Left Side Of Braves Bullpen May Be Best In Game

As Ken Rosenthal reports, the Braves are stocked deep in pitching, to no surprise of any Braves follower.

What he mentions in the article that caught my eye was that he sees the Braves’ left handed side of the bullpen as potentially the best in the game.

The left side of the ‘pen — Eric O’Flaherty, Jonny Venters, Billy Wagner — might be the best in the game.

Over the past two seasons, Bobby Cox has gone away from his traditional approach of keeping one and possibly two left-handed relievers on the roster. With Billy Wagner entrenched as the closer. This was a similar case at the start of last year with Mike Gonzalez closing games and Boone Logan and O’Flaherty as middle relievers.

Lately, Jonny Venters role has increased due to Takashi Saito’s injury and the lack of production from other middle relievers. On top of Saito being injured, Peter Moylan has performed poorly as of late (8.81 ERA in 7 appearances spanning 3.1 innings). This has put added pressure on Venters to produce and, aside from a few bumpy outings, he has certainly ran with the increased role.

Here are the stats from all three lefties this year. The top number is their overall numbers and the bottom is vs. left handed hitters.

Billy Wagner: 4-0, 26 G, 25.1 IP, 1.42 ERA, 2.93 xFIP, 13.50 K/9, 3.91 BB/9, 11 SV

vs. LH: 6.1 IP, 0 ER, 3.61 xFIP, 9.95 K/9, 4.26 BB/9

Eric O’Flaherty: 2-1, 32 G, 25.2 IP, 2.10 ERA, 3.42 xFIP, 7.71 K/9, 3.16 BB/9

vs. LH: 13.1 IP, 2 ER, 2.28 xFIP, 9.45 K/9, 1.35 BB/9

Jonny Venters: 2-0, 23 G, 27.2 IP, 0.98 ERA, 3.57 xFIP, 10.08 K/9, 5.20 BB/9

vs. LH: 16.1 IP, 0 ER, 2.86 xFIP, 12.71 K/9, 3.18 BB/9

Both Venters and O’Flaherty have been much better vs. lefties than against righties. Wagner has had better numbers vs. right handers but he has a much smaller sample size. Wagner pitches strictly the final inning whereas Venters and O’Flaherty get brought in to pitch in certain situations. Obviously, that will allow O’Flaherty and Venters to pitch to more lefties where Wagner will be forced to face whomever is due up in the ninth.

With an entirely right-handed rotation, teams usually stack as many left-hand options as reasonably possible against the Braves. This means later in games guys like Venters and O’Flaherty will get their opportunities and, when they have gotten, them they have certainly produced. Between the three lefty relievers they have thrown a combined 36 innings and allowed just 2 earned runs.

The combined ERA against left-handed hitters of Billy Wagner, Jonny Venters, and Eric O’Flaherty is 0.52.

It would take a great deal of research to find out if their are any comparable left-handed reliever groups in the league, but at best they can only match what these three have done.

Comparing Rosters

Spring Training will unveil a vastly different roster compared to that of the previous Spring Training’s and even compared to the roster to close out 2009. In this article I will compare and contrast the new players to the old.

Start of 2009

The lineup going into 2009 consisted of Casey Kotchman at first, Kelly Johnson at second, Garret Anderson in left, Jordan Schafer in center, and Jeff Francoeur in right. None of these players were very productive last season. The most Kotchman ever helped was in his trade for Adam LaRoche. Johnson had a down year and suffered from tendinitis in his wrist. Schafer started off hot and also succumbed to an injured wrist. Francoeur was exactly what everyone should have projected going into last season, bad. Anderson was the only player of the bunch that finished out the season with the Braves. He managed to hit 13 home runs but his OBP was barely above .300.

The only difference at the start of 2009 and the end of 2009 in the rotation was JoJo Reyes. JoJo started so that Tommy Hanson could get some more work in the minors and avoid becoming a “super two.” JoJo again proved that he is the epitome of a AAAA player.

The End of 2009

The lineup by seasons end had Kotchman replaced with LaRoche, Francoeur with Ryan Church, Schafer with McLouth, and Johnson with Prado. LaRoche was the best hitter the Braves had after the acquired him and was solid defensively. Church was decent as a Brave as his production was close to what his career numbers are aside from a dip in his power numbers. McLouth also performed similar to his career numbers but the Braves expected a little bit more out of him. Prado had an amazing year last year after taking the job from Johnson and he made Johnson expendable. As a Johnson supporter even I agreed with this move and second base is now Prado’s for the foreseeable future. The bench also consisted of Greg Norton and Reid Gorecki during the final days of August(Last days before roster expands.)

The rotation remained similar but added Tommy Hanson and Tim Hudson. Hudson proved that he can still be a good pitcher despite his Tommy John surgery and Hanson was one of the top rookies and will be the future ace of the Atlanta Braves for many years.

The bullpen was headlined by Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano the entire season and both took turns as closer. Both relievers turned in very good seasons earning them type A classifications as free agents.

Start of 2010

The newest additions to the lineup going into Spring Training are Troy Glaus, Jason Heyward, Melky Cabrera, and Eric Hinske. Hinske and Cabrera are not expected to be regular starters but both have experience starting at multiple positions and in pressure scenarios. Glaus has been injury prone during the latter half of the decade and was an inexpensive signing. He will move to 1B this season and if healthy has potential to slug over .500 and hit 30 home runs. Jason Heyward is the Braves top prospect and BaseballAmerica.com’s #2 overall prospect. His minor league career showed that he has the athletic ability, maturity, and patience to become a great major league hitter. It is reasonable to expect a Tommy Hanson like performance out of Heyward in 2010.

The rotation lost its most productive starter of last season in Javier Vazquez, but the overall production from the starters should not suffer. Tim Hudson virtually replaces Vazquez and over the course of his career has been a better pitcher.

The bullpen lost its two most productive and prolific arms but replaced them with veterans Takashi Saito and Billy Wagner. Both are health risks and are well past their prime, however these are short term deals for experienced back end relievers.

What to expect

The lineup going into this season is better than the lineup going into last season. The rotation going into this season is better than the rotation going into last season solely based on Hanson starting for a full season. The bullpen should be similar to last and it is usually hard to project a bullpen because relievers are so sporadic on a year to year basis.

Overall the roster going into this season is better than the roster that started and ended the roster last season. If healthy, these facts state that it is reasonable to expect post season contention.

Main problem with the Braves

Innings pitched. Bobby doesn’t have the starters that go deep into games like he used to. Sure, the lineup hasn’t done quite as well as expected, but when you have pitchers who go deep into games it really helps your bullpen and you start to win those 1 run games. Lets take a look at our golden season and tell me where the big difference is.

1995 Rotation- Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Steve Avery, Kent Mercker

2008 Rotation- Tim Hudson, Jair Jurrjens, Tom Glavine, JoJo Reyes, Jorge Campillo

You don’t really think a lineup of

Grissom
Blauser
Jones
McGriff
Justice
Klesko
Lopez
Lemke

is that much better than

Escobar
Johnson
Jones
Teixeira
McCann
Francoeur
Norton
Blanco

Bobby’s philosophy and strategies haven’t changed with the times. However, the rotation he’s throwing out there gives him no innings and he’s forced to overuse relievers to death. See Boyer and Acostas latest results to further prove my point.

Braves Update

Sorry for the absence lately, midterm week can do that to you. Not much has happened in the Braves community over the past week so it seems like midterm week came at the right time.

The roster is starting to come to form except for a few positions. Backup 1B job, and two bullpen spots. The Braves can chose to trade or waive a few players in order to make room for others in these final spots. Here is the list of options for the Backup 1B job.

Scott Thorman
Brayan Pena
Joe Borchard

Of these three, Borchard has had the much better spring. However, it is said that Borcahrd’s first base is very shaky to say the least. Thorman had the starting job last year but couldn’t produce, and it is likely that a trade could happen with him and possibly Martin Prado before the season starts. I say this because Prado has played SS in the past week, a position he’s never played before professionally and it looks like the Braves could just be advertising his abilities.

The backup bullpen spot is a little bit more competitive. Here is a list of the players competing for the final two bullpen spots (Soriano, Moylan, Ohman, Acosta, and Yates are all locks at this point)

Blaine Boyer
Chris Resop
Jeff Bennett
Royce Ring
Jeff Ridgeway
Buddy Carlyle

The way the final two spots are chosen depends on how the Braves want their bullpen to look. If they want a long reliever/spot starter then it is likely that Carlyle or Bennett would attain one of the spots. If they chose that they need another lefty along with Ohman then Ring or Ridgeway could win a spot, although it is said that Ring has been unimpressive this spring and could find himself being waived or traded in the coming weeks. Resop and Boyer have been the most impressive over Spring. Both have power arms and are out of options. I’m thinking the Braves go with a long reliever and one of the two power arms. Most likely the final two pitchers will be Blaine Boyer and Jeff Bennett.

The 25 Man Roster to start the season would then look like this-

Pitchers-

SP- John Smoltz
SP- Tim Hudson
SP- Tom Glavine
SP- Mike Hampton
SP- Jair Jurrjens
LR- Jeff Bennett
RP- Blaine Boyer
RP- Tyler Yates
RP- Will Ohman
RP- Manny Acosta
SU- Peter Moylan
CL- Rafael Soriano

Catchers-

C- Brian McCann
C- Javy Lopez

Infielders-

1B- Mark Teixeira
2B- Kelly Johnson
3B- Chipper Jones
SS- Yunel Escobar
IF- Martin Prado
IF- Brent Lillibridge
1B/LF- Joe Borchard

Outfielders-

LF- Matt Diaz
CF- Mark Kotsay
RF- Jeff Francoeur
OF- Josh Anderson