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Remember when losing Beachy and Medlen meant the rotation was doomed?
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Bonus GIF of Big Erv's new change up
That’s where we are with the Atlanta Braves, who have somehow managed to keep their early run of insanely good pitching alive and well through the end of April. And when I say insanely good, I mean just that. Even after Alex Wood got hit hard in Miami on Tuesday night, Atlanta’s rotation ERA- is 55. Since Jackie Robinson integrated the game in 1947, the lowest rotation ERA- we have on record for a full season is 73, by three teams, including the 1997 and ’98 Braves of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz. If it’s unfair to compare a month of play to full seasons, well, then you might like to know that since the 1968 “Year of the Pitcher,” only three other teams have had a rotation ERA below 2.00 in a month of at least 25 games, as the Braves currently do. Each of those teams — the 1976 Dodgers, 1992 Braves and 2011 Phillies — had at least one Hall of Famer in the rotation or someone with a strong case to be there in the future.
Still, this all matters. It matters that they’re out to a 17-8 start, behind only Milwaukee for the fewest losses in baseball. It matters because this is quite a nice head start they’ve pushed themselves out to, one they can take advantage of when the rotation inevitably hits a rough patch.
You can see the effects of this already in how we’re viewing the Braves’ likelihood of reaching October. In late March, our staff projections came out, and 28 of the 31 of us selected the Nationals as the NL East favorite. That’s about the same as I saw on other major sites, and while the Nationals/Braves rivalry seems to be even hotter than Red Sox/Yankees these days — at least among those who comment on baseball articles and assume bias in everything — I don’t think it was unfair to have thought that way. At the time, Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy had recently exploded. Mike Minor was sidelined. Ervin Santana had just signed, but had missed most of camp. Doug Fister, Ryan Zimmerman, Wilson Ramos and Bryce Harper weren’t yet injured in Washington, and Stephen Strasburg wasn’t yet allowing a .407 BABIP. Harang had just signed with Atlanta that day, in what was termed a “curious swap” when Freddy Garcia was let go, which tells you a bit about how Harang was viewed. These rosters were different a month ago then they are now.
The playoff odds have changed along with them, although it’s not like Atlanta was coming from last place. (The Braves were the overwhelming choice for NL Wild Card in our staff picks.) Right now, we have the Braves on pace to win the second-most games in the majors. The playoff odds have them now as a toss-up with the Nationals to win the East, and equally as likely as the Dodgers to make the playoffs at all, at nearly 76%. Obviously, even if everything reverts back to what we thought we knew about the Braves a month ago, this run has made a huge difference. They have banked a good deal of wins. They’ve asked their bullpen to pitch the second-fewest innings in baseball. The Nationals are greatly weakened. Harang could never win another game, and he’ll still have been an important part of a potential playoff run.
You can see the effects of this already in how we’re viewing the Braves’ likelihood of reaching October. In late March, our staff projections came out, and 28 of the 31 of us selected the Nationals as the NL East favorite. That’s about the same as I saw on other major sites, and while the Nationals/Braves rivalry seems to be even hotter than Red Sox/Yankees these days — at least among those who comment on baseball articles and assume bias in everything — I don’t think it was unfair to have thought that way. At the time, Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy had recently exploded. Mike Minor was sidelined. Ervin Santana had just signed, but had missed most of camp. Doug Fister, Ryan Zimmerman, Wilson Ramos and Bryce Harper weren’t yet injured in Washington, and Stephen Strasburg wasn’t yet allowing a .407 BABIP. Harang had just signed with Atlanta that day, in what was termed a “curious swap” when Freddy Garcia was let go, which tells you a bit about how Harang was viewed. These rosters were different a month ago then they are now.
The playoff odds have changed along with them, although it’s not like Atlanta was coming from last place. (The Braves were the overwhelming choice for NL Wild Card in our staff picks.) Right now, we have the Braves on pace to win the second-most games in the majors. The playoff odds have them now as a toss-up with the Nationals to win the East, and equally as likely as the Dodgers to make the playoffs at all, at nearly 76%. Obviously, even if everything reverts back to what we thought we knew about the Braves a month ago, this run has made a huge difference. They have banked a good deal of wins. They’ve asked their bullpen to pitch the second-fewest innings in baseball. The Nationals are greatly weakened. Harang could never win another game, and he’ll still have been an important part of a potential playoff run.
Again, obviously, the rotation isn’t going to keep doing what they’re doing, especially Harang. Then again, they might not need to. Minor returns to the rotation on Friday. Gavin Floyd should be available in May. Hale can always return if needed. If one of these guys turns back into a pumpkin, they have some options. Our projections have them as the No. 25 rotation in baseball from here on out, partially because none of the pitchers are suddenly seen as the true Felix Hernandez / Jose Fernandez type ace, and if you want to argue that’s too low, that’s fine. The Braves rotation, for the most part, is still the Braves rotation, with a possible exception in Santana. They’re just that with a month of outstanding performance replacing the month of decent performance we thought we’d see. That shouldn’t significantly change how we view them, but it all still counts — and it just might be what gets them another division title even if we never see them perform anything like this ever again.
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