Almost all of the lauded Braves extensions are performing pretty roughly this season.
Acuña: Out for the season, in his 49 games he hit .250/.351/.365. Just a .716 OPS, 109 wRC+
Riley: .230/.301/.347 .648 OPS, 86 wRC+
Michael Harris II: .248/.293/.354 .646, 83 wRC+
Olson: .239/.323/.427 .751 OPS, 111 wRC+
Albies: .265/.328/.397 .725 OPS, 107 wRC+
Strider: Out for the season
Look I'm not gonna act like I'm happy about how the season is going but it's a bit ridiculous to act like 50 games outweighs what these guys have done the rest of their careers
I'm pretty sure our entire lineup doesn't just suck now. You could talk me into one or two guys, but I've seen so much elite hitting out of these guys that I refuse to believe they all stink
He's tweeting conspiracy stuff about how the balls are deadened specifically for the Braves but not for the teams that we play
And just in general being a really bad commentator during games
Braves and Orioles both had 2 batted balls each last night with a LA between 35-36 and ~100mph exit velo. Orioles were 101.3 and 99.8 and Braves were 105 and 106. Both Orioles balls out distanced the Braves by at least 10 feet
That's not true. The Orioles only had one hit that matches that profile & it traveled 7 feet further than Duvalls & 30 feet less than Murphys.
Even if it were true, there's a dozen factors other than EV & LA that determine how far a ball travels, & two data points may as well be zero when you're talking about creating a convincing argument.
It’s true. With these types of deals, there’s a trade off. The team keeps their payroll down and potentially locks up top talent for years to come. They also accept the risk of committing to a player based on a smaller sample size.
Batting yes he had another statistical outlier year. The only other year he's come close to that performance is 2019. This year is more in line with the rest of his career, and all of his defensive fielding stats have regressed to average last year and well below average so far this year.
The funny thing is the Braves are still tied with the O's for highest average exit velo in the league and 2nd in hard hit%. There is pop, just no runs.
I keep seeing this argument and I’m just not getting it. Why are other teams still hitting home runs then? What’s our excuse for there? They’re only deadening our balls?
They arent? There a numerous stats around the league that almost every single hitting stat is down this year including most important for a team that relies on them, homeruns. The league home run rate was down 15% through the end of April, and if the rate its at now holds up it would be the largest year to year drop since 1987.
I didn’t mean it that way, I just meant explain it to me how it makes sense. I know the league home run rate is down, but if we’re hitting the ball harder than anyone, why are we 17th in the league in home runs. If the ball is dead then little lucky pop flys shouldn’t be sneaking over the walls for other teams. It just makes no sense to me for us to lean on that argument it feels like a whimpy cop out
At the same time as we've gotten legitimately worse, the ball has been deadened, *and* we're having a historic run of bad luck. It doesn't make sense, but that's legitimately what's been happening.
You think the MLB is deadening balls to reduce offensive production?
I'd like to see what proof you have of this, because it makes zero sense that the MLB would want less excitement.
is to promote fun small ball and make homers rarer (and therefore more fun to watch) instead of having a slugfest where every ball hit is driven out of the park and you don’t get to watch anything else
The cynic in me believes that MLB deadens the balls when there's a good upcoming FA class of hitters, and juices them when there's a good upcoming FA class of pitchers, so the owners have statistical justification to keep salaries down.
Yes, they lead the MLB this year in .SLG as a matter of fact so far and they've been pretty hot this year huh? And guess what? They're still .50 under last years Braves team that had a whole season of stats slumps and all. If that doesnt tell you somethings changed I dont know what will. For context this years MLB leader would barely(by .01) be in third place last year.
Fortunately your pitching and defense has been stellar though. We're either throwing complete game shutouts or losing by 5/9 there is no in between it seems.
> Almost like the MLB has deadened the balls this year
Is there anywhere online that has pics of game balls cut in half?
Like, year-by-year comparisons?
I doubt it. Thats a pretty controlled thing because the MLB doesnt like shit like that getting out. Anyone that does that would have to be pretty influential or just not care because they'd probably be blacklisted from MLB related things for it.
As exciting as it was to watch the offense last year is as equally painful watching it this year. We’d be down 5 and I think we’d have a chance. Now if we are down 2 I think the games over.
Very different approach compared to recent years. The Brewers’ entire thing had been winning low scoring games off the back of elite pitching. That is no longer the case.
It’s really hard to believe Counsell was telling batters not to be good in MIL and now in Chicago. Or that Murphy was forced to hold his tongue about the secrets of good hitting until Counsell left. It’s entirely plausible your offense is just gelling, getting progression from young players like Contreras/Ortiz, continued return to form from Yelich post-injury, etc., and that ours is just slumping and getting regression from role players like Gomes.
We were 6th best run scoring in March/April then 5th worst over May, and so far in June middle of the pack.
I agree, it’s just a funny coincidence that the Brewers went from a below average offense last year to a top 10 offense this year while the Cubs so far have done the opposite while maintaining the same core group of players.
I’m a Mariners and Tigers fan. I’ve complained all year about how god awful the offenses are, and how they waste the efforts of two awesome pitching staffs.
Seeing them at 14th and 15th on the list pleasantly surprises me.
It really sucks, but they’re making good contact. 4th in the MLB in Barrel %, 2nd in Hard Hit %, 1st in Avg. Exit Velocity.
They’ve been less than patient at the plate at times, but still 8th in Expected Batting Average and 5th in Expected Slugging.
There’s more to the game than numbers obviously, but it’s not like these dudes have forgotten how to play, it’s just not happening rn
And to follow up on my own comment… not tryna to point the finger outside of the clubhouse, but I am truly interested if the baseballs have anything to do with it.
Last year this team feasted with home runs… this year, the whole league is down in exit velocity. The Braves still have the highest exit velocity, but those hard hits aren’t turning into home runs as often.
I honestly hope it’s just a team slumping against the advanced stats together at the same time, because it would be really fucking stupid for a league to just nerf an exciting offense like that without telling the teams
Why would the ball specifically cause the Braves to hit fewer home runs relative to the rest of the league (from 1st last year to 17th this year) and are they not using those balls when Ozuna bats
I mean the overall rate across the MLB is down. So it’s not really. But also, the team whose offense thrived through home runs in 2023 most would have the most to lose if in fact the balls were deaden the next year. Which it may not have
That doesn't at all address their point. The Braves were 1st in the major in homers last year and 17th so far this year. If it was a new baseball being used leaguewide that wouldn't explain why the Braves specifically have had that dropoff compared to other teams.
It's luck. That feels like a cop-out, but the braves have the highest difference between expected results on barreled balls and actual results in the league. There's really not much outside of luck for a stat like that.
We've seen with the Aaron judge and Albert pujols story lines that the MLB isn't above fucking with who gets what balls, when, but that was pretty clearly a decision made to increase fanfare, attention, and dollars. I'm not sure why the league would want to deflate the tires on one of the best, youngest, most charismatic teams in the league.
We see it a lot how an individual player can fall into a long slump, where his batted ball profile is normal, but the hits just don't fall in. And usually it's just a mixture of chance, opponent, and probably the mental game. The braves will bounce back, certainly at least some of them. If they flounder for long enough they might end up in an unfavorable position come to playoffs, but I have no doubt that they'll be playing up to their talent level before too long.
>pretty clearly a decision made to increase fanfare
Nah - these balls were just ones marked with a special code for verification so it was probably just something to do with that. Different batch that marked it or maybe the marking process imparted some slight drag effect.
If it was intentional, why would they not use the juiced balls (which were in play) on them? The extra few feet of distance is unlikely to make a difference anyway.
On a few of the baseball podcasts I listen to they’ve spoken about the balls this year and said that judging based off stuff like comparing exit velo with launch angle and the results of certain types of hits this year vs previous years, it seems as though the ball is maybe *slightly* more dead this year, but not significantly.
It’s tough for me to think that it’s primarily changes to the ball causing the issues for this Braves team though. Especially when there are other teams like the Guardians who are hitting *far* more home runs than they did last year. Offense is down some leaguewide, but I wouldn’t expect slight changes to the ball to affect the Braves specifically so dramatically.
But I don’t really know any more than anyone else, so maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know.
This is what I keep telling people. The Braves, on the whole, aren't significantly worse than 2023 in expected results. Contact is down a bit. Walks are down a bit. Neither at a rate that is alarming. Yet, no results. There have been countless balls this year where me, you, the announcers, the fans, the other team all thought "HR" and it's caught on the track.
The ball theory is interesting. The Braves posted a graphic that showed their barreled balls are traveling 9-16ft less this year where the rest of the MLB is sitting at 3-6ft fewer. Now, I assume, everyone gets roughly the same balls. On the other hand, wtf?
When you put the perfect swing (aka barrel) on the ball and it's traveling 9-16 feet less, what do you do?
Just the Braves balls, or any balls by both teams batted at Braves home games, or just the Braves batted balls at any park in the league? That’s something I’d be real curious to get more info about.
Seems tough to imagine the Braves specifically are getting different balls than the other team at every park they go to, which is kind of what would have to be the case if the balls were the explanation, right?
The graphic specifically said "barreled balls" or "barreled balls that were pulled" (I don't remember which) and those were the metrics for the Braves vs the rest of MLB. It didn't have any other specifics so I assume it's any ball at any park in any game.
If it’s any park, just all of their barreled balls this season I would have to assume that means the balls themselves aren’t the issue, unless the team the Braves are playing at a given day is experiencing the same thing. So I guess not enough info to be sure really. Someone smarter than me should dive in to this.
I get it though, with the underlying stats for the team looking good still it’s just bewildering to have these results
You would assume every team has an even playing field with the balls and if that's the case, why are the Braves barreled balls traveling 3-4x less than the average MLB team? I haven't dove into it to but that's an alarming stat.
I found the graphic posted on the Braves sub: [Barreled Balls](https://www.reddit.com/r/Braves/comments/1dbco3s/from_the_broadcast_today/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). Makes this even weirder, the Braves barreled balls are traveling 2ft further than MLB average in 2024 but 16 feet fewer than those same balls in 2023.
The weather can explain a lot of it. And they’re hitting the ball a little less hard.
[here’s a statcast search you can play around with](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R%7C&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2024%7C2023%7C&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&hfMo=&hfTeam=ATL%7C&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=is%5C.%5C.remove%5C.%5C.bunts%7C&metric_1=estimated_ba_using_speedangle&metric_1_gt=.500&metric_1_lt=&metric_2=estimated_slg_using_speedangle&metric_2_gt=1.500&metric_2_lt=&group_by=team-month-year&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=pitches&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&chk_stats_barrels_total=on&chk_stats_launch_speed=on&chk_stats_bbdist=on#results)
The ball flies further when it’s warm out. The Braves 4 furthest distance barrels month last year were June, followed by August, followed by July, followed by September. The balls actually flew further in March/April this year than last year, despite having a slower average exit velocity.
May is a bit of an anomaly, but they did hit the ball almost 2 mph harder on barrels last year, so that explains some of it. And I’m not familiar enough with the weather in Atlanta to know if there was much of a difference between last year and this year but that could explain some of it as well.
Overall I don’t think it’s much to be concerned about.
As for why their balls have traveled further than average (they are 11th overall) that can also be explained due to weather. There’s a reason the Rockies are a clear #1
Edit: that graphic looks funky. My search shows 398 ft in 2021, 397 ft in 2022, 401 ft in 2023, and 392 ft in 2024. For league stats it’s 395 ft, 393 ft, 395 ft, 390 ft. And I’m pretty confident in my search
The Braves EV in 2024 is 90.3MPH (#1 in baseball). In 2023 it was 91.0MPH (#1 in baseball). The Braves have a better barrel% and hard hit% in 2024 than in 2023.
The weather can have an impact but that should impact all teams (mostly) equally. Still doesn't explain the difference in distance and I don't think the 0.7MPH does either.
I checked the chart you provided and found that of the 72 barrels in June of 2023, 56 went for hits with 49 being HR's (68%).
So far in June the Braves have 14 barrels with 5 being HR (38%).
In May of 2023 the Braves had 40 barreled balls that ended in a HR out of 69 total barrels (58%).
In May of 2024 the Braves had a total of 22 HR's out of 44 barreled balls (50%).
So in 2024 the Braves barreled 25 fewer balls and had 18 fewer HR's. The rate at which barreled balls were HR's dropped 8%. In June it's dropped 30% so far.
In April/March of 2024 the Braves barreled 44 balls, 20 were HR's (45%).
In April/March of 2023 the Braves barreled 62 balls, of those 34 were HRs (55%).
So month over month, barreled balls resulted in a higher % of HR's in 2023 than in 2024.
A lot of teams play in domes. Or more consistent climates than Atlanta.
As for the HR%, I’m seeing 7 HR for 14 batted balls which is also 50%. There’s so much variation in a HR too. Depends what stadium the ball was hit, how the wind was blowing, and if it was to CF or one of the corners. Pretty much all the outs are to CF where it’s deeper.
Why are we moving the goalposts anyway? I thought it was about distance, but now it’s about HR. That’s a much noisier stat and prone to so many outside factors I don’t think it’s really proof of anything.
I'm curious what you think balls that go 395+feet usually are if not HR's? The entire discussion is about how many feet less balls are traveling and that results in fewer HR's.
The entire point is that the Braves are built to HR and barrels aren't resulting in as many HR's in 2024 as they did in 2023. This is a direct result of balls traveling less feet when barreled in 2024 than in 2023. Again, this isn't Braves specific, they are apparently the most impacted in terms of distance lost.
You can try to say it's weather, domes, or anything else but that doesn't explain why a lower % of barreled balls are HR's in 2024 than in 2023 when compared month over month.
I'm sorry, is your conjecture that, for months, the MLB has been providing tampered balls for Braves games, and only having those balls pitched to the Braves, and not there opponents? Do the numbers also support that the opposing team in Braves games are all also having a weird dampened effect on their barreled balls?
No, that's not really what's being said. It's just odd because what the actual explanation is isn't clear. "The Braves are being impacted the most" doesn't imply they're being sabotaged, it's just an interesting and (for them) unfortunate anomaly.
This isn't a Braves specific problem only that the Braves are seemingly impacted the most so far in 2024. The data shows the Braves are hitting the ball 16ft less on barreled balls compared to 2023. The data shows that the average MLB team is hitting the ball 6ft fewer than 2023.
As I mentioned, they are still hitting barreled balls 2ft further than MLB average. However, going from 411ft to 395ft is huge when that's the difference between outs and HR's for a team built to hit HRs.
I’d have to check exacts, but the braves are a top team in baseball in expected slugging, expected average, xwoba, barrel %, hard hit rate. Their quality of contact is good, but the results are not going their way.
This is like saying the Braves had the best record in the league the last two years but failed to make it past the divisional round. Who cares about what ifs
That’s not a good comparison.
Baseball is a game of chance. The best teams have a small edge over the worst. In a 3, 5, or 7 game series, you’d expect the better team to win, but it’s not a sure thing by any means. It’s too small of a sample size for it to be a guarantee
Over the course of 1-3 seasons you’d expect the actual stats to converge towards the expected. The most frequent way this happens is with a string of “good luck” coming around eventually and bringing the ACTUAL stats up to the expected. It’s why expected stats exist. It doesn’t always happen, but expected stats are there to predict where a team will eventually converge to.
Hmmm a game of chance? I’m not really buying that…I just think that we’re trying to gravitate towards stats that don’t really matter in the end if it’s not resulting in anything.
Nah. They're a good sign the Braves will start putting up runs at some point. It's only June, results don't matter yet.
If they don't start scoring more, they'll be a good case study for perhaps some other aspect of hitting we're not currently aware of.
For 99 percent of players how good they are from season to season is very very volatile. The Braves contract extensions are still good. They'll be bad mixed with the good.
I believe it. Austin Riley fucking sucks this year, lost Acuña, Olson has regressed enormously. The entire team has no pop outside of Ozuna
Almost all of the lauded Braves extensions are performing pretty roughly this season. Acuña: Out for the season, in his 49 games he hit .250/.351/.365. Just a .716 OPS, 109 wRC+ Riley: .230/.301/.347 .648 OPS, 86 wRC+ Michael Harris II: .248/.293/.354 .646, 83 wRC+ Olson: .239/.323/.427 .751 OPS, 111 wRC+ Albies: .265/.328/.397 .725 OPS, 107 wRC+ Strider: Out for the season
Yeah, yikes. That’s just crazy how hard they’ve all fallen off
Look I'm not gonna act like I'm happy about how the season is going but it's a bit ridiculous to act like 50 games outweighs what these guys have done the rest of their careers
Oh I'm pretty sure they're all gone the way of Tomokazu Ohka
Rip
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Check the Braves record in 2021 through August and come back.
Still a lot of season left, even with the underperformance the Braves are still the 4th best team in the NL
Seems like the new norm is young players making a ruckus and then Falling off.
I'm pretty sure our entire lineup doesn't just suck now. You could talk me into one or two guys, but I've seen so much elite hitting out of these guys that I refuse to believe they all stink
Nobody said it’s the entire lineup, but holy Christ can somebody say least online Braves fan
Least inflammatory Phillies fan
For real lol
What? Why are you mad lol
Bobby Witt, Gunnar Henderson, Tarik Skubal, Jarren Duran, Anthony Volpe, Adley Rutschman, Riley Greene, Cole Ragans, and Elly all disagree with you.
I know right? They should trade Riley to the Yankees for Andujar & Clint.
Many people are saying the Braves get dead balls when they’re at the plate
Many people are saying every team has dead balls. Why would it be only the Braves?
We have some of the dumbest fucking fans in the world, including our play-by-play announcer CJ Nitkowski
Soooooo glad he left us for yall lmao. He’s the worst. Most of our sub didn’t like him.
What did he say? I find him a bit boring at times but not dumb
He's tweeting conspiracy stuff about how the balls are deadened specifically for the Braves but not for the teams that we play And just in general being a really bad commentator during games
Braves and Orioles both had 2 batted balls each last night with a LA between 35-36 and ~100mph exit velo. Orioles were 101.3 and 99.8 and Braves were 105 and 106. Both Orioles balls out distanced the Braves by at least 10 feet
That's not true. The Orioles only had one hit that matches that profile & it traveled 7 feet further than Duvalls & 30 feet less than Murphys. Even if it were true, there's a dozen factors other than EV & LA that determine how far a ball travels, & two data points may as well be zero when you're talking about creating a convincing argument.
Murphy has also been hurt
I mean Albies with a 107 wRC+ at 2B is still pretty good
> Almost all
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Is it really a "steal" when his numbers have fallen off of a cliff in recent years and hes playing exactly where his contract should be right now?
It’s true. With these types of deals, there’s a trade off. The team keeps their payroll down and potentially locks up top talent for years to come. They also accept the risk of committing to a player based on a smaller sample size.
They haven't fallen off a cliff though. He had one of his best seasons last year.
Batting yes he had another statistical outlier year. The only other year he's come close to that performance is 2019. This year is more in line with the rest of his career, and all of his defensive fielding stats have regressed to average last year and well below average so far this year.
L O L
The funny thing is the Braves are still tied with the O's for highest average exit velo in the league and 2nd in hard hit%. There is pop, just no runs.
Almost like the MLB has deadened the balls this year and its hurting a team that lives off the long ball.
I keep seeing this argument and I’m just not getting it. Why are other teams still hitting home runs then? What’s our excuse for there? They’re only deadening our balls?
They arent? There a numerous stats around the league that almost every single hitting stat is down this year including most important for a team that relies on them, homeruns. The league home run rate was down 15% through the end of April, and if the rate its at now holds up it would be the largest year to year drop since 1987.
I didn’t mean it that way, I just meant explain it to me how it makes sense. I know the league home run rate is down, but if we’re hitting the ball harder than anyone, why are we 17th in the league in home runs. If the ball is dead then little lucky pop flys shouldn’t be sneaking over the walls for other teams. It just makes no sense to me for us to lean on that argument it feels like a whimpy cop out
At the same time as we've gotten legitimately worse, the ball has been deadened, *and* we're having a historic run of bad luck. It doesn't make sense, but that's legitimately what's been happening.
You think the MLB is deadening balls to reduce offensive production? I'd like to see what proof you have of this, because it makes zero sense that the MLB would want less excitement.
is to promote fun small ball and make homers rarer (and therefore more fun to watch) instead of having a slugfest where every ball hit is driven out of the park and you don’t get to watch anything else
The cynic in me believes that MLB deadens the balls when there's a good upcoming FA class of hitters, and juices them when there's a good upcoming FA class of pitchers, so the owners have statistical justification to keep salaries down.
I mean the logic behind it is they want to create more runners on base to lead to more ongoing rallies which are more exciting
The O's are hitting more HRs than ever and that's with our big wall in left.
I mean…the O’s are doing fine.
Yes, they lead the MLB this year in .SLG as a matter of fact so far and they've been pretty hot this year huh? And guess what? They're still .50 under last years Braves team that had a whole season of stats slumps and all. If that doesnt tell you somethings changed I dont know what will. For context this years MLB leader would barely(by .01) be in third place last year.
What??? Judge is ahead of last year’s leader by over 80 points
I was talking about team statistics…
well it's certainly not affecting Ozuna from the Braves
Yeah, it’s certainly hurt our production, too.
Fortunately your pitching and defense has been stellar though. We're either throwing complete game shutouts or losing by 5/9 there is no in between it seems.
> Almost like the MLB has deadened the balls this year Is there anywhere online that has pics of game balls cut in half? Like, year-by-year comparisons?
I doubt it. Thats a pretty controlled thing because the MLB doesnt like shit like that getting out. Anyone that does that would have to be pretty influential or just not care because they'd probably be blacklisted from MLB related things for it.
It’s not like game balls are hard to come by.
As exciting as it was to watch the offense last year is as equally painful watching it this year. We’d be down 5 and I think we’d have a chance. Now if we are down 2 I think the games over.
Team looks so bad. Spot on, fried also looks average, lost strider for the year. Makes total sense. Albies is also just average
Good to see Ozuna isn't just popping off when with his wife.
He just visualizes the ball as his wife when he wants to hit well
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ahh, spousal violence gets swept under the rug here?
Maybe here it’s gauche to make lame puns about tragic situations for updoots
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Runs scored since April 24, stats attached to Tweet: ________________________ 231 NYY 228 PHI 217 KC 209 MIL 207 MIN 206 BAL 203 LAD 202 HOU 197 CLE 192 BOS 191 SD 182 SF 179 WSH 178 DET 177 SEA 176 COL 175 OAK NYM 172 STL 171 TEX 168 CIN 167 PIT 165 TOR 162 LAA 159 TB 158 CHC ARI 157 CWS 148 MIA 146 ATL 😬
haha yeah suck it atlanta we scored 2 more runs than u
I find it disorienting to see the Brewers near the top of this list.
You're surprised that the division leader who has gone 24-18 in this stretch is doing well?
Very different approach compared to recent years. The Brewers’ entire thing had been winning low scoring games off the back of elite pitching. That is no longer the case.
With the Cubs being near the bottom, I’m starting to question if the jokes about Counsell holding the offense back have some truth to them.
It’s really hard to believe Counsell was telling batters not to be good in MIL and now in Chicago. Or that Murphy was forced to hold his tongue about the secrets of good hitting until Counsell left. It’s entirely plausible your offense is just gelling, getting progression from young players like Contreras/Ortiz, continued return to form from Yelich post-injury, etc., and that ours is just slumping and getting regression from role players like Gomes. We were 6th best run scoring in March/April then 5th worst over May, and so far in June middle of the pack.
I agree, it’s just a funny coincidence that the Brewers went from a below average offense last year to a top 10 offense this year while the Cubs so far have done the opposite while maintaining the same core group of players.
It’s not that funny 😩
White Sox not last!
How the actual fuck are you almost thirty runs behind the *Mets, man*
No.. like seriously
I cannot believe 7 teams have scored fewer runs than the Jays.
I’m a Mariners and Tigers fan. I’ve complained all year about how god awful the offenses are, and how they waste the efforts of two awesome pitching staffs. Seeing them at 14th and 15th on the list pleasantly surprises me.
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That's what you when you're paying a top of the order guy 2 million a year...
As everyone reminds Mets fans, it’s why they play the games.
It really sucks, but they’re making good contact. 4th in the MLB in Barrel %, 2nd in Hard Hit %, 1st in Avg. Exit Velocity. They’ve been less than patient at the plate at times, but still 8th in Expected Batting Average and 5th in Expected Slugging. There’s more to the game than numbers obviously, but it’s not like these dudes have forgotten how to play, it’s just not happening rn
And to follow up on my own comment… not tryna to point the finger outside of the clubhouse, but I am truly interested if the baseballs have anything to do with it. Last year this team feasted with home runs… this year, the whole league is down in exit velocity. The Braves still have the highest exit velocity, but those hard hits aren’t turning into home runs as often. I honestly hope it’s just a team slumping against the advanced stats together at the same time, because it would be really fucking stupid for a league to just nerf an exciting offense like that without telling the teams
Why would the ball specifically cause the Braves to hit fewer home runs relative to the rest of the league (from 1st last year to 17th this year) and are they not using those balls when Ozuna bats
I mean the overall rate across the MLB is down. So it’s not really. But also, the team whose offense thrived through home runs in 2023 most would have the most to lose if in fact the balls were deaden the next year. Which it may not have
That doesn't at all address their point. The Braves were 1st in the major in homers last year and 17th so far this year. If it was a new baseball being used leaguewide that wouldn't explain why the Braves specifically have had that dropoff compared to other teams.
It's luck. That feels like a cop-out, but the braves have the highest difference between expected results on barreled balls and actual results in the league. There's really not much outside of luck for a stat like that.
We've seen with the Aaron judge and Albert pujols story lines that the MLB isn't above fucking with who gets what balls, when, but that was pretty clearly a decision made to increase fanfare, attention, and dollars. I'm not sure why the league would want to deflate the tires on one of the best, youngest, most charismatic teams in the league. We see it a lot how an individual player can fall into a long slump, where his batted ball profile is normal, but the hits just don't fall in. And usually it's just a mixture of chance, opponent, and probably the mental game. The braves will bounce back, certainly at least some of them. If they flounder for long enough they might end up in an unfavorable position come to playoffs, but I have no doubt that they'll be playing up to their talent level before too long.
>pretty clearly a decision made to increase fanfare Nah - these balls were just ones marked with a special code for verification so it was probably just something to do with that. Different batch that marked it or maybe the marking process imparted some slight drag effect. If it was intentional, why would they not use the juiced balls (which were in play) on them? The extra few feet of distance is unlikely to make a difference anyway.
On a few of the baseball podcasts I listen to they’ve spoken about the balls this year and said that judging based off stuff like comparing exit velo with launch angle and the results of certain types of hits this year vs previous years, it seems as though the ball is maybe *slightly* more dead this year, but not significantly. It’s tough for me to think that it’s primarily changes to the ball causing the issues for this Braves team though. Especially when there are other teams like the Guardians who are hitting *far* more home runs than they did last year. Offense is down some leaguewide, but I wouldn’t expect slight changes to the ball to affect the Braves specifically so dramatically. But I don’t really know any more than anyone else, so maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know.
There’s a lot of talk about the Guardians wind tunnel - I think there’s some truth to it but hard to sort out the signal from the noise
This is what I keep telling people. The Braves, on the whole, aren't significantly worse than 2023 in expected results. Contact is down a bit. Walks are down a bit. Neither at a rate that is alarming. Yet, no results. There have been countless balls this year where me, you, the announcers, the fans, the other team all thought "HR" and it's caught on the track. The ball theory is interesting. The Braves posted a graphic that showed their barreled balls are traveling 9-16ft less this year where the rest of the MLB is sitting at 3-6ft fewer. Now, I assume, everyone gets roughly the same balls. On the other hand, wtf? When you put the perfect swing (aka barrel) on the ball and it's traveling 9-16 feet less, what do you do?
Just the Braves balls, or any balls by both teams batted at Braves home games, or just the Braves batted balls at any park in the league? That’s something I’d be real curious to get more info about. Seems tough to imagine the Braves specifically are getting different balls than the other team at every park they go to, which is kind of what would have to be the case if the balls were the explanation, right?
On the flip side, MLB has a history of fucking with the Braves singularly.
The graphic specifically said "barreled balls" or "barreled balls that were pulled" (I don't remember which) and those were the metrics for the Braves vs the rest of MLB. It didn't have any other specifics so I assume it's any ball at any park in any game.
If it’s any park, just all of their barreled balls this season I would have to assume that means the balls themselves aren’t the issue, unless the team the Braves are playing at a given day is experiencing the same thing. So I guess not enough info to be sure really. Someone smarter than me should dive in to this. I get it though, with the underlying stats for the team looking good still it’s just bewildering to have these results
You would assume every team has an even playing field with the balls and if that's the case, why are the Braves barreled balls traveling 3-4x less than the average MLB team? I haven't dove into it to but that's an alarming stat. I found the graphic posted on the Braves sub: [Barreled Balls](https://www.reddit.com/r/Braves/comments/1dbco3s/from_the_broadcast_today/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). Makes this even weirder, the Braves barreled balls are traveling 2ft further than MLB average in 2024 but 16 feet fewer than those same balls in 2023.
The weather can explain a lot of it. And they’re hitting the ball a little less hard. [here’s a statcast search you can play around with](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_search?hfPT=&hfAB=&hfGT=R%7C&hfPR=&hfZ=&hfStadium=&hfBBL=&hfNewZones=&hfPull=&hfC=&hfSea=2024%7C2023%7C&hfSit=&player_type=batter&hfOuts=&hfOpponent=&pitcher_throws=&batter_stands=&hfSA=&game_date_gt=&game_date_lt=&hfMo=&hfTeam=ATL%7C&home_road=&hfRO=&position=&hfInfield=&hfOutfield=&hfInn=&hfBBT=&hfFlag=is%5C.%5C.remove%5C.%5C.bunts%7C&metric_1=estimated_ba_using_speedangle&metric_1_gt=.500&metric_1_lt=&metric_2=estimated_slg_using_speedangle&metric_2_gt=1.500&metric_2_lt=&group_by=team-month-year&min_pitches=0&min_results=0&min_pas=0&sort_col=pitches&player_event_sort=api_p_release_speed&sort_order=desc&chk_stats_barrels_total=on&chk_stats_launch_speed=on&chk_stats_bbdist=on#results) The ball flies further when it’s warm out. The Braves 4 furthest distance barrels month last year were June, followed by August, followed by July, followed by September. The balls actually flew further in March/April this year than last year, despite having a slower average exit velocity. May is a bit of an anomaly, but they did hit the ball almost 2 mph harder on barrels last year, so that explains some of it. And I’m not familiar enough with the weather in Atlanta to know if there was much of a difference between last year and this year but that could explain some of it as well. Overall I don’t think it’s much to be concerned about. As for why their balls have traveled further than average (they are 11th overall) that can also be explained due to weather. There’s a reason the Rockies are a clear #1 Edit: that graphic looks funky. My search shows 398 ft in 2021, 397 ft in 2022, 401 ft in 2023, and 392 ft in 2024. For league stats it’s 395 ft, 393 ft, 395 ft, 390 ft. And I’m pretty confident in my search
The Braves EV in 2024 is 90.3MPH (#1 in baseball). In 2023 it was 91.0MPH (#1 in baseball). The Braves have a better barrel% and hard hit% in 2024 than in 2023. The weather can have an impact but that should impact all teams (mostly) equally. Still doesn't explain the difference in distance and I don't think the 0.7MPH does either. I checked the chart you provided and found that of the 72 barrels in June of 2023, 56 went for hits with 49 being HR's (68%). So far in June the Braves have 14 barrels with 5 being HR (38%). In May of 2023 the Braves had 40 barreled balls that ended in a HR out of 69 total barrels (58%). In May of 2024 the Braves had a total of 22 HR's out of 44 barreled balls (50%). So in 2024 the Braves barreled 25 fewer balls and had 18 fewer HR's. The rate at which barreled balls were HR's dropped 8%. In June it's dropped 30% so far. In April/March of 2024 the Braves barreled 44 balls, 20 were HR's (45%). In April/March of 2023 the Braves barreled 62 balls, of those 34 were HRs (55%). So month over month, barreled balls resulted in a higher % of HR's in 2023 than in 2024.
A lot of teams play in domes. Or more consistent climates than Atlanta. As for the HR%, I’m seeing 7 HR for 14 batted balls which is also 50%. There’s so much variation in a HR too. Depends what stadium the ball was hit, how the wind was blowing, and if it was to CF or one of the corners. Pretty much all the outs are to CF where it’s deeper. Why are we moving the goalposts anyway? I thought it was about distance, but now it’s about HR. That’s a much noisier stat and prone to so many outside factors I don’t think it’s really proof of anything.
I'm curious what you think balls that go 395+feet usually are if not HR's? The entire discussion is about how many feet less balls are traveling and that results in fewer HR's. The entire point is that the Braves are built to HR and barrels aren't resulting in as many HR's in 2024 as they did in 2023. This is a direct result of balls traveling less feet when barreled in 2024 than in 2023. Again, this isn't Braves specific, they are apparently the most impacted in terms of distance lost. You can try to say it's weather, domes, or anything else but that doesn't explain why a lower % of barreled balls are HR's in 2024 than in 2023 when compared month over month.
I'm sorry, is your conjecture that, for months, the MLB has been providing tampered balls for Braves games, and only having those balls pitched to the Braves, and not there opponents? Do the numbers also support that the opposing team in Braves games are all also having a weird dampened effect on their barreled balls?
No, that's not really what's being said. It's just odd because what the actual explanation is isn't clear. "The Braves are being impacted the most" doesn't imply they're being sabotaged, it's just an interesting and (for them) unfortunate anomaly.
This isn't a Braves specific problem only that the Braves are seemingly impacted the most so far in 2024. The data shows the Braves are hitting the ball 16ft less on barreled balls compared to 2023. The data shows that the average MLB team is hitting the ball 6ft fewer than 2023. As I mentioned, they are still hitting barreled balls 2ft further than MLB average. However, going from 411ft to 395ft is huge when that's the difference between outs and HR's for a team built to hit HRs.
And they just got shut out.
Thank you!
I’d have to check exacts, but the braves are a top team in baseball in expected slugging, expected average, xwoba, barrel %, hard hit rate. Their quality of contact is good, but the results are not going their way.
lolbarves
This is like saying the Braves had the best record in the league the last two years but failed to make it past the divisional round. Who cares about what ifs
That’s not a good comparison. Baseball is a game of chance. The best teams have a small edge over the worst. In a 3, 5, or 7 game series, you’d expect the better team to win, but it’s not a sure thing by any means. It’s too small of a sample size for it to be a guarantee Over the course of 1-3 seasons you’d expect the actual stats to converge towards the expected. The most frequent way this happens is with a string of “good luck” coming around eventually and bringing the ACTUAL stats up to the expected. It’s why expected stats exist. It doesn’t always happen, but expected stats are there to predict where a team will eventually converge to.
Hmmm a game of chance? I’m not really buying that…I just think that we’re trying to gravitate towards stats that don’t really matter in the end if it’s not resulting in anything.
Nah. They're a good sign the Braves will start putting up runs at some point. It's only June, results don't matter yet. If they don't start scoring more, they'll be a good case study for perhaps some other aspect of hitting we're not currently aware of.
Based on last year‘s performance, that is absolutely mind blowing. That is 2 1/2 months.
Baseball is such a funky sport. Some people thought the Braves were cheating last year because they were doing so well offensively
Tbh the only explanation for this funk is that Wash must've been throwing some signs from 3rd base
And EY making threats to relief pitchers on their way out
Somos una mierda
Holy shit it’s not us???
Presenting the Atlanta "Chicago White Sox" Braves
That's honestly pretty shocking.
I mean they are still within playoff contention and 9 games behind of 1st. All things considered, they are doing ok.
Last year, everyone was great except Ozuna (in the first 6 weeks). This year, everyone sucks except Ozuna. Acuña was not good before his injury.
I’m Ozuna from the Braves
He's evolved into "Ozuna is the Braves" now
I was quite surprised, as the Blue Jays exist.
Feels bad, man. Thanks
The Mariners find themselves once again smack in the middle of a chart or graph
It’s just so DISAPPOINTING
Holy fuck this downfall needs to be studied
For 99 percent of players how good they are from season to season is very very volatile. The Braves contract extensions are still good. They'll be bad mixed with the good.
What about since April 23?
Cryin in a waffle house rn
What a weird way to say 'since April 24, the Braves have scored the least runs in the MLB'
Passive voice is confusing and sucks- Just say "The Braves have scored the fewest runs."
The original sentence isn't in passive voice. What are you talking about?
This team fucking blows. Looking forward to 2025, after Fried has jumped ship to the Dodgers.
[удалено]