The Braves did make it back to .500 this week, as I’d hoped, but an emphatic sweep of the Marlins was followed by a tough series loss against the NL West leading D-Backs. A 5-2 week isn’t bad, though, and the Braves are very much in the division race.
Here are this week’s stats (Blogger to WordPress conversion ruined my tables):
Overall
Player Gm PA Off Pitch Field WPA AV WV
C. Jones 7 34 0.887 0.000 -0.030 0.857 0.267 0.098
Diaz 5 10 0.571 0.000 0.032 0.603 0.239 0.239
A. Jones 7 31 0.562 0.000 0.005 0.566 0.235 0.077
Hudson 2 8 -0.041 0.603 0.000 0.562 0.189 -0.027
McCann 6 22 0.558 0.000 0.000 0.558 0.196 0.130
LaRoche 7 21 0.516 0.000 -0.020 0.496 0.177 0.139
Renteria 6 30 0.467 0.000 -0.027 0.440 0.244 0.064
Ray 3 0 0.000 0.120 0.000 0.120 0.000 0.000
Francoeur 7 32 0.090 0.000 0.009 0.099 0.192 0.015
Orr 3 6 0.096 0.000 0.000 0.096 0.220 0.073
Sosa 1 3 -0.055 0.141 0.000 0.086 0.107 -0.171
Paronto 3 1 -0.027 0.058 0.000 0.031 0.115 -0.237
Cormier 1 0 0.000 -0.016 0.000 -0.016 0.000 0.000
Smoltz 1 3 -0.131 0.095 0.000 -0.036 0.171 -0.255
Jordan 4 12 -0.013 0.000 -0.035 -0.049 0.171 -0.006
Remlinger 3 0 0.000 -0.062 0.000 -0.062 0.000 0.000
McBride 4 0 0.000 -0.087 0.000 -0.087 0.000 0.000
Smith 1 1 -0.032 -0.088 0.000 -0.121 0.221 -0.147
Langerhans 5 22 -0.213 0.000 0.039 -0.174 0.162 -0.060
Pratt 3 10 -0.184 0.000 0.004 -0.181 0.224 -0.082
Betemit 6 9 -0.270 0.000 0.000 -0.270 0.179 -0.167
Davies 1 0 0.000 -0.281 0.000 -0.281 0.000 0.000
Giles 7 33 -0.258 0.000 -0.035 -0.293 0.204 -0.038
Thomson 1 3 0.026 -0.504 0.000 -0.477 0.103 0.085
Villareal 4 0 0.000 -0.553 0.000 -0.553 0.000 0.000
Reitsma 5 0 0.000 -0.628 0.000 -0.628 0.000 0.000
TEAM 7
0.214 0.000 0.000 0.214
Starting Pitching
Player Gm IP Avg. P Tot. P WPA WPTP EO%
Hudson 2 14.0 0.048 0.844 0.603 0.714 1.000
Sosa 1 6.7 0.048 0.279 0.141 0.505 1.000
Smoltz 1 7.3 0.048 0.484 0.095 0.196 1.000
Smith 1 4.3 0.049 0.252 -0.088 -0.351 0.000
Davies 1 2.0 0.048 0.142 -0.281 -1.972 0.000
Thomson 1 5.7 0.032 0.301 -0.504 -1.672 0.000
Relief Pitching
Player Gm IP Avg. P Tot. P WPA WPTP EO% USG-T USG-A
Ray 3 3.0 0.040 0.120 0.120 1.000 1.000 0.183 0.173
Paronto 3 5.0 0.029 0.113 0.058 0.512 0.667 0.143 0.143
Cormier 1 1.7 0.000 0.007 -0.016 -2.286 0.000 -0.067 -0.070
Remlinger 3 2.7 0.166 0.498 -0.062 -0.125 0.667 -0.040 -0.049
McBride 4 4.7 0.074 0.481 -0.087 -0.182 0.500 0.001 0.038
Villareal 4 4.3 0.060 0.241 -0.553 -2.298 0.250 -0.121 -0.131
Reitsma 5 4.3 0.104 0.520 -0.628 -1.209 0.600 -0.071 -0.081
Good and Bad Games
Player Gm GG GG% PG PG% NG NG% BG BG%
Diaz 5 3 0.600 4 0.800 1 0.200 0 0.000
Renteria 6 3 0.500 5 0.833 1 0.167 0 0.000
A. Jones 7 2 0.286 3 0.429 4 0.571 1 0.143
C. Jones 7 2 0.286 3 0.429 4 0.571 1 0.143
Hudson 2 1 0.500 2 1.000 0 0.000 0 0.000
Orr 3 1 0.333 2 0.667 1 0.333 0 0.000
Remlinger 3 1 0.333 2 0.667 1 0.333 1 0.333
McBride 4 1 0.250 2 0.500 2 0.500 1 0.250
Reitsma 5 1 0.200 3 0.600 2 0.400 1 0.200
McCann 6 1 0.167 4 0.667 2 0.333 0 0.000
Francoeur 7 1 0.143 3 0.429 4 0.571 1 0.143
LaRoche 7 1 0.143 3 0.429 3 0.429 0 0.000
Giles 7 1 0.143 2 0.286 5 0.714 1 0.143
Ray 3 0 0.000 3 1.000 0 0.000 0 0.000
Sosa 1 0 0.000 1 1.000 0 0.000 0 0.000
Paronto 3 0 0.000 2 0.667 1 0.333 0 0.000
Betemit 6 0 0.000 3 0.500 3 0.500 2 0.333
Jordan 4 0 0.000 2 0.500 1 0.250 1 0.250
Langerhans 5 0 0.000 2 0.400 3 0.600 0 0.000
Pratt 3 0 0.000 1 0.333 2 0.667 2 0.667
Villareal 4 0 0.000 1 0.250 3 0.750 2 0.500
Cormier 1 0 0.000 0 0.000 1 1.000 0 0.000
Davies 1 0 0.000 0 0.000 1 1.000 1 1.000
Smith 1 0 0.000 0 0.000 1 1.000 1 1.000
Smoltz 1 0 0.000 0 0.000 1 1.000 0 0.000
Thomson 1 0 0.000 0 0.000 1 1.000 1 1.000
Player of the Week: Chipper Jones. When you’re worth nearly two team wins over .500 by yourself, you know you’ve had a great week at the plate. He was 9-for-26 with 5 walks, a homer, and 10 RBI this week, making for a cool .951 OPS. Of course, you have to get timely hits to be worth +.857 in 7 games, and that was very much the case for Chipper, whose huge hits in Wednesday’s and Friday’s games made his entire week.
Thoughts
1. Chipper wasn’t the only Brave helping his cause this week. Matt Diaz and five others would be potential PotW winners in a normal week. Seven Braves topped +.440 during these two series.
2. The downside of that is that the Braves actually lost two games, and three Braves had quite bad WPA weeks as evidence of that fact. Chris Reitsma’s was the worst at -.628, but Oscar Villareal and John Thomson also took a hit this week. The bullpen looks worse than ever, and it’s conceivable that Reitsma’s week may have cost him the closer’s job. The bullpen is a full 4 games below average for the season, which means that the Braves could conceivably be in first place with a league-average pen.
3. Marcus Giles continues to struggle, so it may be about time to pull the plug on him as a leadoff hitter. He is well behind all other Braves position players in WPA. Six of the eight starters are in the black, with the Langerhans/Diaz LF combo the only other position in the red.
4. Tim Hudson and John Smoltz have identical WPTP numbers this year. I would consider WPTP the most important pitching stat that I track, since it weights WPA based on the situations a pitcher has faced. Their .244 numbers mean that they have converted nearly a quarter of their total P faced into positive win probability. Based on my limited tracking of this stat (this year and last year), those numbers look fairly good, although maybe not quite up to ace level. Thomson is now barely breaking even at .008, and the others are barely worth discussing. The Braves need two starters badly. HoRam should be his usual below-average self when he returns, and that would even be a welcome respite from the disaster that Jorge Sosa has been so far (I still think he would be great out of the pen). Chuck James is my other suggestion as a sixth option (after Kyle Davies).
The Braves have six games this week, all on the road. They visit San Diego Monday-Wednesday, have an off day Thursday, and then head to Chicago to play the Cubs this weekend.
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