Braves not done

At least not yet but they could be by the next time we get together in our little corner of the internet.

Unfortunately, losing your lead-off hitter and starting shortstop for a very long stretch changes things, and losing your streaking currently starting CF only adds to it. The Nats are now a different team from two weeks ago and thus they still have a division to win. But they could still do it relatively soon. Like this weekend.

Are the Braves a real threat? They do have a legitimite superstar in Freddie Freeman, a player good enough that they didn't dump him along with everyone else in their rebuilding effort a few years ago. He's back from injury and looks fine. Everything else though is a little suspect.

The next best bat in the lineup is Freddie's injury replacement Matt Adams, which is why Freddie is trying out 3B right now. Adams has been underrated in my opinion as a first baseman but his fatal flaw, that he can't hit lefties, can't be ignored. You can work around that somewhat but ideally he should be platooned. After that it's Matt Kemp who has been a solid hitter all his career. He should keep hitting, but he should also provide the Braves with a big sucking hole in the outfield. For whatever reason Tyler Flowers has blossomed in Atlanta and Kurt Suzuki is nothing if not a reliable back-up, making the bat at catcher an overall plus. You don't want to have to count on these guys to keep being above average but the Braves almost have to because this is the end of the above average bats on the team

Next come the average guys. The good news is that there is no reason to think these guys will falter in the 2nd half. The bad news is there is no reason to think they'll do better either. Phillips, Inciarte, and Markakis are all average bats who have been average bats for a while.

Who's left? The guy that's probably the key to the Braves 2nd half, Dansby Swanson.  He came out impressively last year putting up a line of .302 / .361 / .442  in his first 38 games but started amazingly bad in 2017.  He was hitting as low as .134 / .184 / .183  a month into the season and was still putting up an abysmal .193 / .276 / .301 line as late as June 6th.  If he hits like he did in June, which was a lot like his 2016, the Braves have a chance to be a decent offense. If not they'll struggle to be average.

Can then they be carried to something greater by their pitching?  It isn't likely. There was hope that if the Braves stabilized the back of the rotation with Dickey and Colon that Teheran and Garcia would provide a solid 1-2 and a young arm would emerge to round out the rotation. The only thing that worked out was Dickey being a stable #4 type. Colon was so bad he's already gone and Teheran and Garcia have both had major issues this year, especially recently. No young arm emerged as first choice Foltynewicz has been fair at best. That might be changing, he's had a better June, and Sean Newcomb looks ok, but the reality is that neither looks good enough to carry the team. The best case scenario looks to be a 1-5 that resembles a 3-3-3-3-3.

That leaves the bullpen to be the saving grace but again there isn't much to see here. Jim Johnson is the guy that proves the rule that Blake Treinen is an exception to. Anyone can go out and be a closer.  He's not great but he can get 3 outs more often than not. Jose Ramirez is their most effective arm but he's not special. Motte is a now a lighter version of Ramirez. There isn't any depth here as after that you get more and more blah arms that can't strike out anyone, walk too many, and unlike Motte and Ramirez, get hit all tht time. So they can hold onto a lead here and there, but the middle innings will suffer and they can't keep it going multiple games in a row.

Oh maybe defense then? Nah. Braves are good but not special. The infield defense is solid, which is why guys like Ramirez and Motte can succeed, but the OF defense can be pretty horrid as Markakis and Kemp have aged into the same territory Werth lives in.

The Nats may have suffered enough injury losses now to bring them back down to the rest of the NL East. I think it's fair to believe something like that. However they also have a huge lead so the rest of the NL East can't simply play as well as the Nats, they have to play much much better. Given their complete inability to keep their rotation healthy I can't see the Mets doing it. Can the Braves do it? I don't see that either. I suppose if Swanson is a 2nd half star and Teheran finds himself again then maybe. But they need both those things to happen.  AND they need to not let the division get away from them over the next three days. If they can take 2 of the next three I suppose it forces you to keep that eye on them 8.5 out, but only barely. If they can't do that then the Nats remain in cruise control. That is until the next handful of guys go down to injury.