Are We in for a Long September?

Last year, the Braves completed an epic collapse as never seen before in baseball...except for that other league in the MLB, as the Red Sox finished out the worst fall from playoffs to layoffs (RIP Terry Francona, fried chicken, and beer).  As September approaches with its temptations of Labor Day Weekend, cooling weather, and college football, the Braves seem to just be trotting along at almost the exact pace of last season.  Last season, the Braves were 73-52 through 125 games, compared to 71-54 this year.

Heading into September however, the Braves were on a tear as they went 17-9 during the month of August.  So far this August, the Braves are stammering, to say the least, with a lukewarm record of 12-10 heading into tonight's game.  This season's last stretch appears to be easier on the club as 28 of their final 37 games are against teams that are decidedly out of the playoffs (compared to 19 last year).  Of course, "decidedly out of the playoffs" is an opinion so take it with a grain of salt.

With the pickup of Paul Maholm at the trade deadline, the Braves have bettered their team ERA from 12th to 4th in the National League.  Their offense isn't slacking either with the 3rd highest run total in the NL.  While naysayers may not have faith or confidence in the team, I believe Frank Wren made the right decision in keeping the core of the team together and not making any big off-season trades.  If, and this is a big if, Brian McCann and Dan Uggla can get going and hitting like we all know they can, the Braves will be dangerous come the playoffs.  Match that with Andrelton Simmons coming off the DL in September and Kris Medlen pitching his little pint-sized pants off, and the Braves seem ready to make a strong push for the division and into the playoffs.  Bust out those foam tomahawks Braves fans, fill the stands, chop until your arms fall off, and lets cheer on Chipper in his last season as the Braves forget what happened last year and stampede their way into the playoffs.

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.

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.

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.

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.