Z TrainOh hi guys. I love these moves by the Braves.
In case you missed it, the Braves have called up 3 prospects in the last couple of days: our 2012 1st round pick, Lucas Sims, fellow 2012 1st rounder, Max Fried who was acquired from the Padres in the J-Up trade, and, #19 overall prospect, middle infielder Ozzie Albies. After being highly touted as a big high school arm, Sims' progress slowed as his control never really developed. A tale as old as time, it seems. He has a solid fastball (consistently mid-90s) and a plus curveball, but always had trouble finding the strike zone. Sims finally seemed to put it all together in AAA Gwinnett this year, posting a respectable 3.75 ERA with a .224 opponent average and a solid K:BB of 132:32 (11:3) over 115 innings. I love this move by the Braves. It's time to ramp it up for Lucas. As a 23 year old, it's time to see if he can put together a few solid outings in the pros. Same goes for Max Fried. This is much more of a shock though. Even as the Braves 10th prospect, Max Fried had a pretty rough year for the AA Mississippi Braves, walking 43 batters in 86 innings and sporting a 5.92 ERA with a 2-11 record. However, after going on the DL for blisters (which could explain the poor beginning), he hasn't allowed a run in 3 abbreviated outings, and the Braves decided this was the time. Another 23 year old, the left hander throws heat and has one of the nastiest curveballs in the minors (when he's finding the plate). We've seen this strategy before with Matt Wisler, Sean Newcomb, Aaron Blair and Alex Wood all in recent memory. The Braves have no problem throwing young pitchers into the abyss that is the MLB, a little bit of a baptism by fire. Newcomb has had a tough learning curve but has honestly pitched well. Alex Wood has really turned it around for the Dodgers, arguably one of the best big league pitchers this year... and Blair and Wisler have been another story. Coppolella said before the season that it's nut up or shut up time (paraphrased) for Blair and Wisler, who have both reached that magical age of 25 where they are no longer prospect commodities and need to perform. In this sense, I love these call-ups. Sims was not great, but not bad in his first outing, letting up 3 runs, 6 hits in 6 innings; a quality start. Fried will join the bullpen, as he's seen recent success in these abbreviated outings, and potentially could be a spot starter if called upon. Compared to everyone else we've seen trying to replace Bartolo Colon (rest in peace), Sims looks like the best bet out of Wisler and Blair, and compared to the band of misfit retards that try to complement Vizcaino, Ramirez and Motte in the bullpen, Fried will hopefully be a welcome addition. I don't think these guys are completely ready for the big leagues, but I like the call-ups because it lets the players and the organization better gauge their development. They will probably be back down to AAA before the season is over, but this will definitely aid their progression, and I think they could be solid contributors to the 2018 Braves squad. Ozzie Albies is a whole other animal. He's absolutely torn the Braves system apart. After getting to AAA Gwinnett as a 19 year old last year and struggling, he moved back down to AA and tore the cover off the ball, hitting .321 with an .858 OPS. At only 20 years old, he's become the first MLB player born in 1997 (albeit January 1st), and Atlanta has already announced that he will be the 2B moving forward. Poor Brandon Phillips, but like I said earlier, we should've traded him. I digress. The numbers haven't been great for Ozzie so far, a sub-.200 BA for the switch hitter with a few misplayed balls in the field. But his body language has been tremendous. After the misplayed barehander in the game tonight against the Braves, he's laughing it off, shaking his head. After Ellington threw a 98 mph heater at his dome, he makes a face and gets back in the batters box. He calls off the Braves' best player to catch the game-ending pop fly. That's exactly what you want to see from a top prospect if the numbers aren't there. Confidence and carrying yourself is a big percentage of what it takes to be a professional, and as a supreme talent, the results will come with time. The same can be said for Dansby Swanson. Even though he really struggled this season, he didn't let it deter him from keeping his composure, and we all know he will be back up to the bigs soon after clearing his head and getting some confidence back in the minors. Did you really think I would go a whole blog without talking about locker room glue guys?? I couldn't be more excited for this Ozzie call-up. I thought they would keep him in AAA for the year and let him open up next season as the starting second baseman, but this is a much better move. After getting a lot of big league reps this year, he'll be raring to go in spring training with a lot to expect. People will point back to Swanson's regression this year, but big league reps are priceless and hard to come by, and this experience will be invaluable for the rest of his career. Ozzie has the potential to be among the elite second baseman in baseball some day, and a franchise cornerstone at the leadoff position. In summary, these moves are highly positive, aggressive moves by the Braves, which set a precedence for our other top prospects. Looking through our farm system, top guns Kolby Allard, Mike Soroka, Joey Wentz and Ian Anderson are performing well in the minors, all at 19 years old. Kyle Wright is setting A and high-A on fire, and likely will hit the big leagues late next year or at the start of 2019. Top prospect Ronald Acuna (who is literally destroying the minors, check his stats here) is 19 years old. These aggressive call-ups by the Braves organization basically guarantees we will see Acuna in 2018, and maybe even for a few games this season (I can hope, OK?), and shows that our 19 year old flamethrowers should be prepared for MLB starts as early as 2019. 2019 is the perfect year, where Freddie Freeman will be smack-dab in the middle of his prime at 29, Swanson, Foltynewicz and Newcomb will all be entering their primes, and Albies, Acuna and at least a few of the pitchers will be ready to break onto the scene. In classic Atlanta fashion, next year is our year, but boy am I excited for it. World Series Dynasty 2019-2024. Chop on motherfuckers.
0 Comments
Z TrainNature files into order once again.
While I’ve been on the record as a 2016 Cubs supporter, huge fan of several players on the team, and even visited Wrigley for the first time in May, boy am I glad the Cubs stink again. Let me explain. Chicago was awesome, and one of my favorite cities I’ve ever visited. As a smalltown country boy, it’s one of the few cities I could actually see myself living in and thoroughly enjoying myself. The Cubs fans in Chicago are awesome fans, I got to experience them at a very personal level by wandering around Wrigleyville and it made me wish there were similar environments for my professional sports teams (Clemson has the great fans/atmosphere down pat, thank goodness). But there are some teams who just are made for stinking and disappointment. And this regression toward the mean for one of the least successful franchises in sports is absolutely the refresher my sports-hate needed. Gone are the Cubs hats seen everywhere by people whose “parents grew up Cubs fans.” Gone is my roommate who “had been a Cubs fan since I was a kid” but expedited his Chicago shirt in time for the NLCS and had to cancel Yankees notifications to his phone for the Cubs ones in the playoffs (true story). The Cubs’ Panic Button is fully activated at this point in the season, and it seems like the young core that looked like a dominant future dynasty in 2016 has hit a stumbling block. And my sinister, contrarian sports nature is LOVING it. Could the Cubs turn it around and make a deep playoff run this year after a stellar end to the season? Absolutely. Do I think they will? Nope. It’s the Cubs. Is this probably spiteful because of my affinity for Atlanta sports? Yes. Absolutely it is. Misery loves company. I bet any one of the Knicks/Mets/Jets New Yorkers, DC fans and Philly hardos across the board are loving this too, and you know White Sox fans (shout out to Obama, and Ice Cube and the less famous version of Eazy E from the NWA, I think those are the only fans) are reveling as they prepare for a blockbuster Quintana trade (it’ll happen) and Moncada and Kopech’s debuts. If I didn’t have Clemson’s National Championship this year, I may not have survived that Falcons loss and back-to-back Tigers losses. The Lord has a plan. I digress. The Cubs are just one of those teams that need to stink. This will be an unpopular take because the Cubs are so popular nationwide. But think of your favorite Cubs moments before 2016’s magical season. Sammy Sosa pimping any one of his million home runs that inevitably led to early playoff exits. Kerry Wood and Mark Prior’s weird couple of seasons where they were Cy Young candidates and then abysmal after that. And obviously, Steve Bartman Mossing on that little bitch Moises Alou. All of these are awesome memories of teams that just lost all the time. It’s terrific. It’s what is supposed to happen. 2016 was the year for breaking curses (except for obviously the Caps). In 2017, a world full of conflict, unpredictability and anger, at least I can relax to my mental homebase of the Cubs stinking again. Z TrainTrust the Process.
After another successful draft, the Braves added two more top-shelf guys to an already star-studded farm system. Check this great analysis of our draft here. Kyle Wright dropping to 5th is a travesty. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like I’m an all-knowing college baseball asshole, but I watched him pitch an absolute gem against Clemson in the Regional, and the guy can throw a baseball, lemme tell you. Drew Waters is a little more of a question mark, but seems like a high-ceiling player. He was projected to go first round at the beginning of the year, and fell off the radar a bit, even after a pretty solid year of prep ball. He’s an ATL kid, and you can’t criticize the move of letting him live around his family in GA and develop his game. The Braves have a very clear cut strategy from their drafts and international signings in the Coppolella era, and I believe there are three clear points we can take away: 1. Target High-Ceiling Arms Looking through the Braves last few drafts, Kyle Wright has been the only college-age player taken in the first round in some time. However, all of our drafts target arms with seriously high ceilings: See Kolby Allard, Ian Anderson, Mike Soroka, Lucas Sims. Targeting high school arms is such a risky business. There’s that famous “Moneyball” moment where Billy Beane loses his mind when they draft Jeremy Hellickson out of high school. But the Braves are trying to establish a culture. They’ve drafted a bunch of suburban Atlanta boys (like Waters, Allard, Anderson and Sims are all from the Greater Atlanta area), and tried to create a comfortable but challenging environment to develop game from a young age. Allard came with back problems, Anderson was drafted seriously high at pick 3, and Sims has had several hiccups in his development thus far (2-9 in AAA ball in Gwinnett this year, yikes), but I still like the strategy. It goes against Beane and Epstein’s thoughts of taking high-level batters rather than taking the risk of pitchers, but I like walking the tightrope game. As a kid growing up in the Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz-Millwood era, I totally salivate at the thought of seeing a rotation as talented as that again. Haters will point out the Mets, but injuries can happen to any player. I like the Braves culture better than the Mets’, and trust our trainers, managers and coaches enough to develop our young arms into something special. We’re already seeing early productivity with Sean Newcomb’s absolute gem Tuesday night (I bet on us, hell yeah, droppin’ the Newk), so let’s hope the rest follow suit. 2. Target Surefire Position Players As risky as the Braves go with pitchers, they tend to stay on the conservative side with position players. Of the players that Coppy has drafted or traded for, you notice a trend of guys everybody knew would be good. This may seem like a lame, obvious analysis, but it has merit and it’s my fucking blog so back off. Dansby Swanson with his incredible hair and Inciarte both obviously stick out, but we’re starting to see fruit from the development of Johan Camargo and Rio Ruiz (who has struggled, but has shown potential). Buried in our farm system, we have several guys who will absolutely be solid big-leaguers. Ozzie Albies, a top 10 prospect, has the potential to be a Barry Larkin type of player, and the thought of an Albies-Swanson middle of the infield makes me want to try to turn the cum in my pants into a decade of season tickets. Lesser known guys (for now at least) are guys like Ronald Acuna, Kevin Maitan and Austin Riley. I don’t even think a worst-case development scenario would prevent any one of these guys from being contributing MLB players for a long time. Acuna perhaps could be one of the hidden gems in minor league baseball, he’s knocking the cover off the ball in AA at 19 years old and is a genuine 5-tool guy, even as only the 86th prospect in baseball and 7th in our own system. Speaking of 5-tool guys, Maitan is maybe even more exciting than Albies or Acuna, and he’s set to make his debut in July. He’s a 17-year old Venezuelan, and we dished out an insane international record of $4.25m to sign him at 16. He can play pretty much anywhere in the infield, probably outfield too. Austin Riley is just a ballplayer, he’ll probably wind up at one of the corners or LF, and he’s a solid hitter with good baseball IQ (i.e. – he’s white) who is increasing his K:BB ratio impressively in A+ ball. My point is, this is where the Beane/Epstein approach coincides with the Coppolella process. It’s cliché, but your position guys play every day. These are the guys you want spearheading how your team plays the game and your clubhouse culture. Drafting and molding guys from a young age can charge team spirit into a locker room (see the 2016 baby Cubs and 2014-15 Royals), which often is missed in the pros, and really can be a weapon when the “pride in our team” mindset is reached. 3. Small Ball Approach This feels obvious again, but there aren’t many teams around the league who seem to understand this. The Braves of 5 years ago were the kings of strikeouts. While I loved Evan Gattis and J-Up, it’s just not a sustainable course for a franchise to live and die by the home run ball. Coppy’s first order of business was clearing house and adding guys who hit for contact; the perfect manifestation of consistently high batting average, Nick Markakis. This still resonates in the players he brings in today, and you can see it in the draft. Nearly any young player with good pop is going to have trouble striking out at first, but that’s exactly what the Braves have targeted. Riley and minor league catcher Alex Jackson have been the main two that have been working on their eye tremendously. Go read anything about these two guys, the Braves are done developing their natural pop and are just working on shortening the swing, working on the mental dimension of batting and getting an eye for the strike zone. That’s the perfect plan for a promising prospect with pop, and it seems obvious, but how many guys do you see get to the majors for their home run potential but are perennial .220 - .260 guys that never developed their eye? A shit ton. Maitan, Swanson, Albies, Acuna and Inciarte are five guys that exude nothing but this thought process. All of these guys hit for contact well, minimally strike out, even at very young ages (Inciarte is the old guy of the crew at 23), and all have great gloves and speed. Each of these 5 players has the potential for Gold Gloves, and Inciarte has one already in his young career. I like to think of this as the Tony LaRussa approach, seemingly acquire every player that hits for average, has a great glove and steals bases, and have a couple power hitters (see Jackson, Riley, and then Freddie, Matt Kemp) to round out a great lineup. The best way to score runs is to get on base. There will be more in-depth looks at each of our prospects coming up soon, but this is a great introduction to the well-oiled machine that is John Coppolella’s managed Braves. Things in Braves Country are really looking up, and I think this approach can and will get us to a sustained championship level in the next five years. The approach seems simple and obvious, aka, it’s not fucking rocket science. And if I’m wrong, screw you, I don’t care, it’s my blog, go Braves. Z Train P.S. - Coppy's on the phone with your bitch |