9/28 News, Links, Discussion: Braves-Mets, Chipper Day, Prado & Doubles, Links Galore
September 28, 2012 at 1:07 pm by David Lee under Atlanta Braves
Game 1 vs. Mets
The final home series of the regular season begins after the Braves swept the Marlins to finish their season series at 14-4 Atlanta. The Braves enter the Mets series at 10-5 against New York this season.
Jon Niese will pitch against Tim Hudson in the series opener. Niese has a 3.49 ERA and 3.76 FIP on the season, including a 20% strikeout rate and 6.1% walk rate in 183.1 innings. As I’ve written before, Niese has taken a step up this season at 25 years old, already throwing a career high in innings while setting a career best in ERA. He’s allowing a little more than one home run per nine, causing a slight increase in FIP from a year ago, but he’s maintaining good strikeout numbers while keeping his walk rate respectable.
Niese gave up one run over six innings in his last outing against the Braves on Sept. 7. He also faced them Aug. 12, allowing one run over eight innings. The Braves have some work to do if they want to keep their winning streak alive.
Hudson rebounded from consecutive poor starts to throw 7.1 solid innings against the Phillies last time out, allowing a lone unearned run on two hits. His ground ball rate remained low in the game, but he showed better command and didn’t let home runs beat him.
Today is Chipper Jones Appreciation Day, as the Braves will honor Chipper prior to the game in what is his last regular season home series.
Game time is 7:35. Atlanta: Fox Sports South, Peachtree TV. New York: SNY.
MLB.com preview
STATS preview
Double Totals and Prado
Martin Prado reached 40 doubles on Thursday, making him the first Braves hitter to reach the mark since he did it himself in 2010. Going back 10 years, Brian McCann had 42 doubles in 2008, Chipper Jones and Jeff Francoeur each reached 40 in 2007, Edgar Renteria had 40 in 2006, and Marcus Giles had 45 in 2005 and 49 in 2003.
While Prado may not reach his home run total from last season, he has seen an increase in doubles from 26 to 40, bumping his ISO from .125 to .136. However, comparing to his better 2009 and 2010 seasons, his ISO in 2012 isn’t quite as high, as he posted .150s those previous two seasons.
One of the best parts of Prado’s 2012 season is the increase in walks to 8.2%, raising his on-base numbers and providing more value in that way. His power may have seen a slight drop off from his previous two best years, but he’s getting on base and providing sound defense across the field, upping his fWAR to a career-high 5.5.
More Links
Braves.com recap for Thursday’s win.
AJC quotes following Thursday’s win. Fredi Gonzalez on Tommy Hanson: “He did OK. He kept us in the ballgame. He kind of scattered the ball around a little bit command-wise, but he made some pitches when he had to and only gave up two runs. We were able to score some runs for him and shut it down there with our bullpen. So he did OK.”
Several big names in the Braves organization or history spoke on Chipper Jones in a Mark Bowman article.
Michael Bourn has a slight sprain in his sore left thumb following an MRI. One would think Bourn will get a few games in before the wild card game, but we’ll see how the thumb feels each day this weekend.
Chipper Jones answers questions from Carroll Rogers of the AJC. A lot of this is stuff you’ve already read, but it’s still a great Q&A.
Jayson Stark does a great job of highlighting some of Chipper’s greatest accomplishments.
David Schoenfield gives his best moments of Chipper’s career, including a blurb from me and a link to my post on Chipper’s 10 most valuable games by WPA.
ESPN’s Triple Play series focuses on the NL Cy Young race, including whether Craig Kimbrel should be involved.
Jim Bowden guesses the rosters for the NL wild card game (ESPN Insider). We’ll analyze the roster when it becomes finalized.
Doug Thorburn of Baseball Prospectus analyzes Hanson’s mechanics and diagnoses the issues, namely timing and potential injury problems down the road.
Tyler Kepner of The New York Times has a great piece on Kris Medlen’s season.
Dave Cameron of FanGraphs looks at the free agent value of Bourn and what he might get on the market compared to what he’s worth.
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Any surprises in that roster?
If, say, Hanson, is left of the roster for the wildcard, can he still sit in the dugout with the team? That would kinda suck to be left off.
Eh, not really. He has Luis Avilan over Peter Moylan, leaving the bullpen with just two right-handed relievers. He also says Mike Minor will make it as a possible third left-handed reliever just in case, even though literally one paragraph later he mentions Avilan making it. So who knows.
Anyone left off the postseason roster can still stay with the team. Tommy Hanson will most likely be left off.
Thats good to hear. I would be surprised if Hinske is on the postseason roster, but it would be a tragedy for him to not be able to be w the guys. He seems to be one of the most popular-if not the most popular-guys in the clubhouse.
He has JC Boscan on the roster, and assumes Fredi will use Ross as a pinch hitter (Ha!) and leaves off Jeff Baker and Overbay. Has Constanza and Pastornicky on the roster. Pitching is about what you would expect with Hanson and Maholm not on roster since they’ll be on short rest.
Anyone know if the Chipper pre-game stuff will be broadcast online anywhere?
In all honesty, the wild card roster will get a lot of attention because it’s such a big game, but it’s really not a big deal. We already know the starters and best arms in the bullpen. The focus will be on the last few spots, which are usually meaningless unless the game goes 12 innings.
I’m pretty sure they can be in the dugout, even if they’re not on the roster. I have a vague memory of Vinny Castilla being thrown out of a game in 1992 because Cox threw a helmet and made Castilla the scapegoat.
Does anybody know when they’ll announce the times of the Wild Card games?
I’m wondering about the effectiveness of Hanson and Sheets if used in relief. Tommy this season has usually been damaged in the second or third go round in the order. His numbers are still pretty strong the first time through. And maybe he could cut loose a little more knowing that he doesn’t have to try to save his arm for 5+ innings. Obviously with his slow delivery, he wouldn’t be as effective coming in with anyone faster than Freeman on base.
Sheets is a little different. A strikeout pitcher that admittedly is weakest in the first 2 innings while he starts to get a feel of his pitches and command. I don’t know if he’s just done–or if he’s being saved in case someone goes down–but if his shoulder isn’t dead I really wish we could have been seeing him in action out of the bullpen to see how he reacts.