The Braves Blog: Second Half Preview

WHAT THE BRAVES MUST DO TO TURN IT AROUND

We have no way of knowing what exactly it will take for the Braves to finish the season in 1st place in the NL East or to win the Wild Card. What we do know is what it has to achieve those things in the past. Since the start of the modern playoff format in 1995 (it was set to begin in 1994 but there were no playoffs because of the strike), there have been 13 seasons and in 12 of those 13 years the NL East champion has had a record better than or equal to the Wild Card champion. The NL East division winner has had a better record than the Wild Card team in 11 seasons, and last year the Phillies had as many wins (89) as both the Padres and Rockies, who played a 1 game playoff for the Wild Card.

The only year in which the NL East champ won less games than the WC team was in 2001 when the Braves won the East with just 88 victories and the Cardinals won the Wild Card with 93 wins. In 1995, teams played only 144 games because the strike lasted so long. The Braves won 90 to win the East. Colorado won 77 to take the Wild Card. The Braves were on pace for 101 wins; Colorado was on pace for 87. The 88 wins the Braves had in 2001 is the lowest total for any NL East champ since 1995 (the first year there were playoffs after realignment). In the past 3 seasons, the Wild Card winner has finished with 89 wins twice and 88 wins the other year. The most games any Wild Card team has won is 97 by the Mets in 1999. The NL East champ has had 97 wins or more in 6 of the 12 full seasons under the modern format. Clearly, it has almost always been easier to win the Wild Card than the East.

We can also assume that it is most likely going to take around 90 wins to make the postseason. 90 wins may not even be good enough. Since 1996, 3 teams with at least 90 wins in the NL were left out of the playoffs: the 1999 Reds with 96 wins; the 2001 Giants with 90 wins; and the 2004 Giants with 91 wins.

CAN THE BRAVES MAKE THE PLAYOFFS?

The Braves are currently 45-50 after 95 games. They have 67 games remaining. To get to 90 wins, the Braves would have to go 45-22. That’s really not that bad. It’s winning at a .672 clip which would obviously be difficult to keep up over a full season but over 40% of a season it isn’t that unreasonable. The Braves have won at least 45 of their final 67 games 4 times since 1991, doing it last in 2004 when they went 46-21 in their final 67 games. Remember 90 wins is around the low end of the playoff team records. To get to the high end they would need to reach around 95 victories and that would be almost impossible, as they would have to go 50-17 the rest of the way. They have two ways to get there: win the East or win the Wild Card. I don’t think there’s one way that’s any harder than the other this season.

Right now the Phillies are in 1st in the East and they are on pace for around 88 wins. The Cardinals are on top of the WC standings and they are on pace for 89 wins. The Braves are currently 6.5 games behind the Phillies in the East and 7.5 games back of the Cardinals in the Wild Card Standings. People will say that it’s more realistic that they would win the East because there are less teams to pass but that actually doesn’t really matter at this point. You’re going to have to get hot to win at this point anyway and the majority of the teams in the middle of the pack are going to stay where they are or fall as they always do. All the Braves can worry about is winning their games and if they go up against a division rival it will help to beat them but they have to win them all now anyway.

WHY IT PROBABLY WON'T HAPPEN

1. Long Odds
It’s definitely a long shot for the Braves to make the playoffs. Coolstandings.com, whose playoff predictors have become popular on a lot of baseball web pages, have the Braves chances of making the playoffs at 12.4 percent. It’s not likely, but things like this do happen a lot in baseball. They happen a lot more than people realize I think. In basic terms, the Braves have to play very, very well and hope that a whole bunch of teams don’t play really, really well.

2. Recent History
When you look at the Braves history, there are plenty of examples of them coming from behind and playing really well down the stretch to make the playoffs, but that was during the days of the streak. This team is much more like the teams of the past two years than the teams of the 14 division title years. In the last two seasons, the Braves had the exact same record in their final 67 games. They were 34-33 in their final 67 games in both 2006 and 2007. That obviously won’t be good enough to make the playoffs this year either.

3. Health Issues
You could use health as one of the reasons why the Braves could come back. On one hand you might say that the Braves have done well to play as well as they have considering all the injuries and if they get healthy they might finally start to really play well. That could happen but at the same time you have to question whether they ever will get healthy. Neither Glavine nor Hampton is a lock to come back and remain healthy the rest of the way. Soriano isn’t at all a lock and in my opinion there’s no reason to think that an elbow injury that has bothered him all year is going to just heal on it’s own to the point that he’s going to be fine the rest of the way. They should get Manny Acosta, Matt Diaz, and Omar Infante back and hopefully Jeff Bennett will be back eventually but those aren’t really the type of players that are going to turn the season around. And who is to say that the rest of the roster will remain healthy? It’s seems highly unlikely that it would. Escobar is already hurt and he may be out for a while or hampered the rest of the season. What are the chances that Chipper doesn’t get hurt again? Brian McCann catches almost every inning and in the last two seasons he has either missed significant time due to injury or had his play greatly limited for a significant time due to injury. Mark Kotsay’s back could act up at any time. And these are just the likeliest possibilities.

4. Can the Starting Pitching Keep This Up?
While I’ve been impressed just like everyone else with the Braves starting pitching this season, I’m going to have to say that I don’t think they will continue to pitch like this the whole season. To make a 45-22 run they might need to pitch even better and I highly doubt that will happen. You have three pitchers who have never pitched full seasons in the majors before currently in the rotation and another who has only made 6 career starts in the Majors all in the last month. It’s possible that any of them will tire out at some point or that hitters will start to figure things out against them at some point. All young pitchers have ups and downs. At the very least, it’s more likely that they will decline than it is that they will get even better and that’s actually what is needed.

5. The Bullpen May Wear Down
The Braves pen has logged a ton of innings and there have been injuries all season. This is likely going to make for some burned out arms at some point. Also guys like Boyer and Acosta haven’t pitched this much before and Boyer has had trouble staying healthy. There could be more injuries as the season goes on.

6. There’s Little Chance For Help Coming and it May Be Going
At this point I would say that there is a much greater chance that the Braves will be sellers than there is that they will be buyers at the trade deadline. Unless the Braves get hot quickly the front office may be forced to trade Tex or Ohman or someone else. Clearly trading away any pieces from an already depleated roster in exchange for younger players not ready for the Majors would hurt the team’s chances this year while perhaps improving the team’s future. Speaking of younger players, there isn’t a lot of help coming from the minors either. The only real candidate to help is Phil Stockman and he has been injured. Other than there’s not much more pitching help and there’s absolutely no offensive reinforcement. If the Braves came out of the break and won 10 straight they would hopefully not trade away for prospects but I still doubt they would try and add much.

They’ve already depleated the farm system a lot over the past few years and they don’t have a lot to offer anyway. The Braves are most likely not going to make the postseason if they trade Teixera and Ohman and they need to get off to a hot start in order to have a realistic enough chance at the postseason to warrant not being sellers. The problem is, the Braves schedule right out of the break is pretty challenging. They play 3 at home against the Nationals to start which obviously isn’t daunting (even though they are 3-5 against the Nats this season) but then they have 3 at Florida, 3 at the Phillies, and then 4 at home with the Cardinals and 4 at home with the Brewers. Those 4 teams currently have the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th best records in the NL. On the other hand, if the Braves do win a lot of games against those teams it will get them back in things quickly and give them a lot of confidence.

THE BEST REASON I CAN THINK OF WHY IT MIGHT HAPPEN

Reversal of Fortune
There’s a lot of blind luck involved in the game and I think there’s a whole lot of bad luck involved in going 5-22 in 1 run games. At some point it’s going to turn back the other way. It might not happen this year or it might happen right now. The Braves won 7 games less than their expected win total in the first 95 games. They should have had a winning percentage of around .547. Well, what if they play that well again in their final 67 games and win 7 or 8 games more than their expected total? They’ll win around 44 or 45 games if they do that which would put them at around 90 wins. That might be enough. I don’t know of any examples of teams having horrible luck in 1 run games and then turning it around all of the sudden and winning a bunch of them in the same season. I’m sure in the long history of baseball such an example exists. I do, however, remember an example of the opposite thing taking place.

In 2005, the Washington Nationals were the surprise team of the first half of the season. They were in 1st place in the East ahead of the Braves for much of the year. Much of their success was due to an excellent bullpen that helped them win a lot of close games. Washington was 51-32 after 83 games. In 1st place in the East with the 2nd best record in the NL, 4.5 games ahead of the Braves. They had been the best team in 1 run games so far that season, with a record of 23-7 in 30 1 run affairs and they were 4-2 in extra innings games. At that point they had won their last 12 games decided by 1 run. Then things turned in the other direction and for the most part they didn’t turn back. In the final 79 games of the season the Nationals played 31 games decided by 1 run and went 7-24. At one point they lost 11 consecutive games decided by 1 run. They went 2-9 in extra innings during those final 79 games, at one point losing 7 straight games decided in extra innings. Part of the reason for all of this was that Frank Robinson used his bullpen up in the first 83 games but that isn’t the point. The point is, luck can change, and if the Braves really are better than they have played so far this year, then perhaps they’ll turn it around.