Atlanta Braves Magic Numbers: Week 21

We’re getting close to the end of the baseball season, the beginning of football season, and the division races edging toward the playoffs. It’s a good time to be a sports fan. More importantly, it’s a good time to be an Atlanta Braves fan since the team is still in the hunt, and the Braves have turned around their dire August record to a respectable 10-12. They just need to go 4-2 in their last 6 games to get back to .500 August, and achieve one of my three goals for the Braves to make the playoffs. The other two are winning every series with the Washington Nationals, and capitalizing with a big winning record in September against the easier teams.

The Braves had a pretty solid week, despite dropping a couple of games they probably should have won. The Braves are 4-3 on their road trip so far, and they finish up with the Mets in New York. How does the team look right now? I’d say they were on a roll, but have suddenly gone cold at the plate over the last three games. However, Evan Gattis and Jason Heyward have been stone cold awesome in the last week. Both have OPS numbers over 1.000, both have hit home runs, and they’ve both combined for 10 total runs scored and 10 RBI.

But wait, there’s more! Justin Upton and Andrelton Simmons are on fire as well. Justin has a shocking 11 RBIs on the week, 2 homers, and he’s slugging .600. Simmons is slugging .538 with 2 homers, 2 doubles, and 4 runs scored. It’s been an amazing week for those four players, and a big reason why the Braves won four games against a good Pirates club and a slumping Cincinnati team. The only downside is that any offense at all would have won the third game against Cincy, but the Braves couldn’t score a single run. Why was that?

Well, like most things for the Braves when something is going well, something else completely falls apart. Freddie Freeman hasn’t fallen apart persay, but his week had no RBI at all, and that is not what you want from a middle of the order guy, even though he was hitting the ball well. Freddie did manage to score six runs, though, so he was pulling his weight in other ways. That’s where the good news really ends.

B.J Upton continues to stink with a slugging of .200 on the week, but at least his OBP went up to .350 in a small sample. He was taking his walks at a bare minimum, but a lot of those were intentional. Chris Johnson has been even worse with an OPS of .492. You’d think that was the low point, but you’d be wrong. In fact, Tommy La Stella has an OPS of .458, prompting Freddie to basically platoon him with Phil Gosselin. That’s been a positive move since Phil is hitting .294 on the week with two runs scored. So, if you wonder why you’re seeing Phil play more? That’s why.

Emilio Bonafacio continues to confuse me. Freddie is playing BJ still while letting Bonafacio in by his “gut feel” on the game. My gut feel is that BJ should be benched for the remainder of the season. Emilio isn’t going to wow anybody with his numbers, but Bonifacio is hitting .286 on the week and .255 on the season with the Braves. Do you really need to know more? If we can improve from a guy at the Mendoza line to a guy who is a respectable major leaguer, I don’t see the downside.

Oh wait, except Emilio’s defense. That’s been the adventure. He hasn’t looked great out in CF, but Fangraphs has his defensive rating on the year in center way higher than BJ. In fact, Emilio is rated 8th by their metrics, while BJ is rated 44th for players in the NL that have played center more than 50 innings. Chris Denorfia is a better center fielder than BJ by those standards, and he’s mostly a RF player on a terrible team. That’s pretty damning in my mind. If Emilio is better offensively and defensively (at least potentionally) why in the world is BJ still in the game?

Right, the money. The bloody money. The millions upon millions that are shackled to Frank Wren’s leg like a cannonball sinking him down to the crushing black oblivion of the briny deep. What’s written on that cannonball as poor Frank struggles to breath on the ocean floor? BJ Upton. He’s the Davy Jones Locker of baseball. I may or may not have watched Pirates of the Caribbean last night. Don’t judge me.

It’s too late for me to reconcile with B.J. Upton. I already gave up. Nothing about his as a player is redeemable. I’ve already started the clock on him, much like I did for Dan Uggla. It’s a matter of time until his money falls off the books, and even sooner before the Braves outright release him. If he’s on the club in 2016, I will be totally floored. I would take any deal that saves the Braves more than 30% of his remaining deal, but I don’t think they could swing even that at this point. If Fredi keeps playing him and the Braves lose the chance to go to the playoffs, Fredi deserves to be fired.

So, in this week we had some big upside and some downside. The upside is that the Braves are keeping their heads above water on the road, and they are close to getting back to a .500 August. The downside is that the Nats just keep winning at an unholy pace, and the wild card is starting to look like the only option left. I’ll never give up on the division until we finish all the games with the Nats, but even I have to admit that’s looking pretty bleak at this point.

The Braves are one game back of San Francisco in the wild card, and three games back of St. Louis. It’s very doable if they continue to capitalize in their good hitting of late. If they falter again? If they can’t put 4 runs or more on the board consistently? Well, then I think you better enjoy football season, because the Braves won’t be around in the playoffs in October.

Next up, the Braves play Tuesday in New York for three games, and then the weekend back home against the Marlins. It’s time to beat up on some sub-.500 division rivals! Don’t miss it!