If this afternoon’s contest between the Cardinals and Braves was a game you were interested in watching, hopefully you tuned in early; if you’re a fan of the Braves, or competitive baseball, there wasn’t much worth watching after that. Here was the Cardinals’ top of the first inning:

Things could have gone differently for Mike Foltynewicz. There was an infield single by Paul Goldschmidt; Freddie Freeman committed an error. If Goldschmidt had hit that grounder at an infielder instead of in the hole, or if Freeman had caught Yadier Molina’s gounder, the Braves escape with a 1-0 deficit in the first. That isn’t what happened, though. After a walk and a double, Foltynewicz was done down by four and Max Fried came in to face the pitcher with the bases loaded. Fried walked Jack Flaherty, more damage was done, and by the time the inning finally, mercifully concluded, the Braves’ were in a massive hole, though not until after a wild pitch allowed Marcell Ozuna to reach, and Kolten Wong to score. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Jay Jaffe noted that starting pitching has been carrying a greater load in the playoffs this year than in the regular season and recent postseasons. One really good reason for that is the sheer number of very good starters in the playoffs this October. Take today’s games as an example. Jack Flaherty and Mike Foltynewicz will go head to head this afternoon, followed by Walker Buehler and Stephen Strasburg tonight.

Below, find a table with the NL pitching WAR leaders this season:

Three of this season’s top seven National League pitchers by WAR are set to start, and try to get their teams a series away from the NL pennant. It’s possible we see a few more of those pitchers throw in relief in tonight’s games, as well. Now, look at this table showing the NL pitching WAR leaders since August 6 when Mike Foltynewicz made his first start since returning from the minors:

We could very well see an offensive explosion today, but the scheduled starting pitchers are some of the best in the game this year, with Mike Foltynewicz joining the group over the last two months of the season. Elimination games are almost always exciting, and these ones are likely to feature great pitching to boot.

The postseason lends itself to all sorts of narratives. There are team triumphs and individual stories, but this postseason features something special you might not have noticed: a few teammates who have been playing together for nine seasons or more. When Adam Wainwright took the mound for his Game 3 start against the Braves and threw a first pitch sinker to battery mate Yadier Molina (Ronald Acuna Jr. would foul that first pitch off, but ultimately strike out swinging), it was hard to forget that this may well be Wainwright’s final season, marking the end of a career during which so many of the right-handers best moments have come with Molina behind the plate. That first pitch got me thinking: which playoff teammates have been together the longest?

To answer that question, I turned to the game logs here at FanGraphs to find the first day both teammates appeared in a game together at the major league level. I also looked at how many total games each pair has appeared in together, which includes pinch-hit appearances, pitching in relief, and defensive substitutions. This does not include any time spent on the Injured List and only includes games in which both teammates made an appearance. I excluded the postseason for parity; the data is updated through the end of the 2019 season. So, before the Dodgers and the Nationals and the Cardinals and the Braves play their Game 5’s, let’s take a look at the longest-tenured teammates we can watch this October.

No. 5: Freddie Freeman and Julio Teheran

Debut as Teammates: May 7, 2011

Kicking off our list is the pitcher/first baseman duo for the Braves. These two have been staples in Atlanta for several years now; this year Julio Teheran became the only pitcher in Braves’ franchise history to start six consecutive Opening Days. Freddie Freeman has been at first base for all of them.

Teheran was initially left off the Braves’ Division Series roster but when Chris Martin suffered an oblique injury, Teheran took his place. Now both he and Freeman are trying to push Atlanta into the Championship Series for the first time since 2001, though they’re likely both hoping for better individual performances in Game 5; Freeman, perhaps still hampered by an elbow injury, is slashing just .125/.222/.313 with a 38 wRC+ in 18 postseason plate appearances, while Teheran took the loss in Game 4 after giving up a walk-off sacrifice fly to Yadier Molina that scored Kolten Wong.

Total regular season games together: 200 Read the rest of this entry »

After watching the Cardinals and Braves compete for four games, it seems fitting that the series would be tied up 2-2. In three of the four games, the losing team had a win expectancy of at least 80% while in the fourth game, Cardinals ace Jack Flaherty allowed just a single run in the first inning before a homer in the seventh gave the Braves a 3-0 lead that proved too much for a mostly struggling Cardinals offense. In a series this close, the team that blows the lead will inevitably lament the moments they let the lead get away, but in Game 4, the Braves lost not because of a lead they relinquished, but because of a lead they failed to solidify. The Braves refused to put the Cardinals away, or alternatively, the Cardinals relievers came up big when they needed to, and now the teams head to Game 5 for a shot at the National League Championship Series.

Before we get to those blown chances, we should briefly discuss how the Braves got the lead in the first place. The Cardinals were limited to one run off Dallas Keuchel in the first game of the series as Keuchel went off-brand, throwing just 24 two-seam fastballs in his outing. Though Keuchel walked three and struck out none in four and two-thirds innings, he did enough to keep the Cardinals off balance and induced 10 groundball outs, plus two more outs on a double play, and the other two outs on liners. In the first inning of Game 4, Keuchel went back to relying heavily on the two-seamer, but the Cardinals laid off the pitch, even as a strike. Paul Goldschmidt took two sliders for balls, then a two-seamer for a 3-0 count. After a 3-0 sinker for a strike, he hit a changeup out of the park. Up next, Marcell Ozuna took a first-pitch sinker for a ball and then crushed an inside cutter to put the Cardinals ahead 2-0.

Atlanta got a run back in the third before Ozuna hit another homer in the fourth off a slider to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead. Read the rest of this entry »

After narrowly escaping his ineffectiveness in Game 1, the Carlos Martinez Octobercoaster caused St. Louis to yack up a pivotal Game 3 at home, and cede a 2-to-1 NLDS series lead to the Atlanta Braves. A three-run Braves’ ninth on the back of three hits and two walks spoiled a timeless, if sometimes harrowing, 7.2 shutout innings from 38-year-old Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright, and sent 47,000 fans home in stunned silence.

Up until the twist, Planet of the Apes-y ending, St. Louis had maintained a loose grip on a 1-0 lead first captured on a second-inning Matt Carpenter sac fly, enabled by an earlier Marcell Ozuna double. Throughout the six innings that followed, the Cardinals survived several well-struck fly balls that momentarily stopped the collective heart of Busch Stadium, before they died at the warning track and fell harmlessly into the waiting glove of Dexter Fowler. A Ronald Acuña Jr. laser in the third (107 mph off the bat), a Nick Markakis golf shot (100 mph) in the fourth, and a hanging curveball to Matt Joyce (102.5 mph) in the seventh all amounted to nothing more than a few seconds of concern.

Then came the ninth inning. A leadoff double by Josh Donaldson (who was replaced at second base by human blur Billy Hamilton) immediately put the tying run in scoring position. Consecutive Martinez strikeouts forced Cardinals manager Mike Shildt to make a two-out decision. Either a) have Martinez face lefty-hitting catcher Brian McCann, or b) walk McCann so Martinez could face the right-handed Dansby Swanson, who had doubled off of Wainwright earlier in the game. Shildt chose to face Swanson, who obliterated a first-pitch hanging slider and tied the game on his second double. Adam Duvall followed with a less emphatic, but more significant, single that plated Rafael Ortega (who ran for McCann) and Swanson. Read the rest of this entry »

Nothing feels great with a 1-0 lead. Every hard hit pitch is a reminder that victory is fleeting. Nothing ever lasts. And everybody’s just waiting for you fail–including you.

Braves pitchers don’t have a long and storied history of 1-0 leads in the playoffs, but Mike Foltynewicz added to what legacy there is on Friday night with a performance that requires us to travel 18 years back in time to find a proper comparison, when the Braves went west to Houston for the 2001 NLDS.

After going up 1-0 in the series with a win in Game 1, Tom Glavine got the ball the next night. The Braves scored him a run on a double play in the third. That was it. Glavine wouldn’t sit on the bench as much as he’d bounce off it, having to so quickly return to the mound following another 1-2-3 frame from his offense. It was clear very quickly that he’d have to take care of the rest himself.

He pushed through eight innings; just him and his 1-0 lead. By the time he left the game, handing the ball to John Smoltz to get the save, they were both still intact.

“Nobody expects to win 1-0,” Glavine told reporters back then. “This is big. There’s no understanding it.”

That’s the last kind of pitching performance you want to be up against when you’re trying to win Game 2 of the NLDS, regardless of whether you’re the Astros in 2001 or the Cardinals this afternoon.

The Braves learned on Thursday that when Cardinals Devil Magic starts stirring, there’s not a whole lot more you can do but hope it at least leaves you your dignity. Their 7-6 loss at home in Game 1 put them in a hole. Fortunately for them, they had Mike Foltynewicz to pull them out of it. Read the rest of this entry »

The early innings of Game 1 at SunTrust Park on Thursday evening — and for that matter, the late ones — served as a reminder that you can watch baseball all year long, and drill deep in analyzing and anticipating what might happen come the postseason, but sometimes, things simply unfold in ways that run counter to numbers and expectations. Depending upon where you sit, that’s the thrill and the agony of October baseball. For seven innings, the mistakes by a stellar Cardinals defense loomed large against the backdrop of a low-scoring affair, but then a late-inning slugfest produced nine of the game’s 13 runs against a pair of usually-solid bullpens. Ultimately, the Cardinals overcame a 3-1 deficit, scoring six unanswered runs in the final two frames and hanging on for a 7-6 victory.

In the regular season, the Cardinals made fewer errors than any other NL team (66), posted the league’s highest Ultimate Zone Rating (32.8), second-highest defensive efficiency rate (.706), and third-highest total of Defensive Runs Saved. That excellent work gave a pitching staff that produced a middling 4.27 FIP quite a leg up; the team’s 3.82 ERA ranked second in the league, and the 0.45 runs per nine gap between ERA and FIP was the majors’ largest. Without that defense — which Craig Edwards called the primary driver of their success just a few weeks ago — the Cardinals might well have wound up in the Wild Card game, or even outside the playoff picture instead of winning the division.

Meanwhile, a bullpen that lost closer Jordan Hicks to Tommy John surgery in late June wound up finding a silver lining in Carlos Martinez’s rotator cuff strain. As with last August, when he rehabbed his way back from a previous shoulder strain as a reliever, Martinez returned to the bullpen. He pitched very well if not dominant, posting a 3.05 ERA and 2.86 FIP while converting 24 of 27 save chances. He allowed just two home runs in 48.1 innings. On Thursday night, when it appeared the game was firmly in hand, he allowed two more and made things interesting. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Baseball Systems Developer

Location: Atlanta, GA (Remote preferred)

Description:
The Baseball Systems Developer position emphasizes software and web development as it relates to the Baseball Operations department. The Developer’s main responsibilities will be to build and enhance proprietary applications for displaying baseball information and visualizations, maintaining existing information management systems, and developing additional productivity tools to aid in Baseball Operations decision making. Candidates must have proven experience with application and/or web development, with interest in baseball and sports analytics research as a strong plus. The position will report to Assistant General Manager, Research and Development.

Note: The candidate that fills this position will have the option to work remotely or in the Braves’ Atlanta offices. Remote is preferred.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and maintain proprietary software used within the Baseball Operations department.
• Work with department stakeholders to develop, deploy and test applications within IT best practice parameters.
• Build relationships, communicate effectively, and gather feedback from Baseball Operations staff to build new platforms and improve existing systems.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications:

• BA or BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related technical field of study or equivalent work experience.
• 2+ years of software development experience in one or more programming languages: Java, .NET, Python, JavaScript, C#, C/C++.
• Experience with database technologies and SQL. Microsoft SQL Server experience is a plus.
• Familiarity with using version control such as git.
• Ability to learn new technologies, including new coding languages.
• Comfort with Agile software development methodology. Kanban or Scrumban experience a plus.
• Strong work ethic, initiative, and the ability to solve technical problems.
• Ability to work flexible hours, including some nights and weekends as dictated by the Major League season.
• Must complete a successful background check.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Knowledge of current baseball statistics and analytics used in player evaluation a plus
• Experience with data visualization a plus.
• Solid fundamentals with HTML/CSS.
• Web development experience, especially with JavaScript (Node.js, Vue.js, React), or Python (Flask)
• Experience with big data techniques
• Familiarity with cloud developer tools
• iOS and/or Android app development.
• Demonstrated software development work product.

To Apply:
If you are interested, please email your resume and any other materials to bravesrdpositions@gmail.com.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the Atlanta Braves.

The Braves’ playoff roster includes seven players who joined the team during the 2019 season and two others who were acquired near the end of Spring Training. That’s pretty significant turnover in a fairly short amount of time for a team that won the NL East in 2018 and had pretty much wrapped up their offseason by the end of November after signing a former AL MVP to play third base and bringing back a catcher who was a seven-time All-Star during his first stint in Atlanta.

When the team struggled out of the gate, it became clear that the roster might not be good enough to reach the postseason once again. While the four homegrown players on the playoff roster did a lot of the leg work, combining for 18.2 WAR, second-year general manager Alex Anthopoulos made a lot of good moves that helped turn things around and has the team once again playing October baseball after a 97-win season.

Here’s how every member of the Braves’ 2019 NLDS roster was originally acquired. The team’s full RosterResource Depth Chart and Payroll pages are also available as a resource.

Homegrown (4)

• Freddie Freeman, 1B: Drafted Second Round 2007
• Ozzie Albies, 2B: Amateur Free Agent (Curacao) July 2013
• Ronald Acuña Jr., OF: Amateur Free Agent (Venezuela) July 2014
• Mike Soroka, SP: Drafted First Round (28) 2015

Total WAR: 18.2

Signed in Free Agency (9)

• Nick Markakis, OF: December 2014 (BAL) — Signed to four-year, $44 million contract; re-signed to one-year contract extension (2020 club option) in January.
• Tyler Flowers, C: December 2015 (CHW) — Signed to two-year, $5.3 million contract (included $4 million club option in 2018).
• Brian McCann, C: November 2018 (HOU) — Signed to one-year, $2 million contract.
• Josh Donaldson, 3B: November 2018 (CLE) — Signed to one-year, $23 million contract.
• Rafael Ortega, OF: January 2019 (MIA) — Signed to Minor League contract.
• Josh Tomlin, RP: March 2019 (MIL) — Signed to Minor League contract ($1.25 million salary).
• Dallas Keuchel, SP: June 2019 (HOU) — Signed to one-year, $21.21 million contract (prorated rate is $13 million).
• Adeiny Hechavarría, INF: August 2019 (NYM) — Signed to minimum salary contract for remainder of season.
• Francisco Cervelli, C/1B: August 2019 (PIT) — Signed to minimum salary contract for remainder of season.

Total WAR: 10.6

Acquired Via Trade (11)

• Max Fried, SP: December 2014 (SDP) — Acquired in trade that sent Justin Upton and Aaron Northcraft to the Padres.
• Mike Foltynewicz, SP: January 2015 (HOU) — Acquired in trade that sent Evan Gattis and James Hoyt to the Astros.
• Sean Newcomb, RP: November 2015 (LAA) — Acquired in trade that sent Andrelton Simmons and Jose Briceno to the Angels.
• Dansby Swanson, SS: December 2015 (ARI) — Acquired in trade that sent Shelby Miller and Gabe Speier to the Diamondbacks.
• Luke Jackson, RP: December 2016 (TEX) — Acquired in trade that sent Tyrell Jenkins and Brady M. Feigl to the Rangers.
• Adam Duvall, OF: July 2018 (CIN) — Acquired in trade that sent Lucas Sims, Preston Tucker, and Matt Wisler to the Reds.
• Darren O’Day, RP: July 2018 (BAL) — Acquired in trade that sent Evan Phillips, Bruce Zimmermann, Brett Cumberland, JC Encarnacion, and international bonus slot money to the Orioles.
• Matt Joyce, OF: March 2019 (SFG) — Acquired in trade that sent cash considerations to the Giants.
• Chris Martin, RP: July 2019 (TEX) — Acquired in trade that sent Kolby Allard to the Rangers.
• Mark Melancon, RP: July 2019 (SFG) — Acquired in trade that sent Dan Winkler and Tristan Beck to the Giants.
• Shane Greene, RP: July 2019 (DET) — Acquired in trade that sent Travis Demeritte and Joey Wentz to the Tigers.

Total WAR: 10.3

Acquired Off Waivers (1)

• Billy Hamilton, OF: August 2019 (KCR)

Total WAR: 0.1

It is some kind of fall to go from earning a top-10 finish in Cy Young voting to being demoted to the minors in just an 11-game span, but that is exactly what happened to Atlanta right-hander Mike Foltynewicz this summer. A 2.85 ERA, 3.37 FIP, and 3.8 WAR in 183 innings in 2018 led to an eighth-place Cy Young finish and set him up to become the ace that would guide this next generation of great Braves teams. Then this season got started, and Foltynewicz looked like a disaster.

He missed the first four weeks of the season due to a bone spur in his pitching elbow, and when he returned, he allowed a 6.37 ERA over his first 11 starts. Twice he allowed eight earned runs in fewer than five innings. He had two other starts in which he allowed five earned runs, and two others in which he allowed four. When Dallas Keuchel joined the rotation near the end of June, the choice for who would be the odd man out to make room for him was clear: Foltynewicz had to go.

That was just three months ago, but just as quickly as he lost all direction, Foltynewicz has re-established himself as a formidable starter. Since returning from the minors, he’s held opponents to a 2.65 ERA in 57.2 innings. Take away his first two starts, and he’s been even better: A 1.94 ERA since August 17 that ranks sixth-best in the majors. Even in a Braves rotation that looked very strong for much of the season, Foltynewicz has pitched well enough to just about lock himself in to start one of the first two games of the NLDS against the Cardinals. Without a doubt, it’s been an impressively quick return to form, but there are still a few questions surrounding how he stacks up against the rest of the Braves’ pitching staff as a playoff starter. Read the rest of this entry »