The final fortnight of a season that has lost its fizz began with the Braves four games behind Pittsburgh for the second wild card. In a way, that made sense: The Braves lost two starting pitchers to Tommy John surgery in spring training, a double whammy that stood to make repeating as National League East champs impossible. In another way, it made no sense at all.
Because this jerry-built rotation has been stout enough to power a division winner. To belabor a stat I’ve repeated too often: The Braves lead the majors with 103 quality starts; as of Monday morning, they’d won 75 games. A year ago they worked 102 quality starts over 162 games; they won 96. This team has wasted so much splendid pitching as to make you scream.
An everyday eight the Braves believed to be the best of any NL team other than the Dodgers’ has sputtered so epically that the team entered Game No. 150 with only a 4.6 percent chance — this from Baseball Prospectus — of making the playoffs. More belaboring: The Braves rank 29th among 30 major-league teams in runs.
“They hit last year,” manager Fredi Gonzalez said, speaking of his team before Monday’s game with the division-leading Nationals. And this season? “They’ve hit at times, but not together.”
Then, a bit later: “Maybe it’s El Nino. The wind has been blowing against us this year.”
Then this: “It’s hard. I can’t figure it out.”
We all wondered what might happen if the Braves stopped hitting homers, but even the greatest skeptic couldn’t have imagined a team that led the National League in home runs last season would fall to 10th. Once Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy were lost, the consensus was that this lineup would have to hit its way into October. Over 149 games, it hadn’t hit its way out of the proverbial paper bag.
That failure could resonate beyond this season. Every member of that everyday eight is under contract for next season, which isn’t to say that everyone will return. B.J. Upton will surely be gone via trade or buyout; Evan Gattis could be dealt, possibly as half of a sweet-and-sour package with Bossman Jr., to clear space for Christian Bethancourt, who’s ready to catch.
The Braves could try to move Justin Upton, the one hitter who has had a good season, or Jason Heyward, who ranks seventh among NL players in wins above replacement. Both can become free agents after next season. Ordinarily you’d think in terms of trying to keep both longterm, but the extensions lavished on Freddie Freeman, Andrelton Simmons, Julio Teheran and Craig Kimbrel — not to mention the golden parachute for Dan Uggla and possibly B.J. Upton — mightn’t leave much to spend.
Those extensions were viewed by some, this correspondent included, as four of the smartest moves general manager Frank Wren has made, but now we’ve cause to wonder. Is Freeman, who has been good but not great, a franchise player? Will Simmons hit enough to justify $58 million over seven years?
As Gonzalez noted, this lineup hasn’t hit as an entity. Will that change with a spot of winter tweaking, or is something systemic amiss? And if the lineup is indeed deemed substandard, will Wren, who built it, be allowed to deconstruct it?
Even with this summer’s fade, the Braves have compiled the National League’s best record since 2010. That has been done with a mid-market payroll on Wren’s watch. Is one lesser season enough to override a pretty fair run? And if you’re inclined to say yes, shouldn’t you consider the Nationals?
Washington won 98 games in 2012 and was favored to win the 2013 World Series. It finished 10 games behind the Braves, and the Nats’ 86 wins flattered them. (They were under .500 as late as Aug. 22.) Their only major change was to trade for starting pitcher Doug Fister. The Nationals will soon celebrate a division title.
Sometimes a down year is just a down year. Sometimes you blame it on El Nino and hope next summer is better. The Braves’ brass must decide if this season has been such a flop as to warrant starting over — and if so, who’ll be charged with conducting the restart.
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