him down to give him more RBI chances, but he’s not going anywhere — nor should he.

As great as it would be to have another player in the two-spot that gets on base and doesn’t strike out a lot, the Braves just don’t have many of those players in this lineup. Matt Olson is the only player that makes sense for the two spot right now.

And with that, you have to stick with Riley in the three spot.

This is where it gets interesting and the real shake-up needs to occur. Ozuna cannot bat fourth until he starts to show some improvement.

Ozuna hasn’t been good for over three weeks — that’s an exaggerated slump. Since April 15 the average and on-base percentage has dropped from .333/.342 to .210/.256.

Travis d’Arnaud needs to be put in the fourth spot. He’s swinging the second hottest bat behind Acuna and has been consistent all year. He doesn’t draw a lot of walks, but he does put the ball in play.

Ozzie sticks in the fifth spot to give you a switch-hitter that breaks up all the righties. And while he’s making a lot of weak contact, he at least puts the ball in play.

Then it gets really tough after that with how you order Ozuna, Travis Demeritte, Adam Duvall, and Dansby Swanson.

Right now, until things change, you could go Demeritte, Ozuna, Swanson, Duvall.

Swanson has done great in the nine spot with Acuna protecting him, so I’d hate to move him out of that spot. For that reason maybe you stick Duvall at eight and keep Swanson at nine.

Demeritte, Duvall, and Swanson all have a K% over 30, but Swanson and Demeritte are better at drawing walks than Duvall and Ozuna.

It’s not an easy task for Brian Snitker, but something needs to change to try and get this offense going.

At the very least, TDA and Ozuna need to be swapped in the lineup. Or put TDA at four and push everyone down a spot. Let me know how you would write up the lineup card in the comments below.