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Austin Riley has been the Braves’ best position player in 2021. (Saw that coming, did you?) He’s also an astute analyst. After Wednesday’s game, he spoke of how it was to arrive in the majors in 2019 and, over three seasons, become part of a team that never finishes anywhere but first.
Said Riley: “With the depth of our lineup and the depth of our staff, we’re never out of any game … We’re never out of anything.”
This is true. It’s also remarkable. The first Braves team to feature Riley displayed him in left field, which wasn’t his position of choice. But Josh Donaldson was on hand, a one-year rental who was tearing it up. That everyday eight was terrific, and it took all the Cardinals’ wiles – the Redbirds lead the world in wiles – to oust the Braves in a National League Division Series that featured epic Games 3 and 4 and a Game 5 that saw the partial score of 11-0 become an Atlanta source of shame, alongside (but never ahead of) 28-3.
Last year’s shortened season saw a Brave (Freddie Freeman) voted MVP and three others (Marcell Ozuna, Ronald Acuna and Travis d’Arnaud) claim Silver Slugger awards. That was an even stronger lineup, and it took the Dodgers – maybe the best team of this century – seven mostly breathless games to block the Braves’ path to the World Series. This year’s batting order figured to be no less fearsome, which only goes to show how senseless it is to try and predict baseball.
Ozuna hasn’t played since May. Acuna has been gone since July. A thumb injury sidelined d’Arnaud for half the season. That made three shelved Silver Sluggers. Freeman was off to the worst start of his distinguished career. Cristian Pache, pressed into service when Adam Duvall got hurt in last year’s playoffs, fizzled as an everyday center fielder. Ender Inciarte was designated for assignment.
Deep into the season, the Braves were deploying journeyman Ehire Adrianza, Abraham Almonte and Guillermo Heredia on a daily basis. Catchers came and went. (Remember Jonathan Lucroy’s time as a Brave? No?) The lineup featured four real big-league hitters, the four infielders, and little else. There was a reason they went more than 100 games without surmounting .500. These weren’t really the Braves.
We’ve referenced Alex Anthopoulos’ deadline dexterity a thousand times. Here comes the 1,001st. The season changed when the Braves’ general manager landed four outfielders – Joc Pederson, Adam Duvall, Jorge Soler and Eddie Rosario – plus catcher Stephen Vogt, who has himself been lost to injury. This again became a big-league lineup. On Wednesday night, when the Braves beat Philadelphia 7-2 to slash their magic number to one, Soler reached base four times, scoring twice. Duvall drove in the second run, Rosario the third. Oh, and Pederson appeared to be wearing a strand of pearls when he pinch-hit.
Said manager Brian Snitker: “Some people ask if this lineup is better (than last year’s). The guts of this lineup came the first of August. It made a huge difference in our lineup; it made a huge difference in the makeup of our team and how our team felt about itself. Credit Alex for going out and getting guys. We were hurt. We had a lot of injuries. We needed players. He went out and got four major-league outfielders, and every one of them made an immediate impact, which was awesome.”
Then: “It showed those guys in the clubhouse that we were in this, and we were going to battle until the end. You never know how it’s going to work out. Hadn’t worked out yet – we’re still a game away. But getting Travis back was great, and it did lengthen our lineup. We’ve got Dansby (Swanson) hitting eighth, with 27 (homers) and 80-something (RBIs). That’s pretty good. Go back to the days when Vinny (Castilla) was hitting eighth and was a 30-homer guy. That’s a pretty good sign of a pretty deep lineup. Been nice to have this for six months, but it doesn’t matter. It’s been really good.”
For the record, Castilla batted mostly seventh and eighth in 2003. He hit 22 homers. Four Braves – Gary Sheffield, Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones and Javy Lopez – hit more. Of the Braves’ 14 consecutive first-place finishes, that was the season that featured less pitching than hitting. (Those Braves lost the NLDS to the Cubs of Kerry Wood and Mark Pryor.)
Together, the four acquired outfielders have managed 40 homers and 110 RBIs as Braves. They’re responsible for 2.9 worth of Baseball-Reference WAR (wins above replacement) over two months. Anthopoulos didn’t just buy a bunch of players. He bought a functioning outfield. He rebuilt his team on the fly. That almost never happens. It just happened here.
