re: ATL Thread | 2023 offseason hot takes + discussion

It’s so fricking maddening that after all the hand-wringing about the pitching, it was the bats that lost us the Phillies series.

All that “I told y’all” in regards to Soroka and Wright last year, wasn’t me patting myself on the back or trying to get an internet I-told-you-so “win.” Well, I did want to point out how absurd it was for those delusional who thought Soroka was gonna come back after 2 Achilles tears and just get automatically inserted into the top 3 of the rotation like it was nbd.

But mainly, I think one of AA’s flaws this year was counting on guys coming back from significant injuries—or at least significant time off like Jesse—and just being able to pick up where they left off. I’m not saying he did with Soroka, but he did with Fried, Wright, Lee, Jesse, and Nick Anderson.

Fried did come back and pitched really well, beyond what could have been reasonably expected. But he didn’t make his 1st post-injury start until after the trade deadline. If he had come back and gotten hurt again or had not been Fried again, it would have been too late to address it via trade. And I don’t know everything about Max’s blister issues, but he’s had them before. Does he need to pitch a full season of 200 innings to get that finger calloused up and ready for the playoffs? Knowing he was not gonna have that time, could it not have been predicted? Just seemed like a big gamble that AA was taking there expecting Fried to come back and be Fried. Cause if he wasn’t, we’d have had zero chance.

And even though he clearly wasn’t very good in his 1 start in the NLDS, it wasn’t the reason why we lost. However, it could have been later if we’d have made it past the Phillies.

I’m not sure how much AA was counting on Wright this year—everybody knows shoulders are super tricky for pitchers, so I can’t imagine he was definitely counting on Wright to come back sometime as his 2022 self. But he might have thought Wright would add another option as the 3rd or 4th starter in the postseason (along with Elder and Charlie).

Regardless, he gambled on his injured starting pitchers too heavily imo. And assumed some semblance of 1st half Elder would still be around for the playoffs and hadn’t fully come back down to earth and regressed to the mean. So, even though I was only really screaming “high velo bullpen arms” at the deadline, in hindsight, I think he should have gone after a middle of the rotation SP at the deadline. Or even a top of the rotation guy as long as he was under team control for 2-3 more years.

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We will learn the wrong lesson from that series. The bats not showing up was an anomaly just like the pitching not completely dooming us was.

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Is it an anomaly when it happens two years in a row vs the same opponent?

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It’s so fricking maddening that after all the hand-wringing about the pitching, it was the bats that lost us the Phillies series.

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No question. But even if we’d have gotten past the Phillies, I think some of our pitching flaws would have eventually been exposed in 2 7-game series. Now if the bats had just gotten on regular season fire, that may have covered up any flaws and we may have rolled right through the NLCS and World Series and been holding the big trophy for the 2nd time in 2 years. But I think the pitching flaws would have reared their ugly heads and made it much more difficult or prevented us from winning altogether.

That’s why AA’s in a pretty tough spot here and really needs to think this through. Yes, the historically good bats went historically cold and cost us the NLDS. It would be easy to just blame it on that and say “if we’d have just hit like we’re capable, we would have won the World Series.” But we only played 4 playoff games, and that’s a small sample size to be making such absolutes. And it glosses over—or completely hides—what may have other weaknesses to the construct of the team because they didn’t have time to show themselves.

***I’m over the being pissed off. And my posts aren’t pissed off criticisms of the players, Snit, or even AA. They’re merely pointing out things I think he did wrong (with the benefit of hindsight) and what I think he could do differently moving forward. Trying to be more proactive and being prepared for potential pitfalls than reactive, after he’s already fallen in ‘em.

And you can all freely tell me to get the frick out and/or go frick myself if I say something you disagree with. Or even if I don’t.

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Is it an anomaly when it happens two years in a row vs the same opponent?

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Maybe? You’re talking 8 games out of 332 over 2 years. But probably not, though. Changes definitely have to be made, but it’s tricky knowing which ones to make if you’re just going off those 2 4-game series.

We can all agree the offense sucked in the NLCS and that with just about everybody locked up, it’s gonna hard to upgrade it. At least as far as raw production. But SS, LF, and DH are places where a change could potentially be beneficial. Maybe add a LF who may not produce as much power production as Eddie, but plays better defense, gets on base and is pesky and can swipe some bags, doesn’t strike out as much, and isn’t so streaky.

Maybe that’s a free agent, somebody we could trade for, or is simply Vaughn Grissom. He’s got great bat-to-ball skills (his power will come), is faster than Eddie and will create more havoc on the bases, but maybe most importantly, he brings a little fire to the team that we think we’re lacking. He brought some critical energy to that ‘22 team when he came up. Now, will they move him to LF is the question. He would be shagging fly balls somewhere right now if I’m the Braves. If they don’t have that as a plan, then it’s gotta be because the plan is to package and trade him this offseason, and he’s more valuable as a middle-infielder. His bat’s just too good and proven to waste another year in Gwinnett. He needs to be on a big league roster Opening Day somewhere.

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a guy that makes googly faces at the crowd a day after getting throttled.

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I have to be honest. I lost a lot of respect for our SS during the NLDS. A whole lot.

I think this offseason thread has really been more of a post-mortem than anything

Arcia isn't going anywhere.

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Fried and Morton need to be called out because they totally caved and disappeared this season

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You're being fricking ridiculous.