Can You Guess This Braves Player?
April 17, 2013 at 11:11 am by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
Here is his in play ISO graph for this season:
pretty absurd, right? Especially considering this is the graph for the league as a whole:
He’s currently sporting a .259/.333/.473 triple slash, netting a robust .805 OPS. He strikes out a lot, at 22% of the time, however he walks at a very respectable 8.9% of the time. He hits a home run 5.7% of the time, or once every 17.1 ABs. Slightly above Ryan Braun, and good for 17th in the NL. He hasn’t been helped by BABIP, at .289, which is bottom 1/3 for the league. All this adds up to a very good .350 wOBA. Your prototypical slugging take and rake guy.
Overall, he’s seemed to have some bad luck with getting his homers with men on, despite a high OBP in front of him, and again likewise with the BABIP being a tad bit unlucky. But the raw power has more than made up for it, and this guy seems like an all-star level offensive player, right?
Who is it?
It’s the Braves team.
Yep, the whole team averaged out. Even including the pitchers. As has been noted, the Braves are pitching their tails off right now, but they’re also more than doing the job offensively, despite a little bit of bad luck with when they’re hitting their homers and BABIP. The team’s wOBA, .350, is higher than Martin Prado’s wOBA last year. Yeah, that’s right, the team, on average, including the pitchers, are outhitting the season that was traded for Justin Upton (Prado is .336 wOBA this season). On a ride like this, all we can do is sit back and enjoy it. I mean freaking Ramiro Peña has been worth 0.6 wins thus far.
Who knows what this season as a whole might hold, but let’s just enjoy this stretch for the time being, it could be something we all tell our grandkids about.
4.16.13 CACast: A Group Of Gattitude Is Called A Celebration
April 16, 2013 at 12:13 pm by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
Franklin and Mark discuss the Braves hot start.
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Justin Upton: In Play ISO Graphs Aren’t Supposed To Look Like This
April 16, 2013 at 11:23 am by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
That’s just absurd.
League Average:
Really not a whole lot more you can say about that than “Thanks Kevin!”
Also, here’s #gattitude, since I know somebody would ask about it:
A day of blog silence…
April 15, 2013 at 4:39 pm by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
We had some things scheduled for today, we’re not going to post them.
We at Capitol Avenue Club want you to know that we love you, especially our readers in the Boston Area. Such proclamations may seem silly, but it’s genuinely the only feeling I can muster at this point. We sincerely hope that if you or anybody you know has been affected that you are able to contact them and that they are okay. Baseball just seems really inconsequential at the moment, and anything we’d do today would seem highly inappropriate. So, all we can do is spread our message of love and deep concern.
If you’re in Massachusetts, please consider donating blood, as this will likely place a major tax on stored blood banks in the area: Locations can be found here
Google has created a person finder for those in the marathon, here.
Braves Trade Chris Jones for Luis Ayala
April 10, 2013 at 2:31 pm by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
In a bit of a perplexing move, the Braves have traded minor league pitcher Chris Jones (acquired from Cleveland in the Derek Lowe deal) for Luis Ayala. Ayala is a very good veteran reliever, however, there doesn’t at the present appear to be a spot for him in the bullpen. It would seem that a reliever we aren’t currently aware of is in line to be put on the DL or perhaps another trade is in the works. As is, it seems odd to try to send either of the primary candidates (Varvaro or Martinez) down, subjecting them to waivers, as both are out of options.
Ethan will be writing up a short piece on Chris Jones, who he is pretty high on.
More on this story as it develops.
Want To Play Free Fantasy Baseball, Support CAC and Win Prizes?
April 9, 2013 at 10:57 am by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
Hey guys and gals, this promotion we ran last year was incredibly popular amongst our readers, so we’ll be running it monthly again this year. Essentially you get to play fantasy baseball, win prizes and help support Capitol Avenue Club all at once! Further details below. Have fun!
If you missed out on the DraftStreet promotions last year, there is no need to worry because they are back again for the 2013 season! DraftStreet.com turns the season long grind into quick hitting one night leagues and the best part is that you can win cash every single day. You draft a team for one night and get paid out as soon as the games end that night. DraftStreet is at the forefront of this new trend in the fantasy world and is giving us a great promotion to kick off the MLB season: a FREE one-day fantasy league with $200 in prizes exclusively for Capitol Avenue Club.
CLICK HERE to sign up now!
This free contest will be Pick ‘em style drafting. The way Pick ‘Em leagues work is you have 8 tiers of players and each tier will have players to choose from. All you have to do is select 1 player from each tier. There’s absolutely nothing to lose and it takes 5 minutes to build a team. You can adjust your roster up until the contest starts on Friday April 12th at 7:05 ET at which time your rosters will lock and the Live Scoreboard will be available.
CLICK HERE to sign up for free and join the Capitol Avenue Club $200 Freeroll on DraftStreet.com.
The Weekly Reminder To Not Freak Out Over Slow (or fast) Starts
April 8, 2013 at 2:58 pm by Franklin Rabon under Atlanta Braves
A few days ago many fans were ready to cut BJ Upton. A game tying home run, followed by his brother’s walk-off home run, seemed to alleviate much of that concern for many fans. Fans are starting to freak out about Jason Heyward’s slow start, while we’re euphoric over Justin Upton’s insane hot streak. We should probably take a step back on all of these.
The season’s start is always a funny time to try to gauge a team. On the one hand, as many people like to point out, April games count just as much as games in August. While we most certainly aren’t contending that April games count less, what we are claiming is that we simply don’t have enough information to make much out of the results thus far, one way or the other.
What many seem to fail to grasp is that “you can’t judge a player on 6 games’ worth of statistics” is a much different claim than “these games are unimportant.” The former is simply a blunt statement of statistical fact, the latter is, admittedly, folly. We just simply haven’t seen enough Jason Heyward at-bats to have any significant idea as to whether or not his swing is messed up, or if it is just small sample weirdness. Scouts might be able to give you a clue, but most fans aren’t scouts, and most fans run into heavy confirmation bias when trying to scout (ie a swing can look the exact same when a player is struggling and tearing it up, and fans will see ‘hitches’ when he’s struggling and it will look ‘pretty’ when he’s on fire).
We can simply turn the statement “April games count just as much as any other time of the year” around on those that say it. Sure, they do, exactly the same amount. If Jason Heyward had started hot, and then struggled for 6 random games in June, would anybody say anything? It might be a passing note in a David O’Brien blog, but nobody would really care. But because it is the first 6 games, and that ugly batting average shows up next to his name, people freak out. While April games certainly count, and certainly matter, they also don’t matter any more than any other games.
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