Less than a day after the Braves’ postseason ended with a thud – in case you forgot, they were trounced in four games by the Phillies in the National League Division Series – the gears in team president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos’ mind already were spinning.
In a videoconference call with local media, Anthopoulos shared that “I definitely have a specific takeaway in terms of how we might approach the offseason, what we might do.”
The bearded AA could have done everyone a favor and offered a little more detail. He could have said, for instance, “I definitely have a specific takeaway in terms of how we might approach the offseason, and his initials are S.O.” – just so we’re clear, that’s Shohei Ohtani, not Shaquille O’Neal and his enormous strike zone – but he was typically reticent. (Unrelated, but there can’t be many initials with a more accomplished pair of athletes than Team S.O.)
Two months later, the Braves’ offseason endeavors appear to be nearing completion, which raises the question – what was the takeaway?
Judging by what the Braves have done since, it looks like the plan was to acquire bullpen arms who are younger and throw harder. We say “it looks like” because, when he was asked Tuesday at the winter meetings in Nashville, Tennessee, if the takeaway was bullpen power, Anthopoulos offered a response that sounded a bit like Charlie Brown’s teacher.
But here’s the evidence.
Going into the offseason, there were nine Braves relievers with at least 20 appearances who a) became free agents at the end of the season; b) could become free agents if the club declined a contract option; or c) could be retained by the team by entering into arbitration with them.
Free agents: Jesse Chavez, Joe Jiménez, Pierce Johnson.
Contract options: Brad Hand, Collin McHugh, Kirby Yates.
Arbitration: Nick Anderson, A.J. Minter, Michael Tonkin.
Of the nine, Jiménez and Johnson were re-signed, and Minter is a possible arbitration case. The rest no longer are on the 40-man roster, either because they were allowed to leave as free agents, club contract options were not exercised, the team did not tender a contract or they were traded.
The six no longer with the Braves threw a combined 5,457 pitches last season, according to Baseball Savant. Two of those pitches hit 96 mph.
The three who go into the 2024 season on the roster – Jiménez, Johnson and Minter – threw a combined 550 out of 3,082 pitches at 96 or higher.
There’s certainly more to it than that. But the divide seems pretty clear.
Also, Jiménez is going into his age-29 season, Minter his age-30 season and Johnson his age-33 season. Of the six who were not retained, they range from a coming age-33 season to age-40.
The biggest free-agent acquisition thus far, Reynaldo López, will add ghost-pepper heat to the Braves bullpen. He hit 96 on 740 of his 1,205 pitches last season, including 67 that torched triple digits.
Why might Anthopoulos have been inspired to concentrate flamethrowers in his bullpen?
Because he had just seen that formula help thwart one of the more potent offenses in baseball history. In the Phillies-Braves series, Philadelphia relievers threw 105 pitches at 96 or higher, the most of any team in the division-series round (Braves relievers threw 52, second fewest of the eight teams). The Braves, who had averaged 5.8 runs and 1.9 home runs per game in the regular season, scored a total of eight runs with three home runs in four games.
Perhaps Anthopoulos was especially taken by the power of relievers Jose Alvardo, Seranthony Dominguez and Craig Kimbrel – who combined for 7-2/3 innings with a 0.00 ERA – and Philadelphia’s ability to win two games with its bullpen may well have compelled Anthopoulos to load up similarly with power pitchers.
What’s more, the Phillies themselves didn’t handle the heat. In the four-game series, only one of the Phillies’ 11 home runs was launched off a pitch of 96 mph or faster (out of 175 faced). Another interesting number – Phillies first baseman and Braves tormentor Bryce Harper faced 219 pitches last season of 96 mph or more. He managed only two extra-base hits, both doubles.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if Anthopoulos was determined to limit home runs, which are all-important in the postseason. Last season, for example, in the 29 playoff games in which one team hit more home runs than the other, the out-homering team won 25 times.
“You don’t want to make decisions based on a four-game series, but you’re not going to completely ignore it, right?” Anthopoulos said Tuesday.
Anthopoulos may not be ready to divulge his 2023 postseason takeaway, but his emphasis on bullpens is no secret. He told esteemed colleague Mark Bradley in October before the NLDS that his takeaway from the Braves 2021 World Series championship team was that “you need a great bullpen. … As much as we could talk about all the homers, at the end of the day you need to pitch.”
Adding a hard-throwing reliever in López (albeit one who also can start) may not set many hearts aflutter as the piece that could put the Braves over the top. But remember, this team won 104 games last season, so it’s not like there are gaping holes on the roster. As fun as the idea of adding Ohtani may be, offense isn’t the problem, and he can’t pitch next season, either.
And the idea that the Braves nosedived because they didn’t have a swagger-rific leader like Harper falls flat when you consider what happened after the Phillies ran through the Braves. Against Arizona in the NLCS, the same bravado-filled lineup saw its slugging percentage fall from .565 against the Braves to .443 while losing in seven games.
It isn’t only the Phillies who rode bullpen velocity to success. Of the teams whose bullpens threw the most pitches of 96 mph or faster last season, Philadelphia was first and Baltimore (best record in the American League was second. Three more playoff teams were in the top 10.
But here’s the funny thing, particularly regarding Anthopoulos’ inclination to take something away from the Phillies series.
In the NLCS, the Phillies bullpen fired 155 pitches of 96-plus at the Diamondbacks. The opposing Diamondbacks, meanwhile, had but 55.
It was a winning strategy – for Arizona.
It points back to the notion that playoff series are random events, and that they might not be a source of usable data. And, what’s more, it’s not like the Braves’ velocity-light bullpen performed like it needed to be overhauled. Braves relievers’ ERA was 2.45 against the Phillies, well below their regular-season average (3.81).
However it works out, it’ll arrive faster than it did a year ago.
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