What’s Wrong with Tommy Hanson?

Tommy Hanson allowed one run tonight through five innings against a depleted Marlins’ lineup. He gave up one run in his last start, also against the Marlins—an outing that lasted five innings and netted him his 11^th win of the year. Don’t let the end results fool you: these were poor starts, which continue a trend that started last year and has continued to get worse over the course of the 2012 season. Let's dig into his numbers, history, and peripherals to find out where his production is slipping and what he needs to do to improve from here on out.

Prospect Write Up: Joe Terdoslavich

The Braves selected Joey Terdoslavich in the 6^th round of the 2010 Rule IV draft out of Long Beach State University, and as a relatively polished hitter, he’s been moved aggressively through the system since day one. He acquitted himself well against professional pitching in his debut, slashing .302/.355/.410 in Danville and Low-A Rome, while splitting time between first and third base. At this point in his career, there are legitimate concerns about his defense playing in the majors, but it’s the Braves’ belief, as well as mine, that his bat is going to be what carries him up the organizational ladder. At 23 years old, Terdoslavich’s bat is going to be expected to be advanced for his level, as many of the college hitters you see have success in the majors are pushed through their respective organizations fairly quickly and manage to tread water, if not excel, at every stop. First round talents drafted out of college such as Ryan Zimmerman, Troy Tulowitzki, and Ryan Braun forced their way onto major league rosters by their second year in the organization. Even without that blue-chip pedigree, Terdoslavich finds himself in a position to see the majors in the next year. More after the jump.

Dempster Trade Appears--Thankfully--Dead

The reported trade that would have sent Ryan Dempster to Atlanta in exchange for Randall Delgado and a prospect appears dead, according to multiple reports. While details are still a little sketchy, it sounds like a deal was agreed to in principle between the two clubs and Dempster exercised his 10-5 rights in hopes of being sent to the Dodgers instead. If Dempster doesn't want to be in Atlanta, so be it. While he leads the league in ERA, the underlying numbers paint a picture that's not all that different from the rest of his career.

Nah, dude. You're overrated.

Atlanta Braves Win the Dempster Sweepstakes

As confirmed by MLB beat-writer Mark Bowman, Ryan Dempster is now a member of the Atlanta Braves.  There is no word yet on who the Braves have sent to the Cubs, but it is rumored that Randall Delgado will be in the mix.

Below are Dempster's statlines for this year and his career.  Dempster will be a free agent at the end of the year, barring a long-term deal being made with the Braves.  His career numbers are less than stellar; however, he is having an outstanding season this year.

2012

INN	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA
98	76	23	7	27	77	2.11

Career

INN	H	ER	HR	BB	SO	ERA
2140.2	2098	1025	229	967	1842	4.31

Also for those concerned about not getting Zack Greinke, Greinke has said he will test free agency this summer.  Dempster is also set to be a free agent this summer.  It is yet to be seen if the Braves will retain Dempster and still have the opportunity to sign him or Zack Greinke this offseason.  The Braves still have needs for a right-handed hitter and another solid bullpen arm.

Give us your thoughts on how you think Dempster will affect the Braves rotation and your predictions for the Braves playoff chances this year.

UPDATE (8 PM):
Earlier reports indicated the trade was finalized, but Dempster tweeted that there was no trade. Several sources has since recanted their story, and the deal is apparently still in the works. The holdup appears to be Dempster waiving his 10-5 rights. Sources say that Dempster prefers the Dodgers, who have been in on him for the last few weeks, as well. More updates to come once the situation is resolved.

UPDATE (9AM Wednesday):
Frank Wren said in an interview with 680 The Fan (out of Atlanta) this morning that the Dempster deal with the Cubs had parameters that expired yesterday and that the Braves were moving on.  While the Braves are still looking to find that ace-level arm, this can be seen as a near-miss for the Braves.  The team almost traded away a 23 year old under team control with a promising future for a 2 month rental of a career-mediocre pitcher.  The Braves are under the "win-now" method of thinking, but the Dempster trade would've been a bad one especially since the guy clearly did not want to be here.

Prospect Write Up: Christian Bethancourt

Christian Bethancourt continues a long line of high-caliber backstops to come through the Braves organization, joining players such as Brian McCann, Tyler Flowers, Javy Lopez, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Like those before him, he’s climbed numerous prospect rankings, and has been seen as a Top 5 organizational prospect by most as well as being regarded as one of the Top 100 prospects in the MLB. Though 2012 marks his fifth year in the organization, Bethancourt is still only 20 years old, as he was signed out of Panama as a 16 year old in 2008. Bethancourt’s calling card has always been defense, as he’s been named the best defensive catcher in the organization multiple times and has thrown out 38% of attempted thefts in his career, including 43% this year. A lot of his success can be attributed to great footwork, a strong arm, and a quick release. He averages a sub-1.9 pop time to second base, and has been clocked as low as 1.78, which is roughly as quick as Pudge Rodriguez in his prime. His arm is on full display in the video after the jump.

2012 MLB Second Half Predictions

As the Atlanta Braves open the second half of their season tonight against the San Francisco Giants, we here at That Braves Blog bring you our second half predictions.  With eight teams within 2 games in the AL and seven teams within 6 games in the NL, this new wild card format is sure to go down to the wire.  Some of these picks you might consider bold given what we've seen from the first half of the season, while there are certain teams you just can't pick against.  Weigh in with your questions and comments and let us know what you think.

Who should be starting for the AL All-Star team? OR AL fans are twice as smart as NL fans

The 2012 All-Star game will be starting in just a few moments, so I thought I would put up my second blog post about which players should have been selected by the fans to start for the American League All-Star team.

If you would like to see how I made up my team, check out my blog post on who should have been selected by fans for the NL team here.

Here is my "Should Have Been" AL team contrasted with the team selected by the fans.

If you compare the two lists, you see that the fans only selected two players that should be on the team, Robinson Cano and Josh Hamilton.

Robinson Cano is a very strong player and he has the Win Above Replacement Player (WARP) of any second basemen.  Cano also has the second highest WARP of all American League players, exceeded by only Mike Trout.  Cano is a big name player from a big name market, but he is truly deserving of being picked by the fans, unlike his Yankee team mates Curtis Granderson and Derek Jeter.  I can hear the Yankee fans getting rile up at the suggestion that Jeter should not have been selected by the fans.

Another fan favorite, Josh Hamilton, is also deserving of his selection by the fans to the AL All-Star team.  Despite his own personal struggles, Hamilton continues to put up huge numbers, and fans love the idea of a redemption story.  While Hamilton is having a great year, he should not have been the number 1 vote getter in the OF for fans.  That distinction belongs to Mike Trout who is having a stellar year and has WARP of 4.8 as a rookie.  Like Cano, Hamilton is more deserving of the fan selection than his Ranger team mate, Mike Napoli. Napoli has a paltry 0.9 WARP, and his selection baffles me since last I checked the best AL catcher, Joe Mauer, is a big star in his own right.

So the fans got two of the picks right for the AL All-Star team which is twice as many as the one that they got right on the NL team.  Hopefully, fans will get smarter before next year's All-Star selection.  But I doubt it.

How to win the World Series on a Budget

13 Relievers (pronounced: closers) and 12 position players.

It's a crazy idea that you've probably thought about, but no team has the guts to try it.  Nine closers every night instead of a conventional 5 man rotation with a closer, a setup man or two, a long reliever, a mop-up guy, or whatever combination of the above you're going with now.

The Braves currently carry 12 pitchers and 13 position players, so you do sacrifice one bat off the bench, and for the sake of resting pitchers, you might prefer to go with a 14 reliever, 11 position player active roster, further limiting your utility options, but lets explore this and figure out if it might just be worth the sacrifice.

Let's pretend we committed to this 5 years ago and our elite young relievers we drafted in that time are making their way to the big leagues.  You'll recognize some names here, but most you won't.  We were able to get these guys because we drafted them higher than other teams because they fit our strategy better than the conventional one.

Based on first-half numbers lets say these are our 13 guys:

1. Aroldis Chapman 

2. Ernesto Frieri      

3. Kenley Jansen 

4. Craig Stammen 

5. Tom Wilhelmsen  

6. Vinnie Pestano  

7. Jason Grilli  

8. Josh Roenicke 

9. Craig Kimbrel 

10. Ryan Cook 

11. Pedro Strop 

12. Tim Collins 

13. Fernando Rodney 

Carrying 13 pitchers you will have to use one guy 3 days in a row before he gets rest, but everyone else will get a day off 1 out of 3 days.  Carrying 14 pitchers you wouldn't have to use anyone 3 days in a row.

For the most part these are young guys, and therefore inexpensive.  You get a lot of innings per dollar here.  There is also an expensive veteran thrown in for leadership in Fernando Rodney.  I chose him because he is expensive and having a good year.  A guy with an attitude like Papelbon could be more beneficial for the leadership role, but Rodney is having a better year right now.

Now, this is a collection of some of the best players so far this year, so I won't compare them to the Braves pitching staff.  I'll compare them to the team that has given up the fewest runs this year, the Washington Nationals. (Braves are ranked 12th)  The Nats have some elite starters, middle relief, and a closer, so their performance this year is about as good as you can get from a conventional pitching staff.

INNINGS PITCHED:

All-reliever rotation  505.2

Nats pitching staff:   745

This is the biggest issue with this strategy.  Few relievers are actually throwing the 112 and 2/3 innings (assuming no extra innings) per year it would take to finish a season with 13 relievers.  But, all of these guys do throw every day as part of their conditioning, it's just not always in a game.  With the right conditioning, the right personnel, and a deep minor league system, this can be done successfully.

ERA:

All-reliever rotation  1.89 = 157 derived total allowed (1.89 ERA x (745 innings / 9)

Nats pitching staff:   3.19  = 264 total allowed (3.19 ERA x (745 innings / 9)

This is the biggest attraction to the strategy.  Assuming you can condition these guys to perform at the same high level while pitching more often, you will give up a lot fewer runs, 1.32 per game in this case.  Want to win those 1 run games?  Try giving up 1.32 fewer every single game.  Relievers always say they'd rather pitch more often than less often anyway, and since we've stockpiled all these young arms, our guys can handle it.  This is arguably a big part of Venters' struggles this year.  Last year he was everyday Jonny and he was lights out.  This year Freddy is trying to save him for September/October, and he sucks.

MONEY:

All-reliever rotation = $9.8M

Nats pitching staff = $34.5M

If ERA is the biggest attraction, this is attraction 1A.  This frees up $24.7M to spend on offense.

Here are some examples of what $24.7M can get you on offense in terms of 2012 salaries:

Prince Fielder = $23M

Matt Holliday = $17M

Jose Bautista = $14M

Robinson Cano = $14M

Josh Hamilton = $13.75M

Joey Votto = $9.5M

Ryan Braun = $6M

Carlos Gonazalez = $5M

Andrew McCutchen = $500K (this kid is in for a payday)

The game has been moving in this direction as starters go 5 to 6 innings max and relievers are brought in for matchups between the 6th and 9th innings.  This would allow you to play matchups every single inning based on the 3 hitters you know are about to come up against you.

You have to commit to this strategy as an entire organization, from the draft throughout the minors.  You draft pitchers with the best stuff, even if they don't have stamina or 4 solid pitches.  You're looking for young Mariano Riveras who have one pitch that is so disgusting they can pitch an inning at a time almost every day and no one can hit it.  You use the off-season and spring training to condition your pitchers to throw 20 pitches at a time at maximum effort, two days in a row, with a day off after that.  

You also have to have a huge pipeline flowing, as you'll see guys like Jonny Venters dominate in 2011 and can't get anybody out in 2012.  Good relievers, other than Rivera, are mostly flash in a pan type guys.  You also want to let them go when they get to the point in their careers where they're not cheap anymore.

I think within the next 50 years a team will try this, and when they do, they'll win the World Series.  Then everyone will adopt the same strategy, and the economic advantage will disappear.  That's why I say we all pool our money, buy the Braves, and be the first movers on this.  Who's with me?

Jair Jurrjens: (Still) Broken

On April 24th, Jair Jurrjens was demoted to Gwinnett after beginning the year with the following line: 4 GS, 16.1 IP, 8 K, 10 BB, 5 HR, 1.167 OPS Against, 9.37 ERA. While some of this was fueled by random variation in BABIP and HR%, he carried an FIP- of 220 into his minor league excursion.

Since his return in late June Jurrjens has posted a sub-2.00 ERA. Many, namely Chip Carray and Joe Simpson, have taken to touting Jurrjens return to relevance, but his current ERA is no more sustainable than the insanely high figure he had before heading to the minors. After 3 superficially good starts, Jurrjens has lowered his ERA to 5.10, and now carries an FIP of 5.43. He’s done this by limiting baserunners, as his WHIP of 1.21 is half of what he was allowing early in the season. As with all things though, some of this is simple regression and sample size noise. His early season BABIP sat north of .400—limiting hits to the tune of a .273 BABIP is not out of the ordinary. He has cut his walks by more than 50%, but this has come at the expense of strikouts. Jurrjens was never much of a strikeout artist, peaking right around league average, but over the last three years he’s seen a precipitous decline in K rate that makes it hard to succeed regardless of how lucky he gets.


K/9 - Jair Jurrjens

Source: Fangraphs.com


Beyond the underlying statistics, a casual observation of Jurrjens shows that he just can’t locate his pitches anymore. To my eye, he’s missing his target by 6 inches more than half the time. He’s usually elevated in the zone, which may be both a factor in his elevated HR rate and a result of his recovery from knee surgery. However, what’s good anecdotal evidence without a graph to back it up?


Fastball Location VS. L/R 2012 - Jair Jurrjens

Source: Fangraphs.com

Yeah, he’s been up in the zone. In fact, since 2008, Jurrjens’ heat maps show a general trend towards the upper part of the zone. Not coincidentally, Jurrjens’ groundball percentage has trended downward and sits at a 5-year low, while his fly-ball percentage has hovered around 40% and his HR/9 rate has climbed.

Batted Ball Profile - Jair Jurrjens

Source: Fangraphs.com

HR/9 - Jair Jurrjens

Source: Fangraphs.com


These factors, along with a well-documented decline in velocity and Jurrjens’ doesn’t even resemble the pitcher he used to be. When he broke into the rotation full-time in 2007, he was a young kid who could touch 95 MPH, generated boat-loads of groundballs, and got enough strikeouts and limited walks enough to get by. He was, in most respects, smoke and mirrors, with the promise of much, much more. Since returning from Gwinnett he's back to doing his best to give DIPS theory one large middle finger, but there's only one Matt Cain, and he can at least hang a few K's on batters. Without his young-man skills, it appears Jurrjens' days as a rotation stalwart are ending before they really ever began.

Who should be starting for the NL All-Star Team? OR How Michael Bourn got jipped.

The All-Star game frustrates me more than almost anything else in baseball.  The Mid-Summer Classic used to be a fun exhibition where you could see the biggest names in the game play against each other.  Before Interleague play, the American League played the National League twice a year.  The All-Star Game and the World Series.  When the game was only an exhibition game, there was nothing wrong with fans voting for the teams, but now that the game determines home-field advantage, the fans need to be taken out of the process.

Using the stat Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) is a pretty darn good way to figure out how good a player really is.  I used this stat to figure out which players should be on the All-Star team by picking the player with the best WARP at their position and the top three Outfielders since All-Star voting does not distinguish between outfield positions.

A good place to read more about WARP is at FanGraphs here.

Since this is a Braves blog, I will pick the "Should Have Been" National League All-Star team now and will make another post in a couple of days with the real American League All-Star team.

Without further ado, here is my Should Have Been National League All-Star team contrasted with the team that fans selected.

How much better is the "Should Have Been" team? If you add up the WARP for each of these teams, the Should Have Been team has a total WARP of 32.8 and the actual team has a WARP of 20.0.  This means that these players combined would be worth almost 13 more wins to a team than if the team had the players selected by fans. Clearly San Francisco fans did a really good job voting since they got three Giants onto the All-Star team when no Giants are on the Should Have Been team.

What the Fans got right: Joey Votto.  As you can see in the table above, Joey Votto is the only All-Star that the fans got right.  This may be because he has the greatest WARP spread between him and the next best player at his position.  Another possible reason is that Cincinnati fans are great and did a great job getting him voted onto the team. 

Who was jipped by the All-Star process? There are two players who should have been starters because they have the best WARP at their respective positions.  Aaron Hill did not make the National League team at all.  While he has the lowest WARP of all the players who should have been selected to the NL starters, he has the highest WARP of any NL second basemen.  Second base seems to be one of the least appreciated position because Brandon Phillips has a WARP of 2.1 which is the same as that of Dan Uggla who is the NL starter and Phillips also got the snub.

We will end this Braves blog post by talking about the Brave who is by far the player jipped the most in the All-Star Game process.  Michael Bourn was passed over twice by baseball fans in the first round voting and also in the last roster spot voting.  Bourn has the highest WARP of any outfielder in the NL and the third highest WARP in the NL behind Joey Votto and David Wright, which just goes to show Bourn played the first half of the season at an MVP-like level.  I know Bryce Harper moves the needle more than Michael Bourn, but the All-Star game should be about celebrating the players having the best season.  Thankfully, Bourn has been added to the team to replace Ian Desmond.  This is better than Bourn not being recognized at all, but he should have been selected from day one and not as an after thought.  Either the All-Star game needs to go back to an exhibition, or the selection process should be taken away from the fans.  It is pretty disappointing to think that a game designed to celebrate the best players in baseball would have been without one of the game's elite players - all because of a broken process.

2012 Atlanta Braves Prospect Write Ups

Over the course of the season the writers here will be taking a close look at several Atlanta Braves prospects, ranging from the raw and intriguing Edward Salcedo, to the exceptionally polished and decidedly boring Todd Redmond-types. These will generally encompass everything from acquisition, scouting reports, video--if there is any available, and statistical analysis, primarily through use of rate stats, major league equivalents, and player comparisons. We'll more or less take turns nominating players for write ups, but feel free to let us know if there's anyone you're interested in. We'll include a highlight of sorts for the next week's featured player. Which leads us to:

Christian Bethancourt

Position: C

Bats/Throws: R/R

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 219

Birthplace: Panama City, Panama

Recent Awards: 2012 Futures Game Selection, 2012 Southern League Mid-Season All-star

Bethancourt entered the 2012 season ranked as MLB.com's #91, FOX Sport's #37, and ESPN's #94 prospect.  This season Bethancourt has a split of .257/.281/.275, which on the surface seems fairly mediocre. Bethancourt was signed as a 16 year old out of Panama in 2008 after a fine showing for Panama's Little League World Series team in 2004.  With Brian McCann and David Ross on the big league club and prospects such as Evan Gattis ahead of him in the organization, the Braves have the luxury of giving the 20 year old backstop all the time he needs to develop.  He posted his best offensive season last year with the Rome Braves slashing  .303/.323/.430.  

My Braves Not-All-Star Team

When the NL and AL All-Star teams were released, all anyone wrote about was who got snubbed and who should've made the team...well this is not that type of article.  In this post, I'm going to address what I call my "Braves Not-All-Star Team" which is composed of players that I felt had high expectations leading into the season and who haven't produced or have just flat out stunk.  Without any further buildup, I present you the 2012 Braves Not-All-Stars.

Starting Pitcher- Jair Jurrjens- Not only was Jurrjens an All-Star after the first half last season, but there was a strong argument that he should've started the game for the NL team over Roy Halladay.  He tailed off signifcantly during the second half of the season with his knee causing him way too many problems velocity-wise and locating pitches.  He followed up last year with an abysmal spring training and took that into the season which earned him a demotion to AAA-Gwinnett.  There's no doubt the talent is still there somewhere, but the Braves need the 2011 first half Jair Jurrjens back and in a bad way.  With all the knee injuries, you wonder if that's possible...?

Relief Pitcher- Jonny Venters- Hitters all around the league quickly learned of Jonny last year as he dazzled and wowed them with his bag of tricks consisting of sinkers and sliders that moved more than Richard Simmons after twelve cups of coffee.  This year Jonny has all but been figured out.  There are glimpses of greatness that are vastly overshadowed by hanging sliders and sinkers that don't sink.  Venters has already given up 41 hits (6 HR) through the first half of this season, when he only gave up 53 hits all of last year with three times fewer homeruns (2).

Second Basemen- Dan Uggla- While I've not examined the rest of the NL's second basemen, I find it hard to believe that Dan Uggla was one of the best through the first half of this season.  He's hitting a paltry .229, and I don't want to hear, "Well his OBP is pretty good, and he's walking more."  Yes, I'll agree with you that he's walking more, 54BB so far compared to 62 all of last season, but he's also striking out 33% of the time which is up from 26% last season.  The fans voted him in, and I'll support him but come on fans, really?

Catcher- Brian McCann- Brian has struggled at the plate this year with his hitting and power.  The strikeout-to-walk numbers look decent, but he's just not been able to figure out the shift that most teams put on him.  He's in the basement with Dan, sporting a sizzling .225/.294/.379 (BA/OBP/SLG) split...and that's not a misprint.  Brian McCann has a .225 batting average and is slugging .379.  These numbers are wildly crazy considering Brian's won 6 silver sluggers and sports a career split of .282/.354/.478.

Braves Pinch Hitting- The Braves have managed to get 16 hits in 101 at-bats, with a total of 6, that's right 6, walks thus far this season.  There's really nothing else to say than that is absolutely horrible; oh and that it ranks 27th in baseball


There are some honorable mentions in Randall Delgado, Mike Minor, and Livan Hernandez (RIP), but the five chosen Not-All-Stars take the cake above the rest of the team.  Hopefully, the Braves can find a way to play consistent, good baseball and right the ship.  There's still an entire half of the season left to play, and I have no doubts that Brian and Dan will find ways to get hits and get on base more.  The pitching though is what concerns me most...welcome to the team Ben Sheets...hopefully you traveled into the future from 2006 because we're going to need you.