This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
NORTH PORT, Fla. -- Two games into the Grapefruit League season and Braves starting pitchers still haven’t allowed a run. Why is there all this fuss about their rotation?
But seriously, I figure you’re sick of talking about how Atlanta’s injury-depleted rotation is thinner than a fungo bat. Here are my thoughts on some other subjects as we enter Spring Training’s third week.
1. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies have seemingly set a record for most plate appearances during live batting practices completed in February. The two baseball junkies prepared for the upcoming World Baseball Classic by facing live pitching on a daily basis over the past week.
We’ve already seen some encouraging results. Acuña destroyed a 397-foot single in the first inning of his Grapefruit League season debut in an 8-1 loss to the Twins on Sunday. Yeah, if he hadn’t admired his long drive that bounced off the left-center-field wall, he’d have had a double.
But I don’t think there was a single person in CoolToday Park who expected that ball to stay in the yard. The single had a 112.4 mph exit velocity and a 22-degree launch angle. Batted balls with a 112 mph exit velo and 22-degree launch angle resulted in a home run 88.9 percent of the time last year. If you go back to 2015, this combo resulted in a home run 88.4 percent of the time.
2. Speaking of Acuña, manager Walt Weiss confirmed the 2023 National League MVP will be back in the leadoff spot this season. Braves ace Chris Sale, the 2024 NL Cy Young Award winner, appreciates the fact he won’t have to deal with facing Acuña at the start of a game this year.
“I mean, you're talking about arguably one of the best hitters in the league, right out of the gate, and he's ready to swing,” Sale said. “He's not going up there trying to see anything. He's trying to do some damage. So it's not a lot of fun starting the game off with him.”
3. The Braves will play a game on 13 consecutive days to begin the regular season. So, it would make sense to utilize a six-man rotation, right?
Well, when I threw this idea out on X (formerly known as Twitter), many fans responded with “Do they even have six starters?” Well played. In fact, I had even made the same joke earlier in the day.
Sale, Spencer Strider, Reynaldo López and Grant Holmes are slated to fill four rotation spots. The next two candidates are Bryce Elder and Joey Wentz, both of whom are out of options. We can say they’re battling for the fifth spot. But as things currently stand, both would be on the Opening Day roster.
If you want to call one a fifth starter and the other a swingman out of the bullpen, fine. Any way you cut it, six members of the season-opening pitching staff will likely have the capability to make a start.
4. If this proves to be true, you’d essentially be looking at seven relievers. Well, as long as they stay healthy, you can seemingly give six spots to Raisel Iglesias, Robert Suárez, Tyler Kinley, Dylan Lee, Aaron Bummer and Joel Payamps. I’d consider right-handed reliever Ian Hamilton to be the favorite for that final spot because he is out of options. But James Karinchak, Dylan Dodd, Daysbel Hernández and Hayden Harris are among the other candidates.
5. One of my favorite follows on X is @CapitolAvenue. The dude knows what he’s talking about. One of his posts earlier this week showed that Michael Tonkin threw the fourth-most innings for the 2023 Braves team that won 104 games. That might not make you feel good about the current rotation woes. And you might argue that the ’23 team’s offense was one of the greatest in MLB history.
But with a healthy Acuña and rebounds from both Austin Riley and Albies, the Braves’ offense can be one of the game’s best again. Or at least good enough to cover the troubles created by a thin rotation.
6. Getting back to X. Why do we still say formerly known as Twitter, when we still refer to it as Twitter?