How Will Walt Weiss Build The Braves Lineup In 2026?

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the Hammer Territory Podcast, Episode three to six. Fun name is Brad Roland. I am joined today as I austin him by Scott Holman. Scott, I am iced into my home right now.

00:00:34
Speaker 2: How are you hello, Brad? I am not iced into my home. It's about sixty five degrees and not a cloud in the sky out here in Arizona. But in a serious note, I do hope that everybody, I mean basically the entire country west and north of me is in some pretty serious weather. I hope everybody out there is staying warm and being safe. And we'll see. We'll see if Brad's power holds for the next however long that's been, yeah, and touch and go, But damn it, we wanted to get a podcast out for the people to talk about the Atlanta Braves.

00:01:07
Speaker 1: We're going a little bit earlier than we normally would on Sunday in case things get worse. But I just did a show on my Atlanta Hawks podcast and lost power twice. So hang on your hats, everybody. We will be here. But today I'm actually gonna let you tee it up in a second, Scott, because this is it was your idea to do this this lead segment, and it's a good one. I think it's not my most natural topic because we're conditioned to have watched Brian Sticker led baseball teams for the last several seasons. But hey, there's a new manager in town for the Atlanta Braves, and that leads to some questions about how the Braves might actually deploy their lineup. Like it's like we kind of knew what was going to happen other than the Ronaldocunya tour of the lineup last year that was memorable for all the wrong reasons. And I won't make a joke about where he hit in the lineup. Seventh, Scott, let's go to you here on this. What are we talking about this for? What's our purpose in evaluating where the Braves might go with the So.

00:02:01
Speaker 2: We've talked around it a little bit this offseason. But with the additions and developments that we have seen with the Braves recently and a new manager in Walt Weiss, basically the first time in a decade the Braves are going to have someone other than Brian Sticker filling out the lineup card every night, there's some real questions about how the Braves should and ultimately will construct their lineup, especially at the top. And you have a handful of lefties, like left handed only bats, and that's something the Braves have not had a ton of in recent years, so you had to find a way to balance out your lefties. There's the million dollar question of where will Ronaldracunya junior bat. And you have mike Yastremsky who has some pretty drastic platoon splits, which is interesting. I don't know how many times on the pod this offseason we have said the name Jerks and Profar out loud and.

00:02:53
Speaker 3: Shame on us.

00:02:54
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess it's a good thing that Profar was good enough last year that we don't really have to talk about profile lot over the last couple of months because he was productive and more of the player we thought the Braves were going to invest in even after the ped suspension. But where do you bet Jerkson Profar? Where do you bet Drake Baldwin after a fantastic Rookie of the Year season. Where do you hit Matt Olsen, Where do you hit Austin Riley? There are some real questions, I think, especially kind of one through six, with this order, and then also some questions at the bottom with your Michael Harris, Ozzy Alby's, Mauricio Dubon, Eli White, like pick your you know, a couple of bench guys as well, Like there's there's some real intrigue.

00:03:31
Speaker 1: Gets to filling out this lineup. There is and there's variability as to who will be playing on that certain day. Like for the longest time, it's really been in the Braves that put the same lineup on the on the field every day barring injury. And I don't just be in the order like the players, and they have some legitimate like platoon concerns or not some concerns, but like considerations to deal with this year. He struct he's being the number one example of that. But you know, even when someone like Costa Kimes comes back, you got Dubon and the catcher situation, two guys that are you know, especially ball when it's clearly good and Murphy has been good and has platoon split. Like, all these different variables are in play and it is going to benifest I think in a lot of different combinations for of course of the year. But there's still probably will most teams do Jonah kind of run a main lineup like something approaching a main deployment that they use regularly, and there are questions about that. So we taught before we started recording and decided to start with one thing, and that is ron Akutne. So for the longest time, it wasn't really a discussion. Ryan just let off. That just happened, and it did for years and years and years. I mean, he's been in that spot forever. It worked, he's the former RepA of the league. And then last year they stopped doing that for a while and we won't we won't relive all of that, but it was just a little bit strange. And given that there is a new manager in town, there's always a chance he's not leading off. So I'll ask you first, how much of a chance is there in your head that he might not lead off? And if it was you, where would you like to see on whatever opening day is two months from now ron Acunya in the lineup, because I mean, we're always going to be there, hopefully knock on wood for all the things. But he's still the best player. So where's where's he going to bat? Scott? Where should he bet?

00:05:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question.

00:05:21
Speaker 2: And until Walt Weiss either answers the question or fills out his lineup card against the Kansas City Royals in the final weekend of March, we're not going to know. But where I think Acunya is going to bed. I think he's going to be back at leadoff. I would imagine that Weiss will probably have a conversation with Ronald as well as a. I mean, he's going to talk to all the players, especially being newly in charge. But my guess is Acunual bat lead off at the end of the day, your leadoff hitter bat's lead off one time, and after that he's the guy who gets the most played appearances out of your entire lineup.

00:05:57
Speaker 3: That's it.

00:05:58
Speaker 2: And if if it's the ninth inning in a tie game, I would take Acunya batting lead off all day long because that lineup turns over and you need to hit, Like give me ron A Nakunya every every single time. There you could make an argument for Jerks and Profar and that's I mean, that's probably it for me. I mean, is there anyone else that you could realistically see Walt White having lead off instead of Akunya.

00:06:23
Speaker 1: No, I think that's if they were to change something, I would guess it would be Profar. Pro Far batted there last year when Ronnie wasn't available. Pro Far hits. I think it was seventy two games he hit lead off last season. The bulk of that was without Ronnie. But even when Ronnie came back, as we discussed, like, it was a little bit of Profar. And Profar has always been a high walk guy, like he is a good approach to hit leadoff for. We don't have take a way back into the way back machine. But there was forever like the fastest guys that lead off, and it was like, I get why that was. That's changed now teams understand generally that you don't want to just have it's not just about speed. You'd rather have guys who'd get on base versus speed. And Ronnie may never run to the level he did a couple of years ago. Ever, again that's fair to say, but Ronald Acunya over the last six seasons has like a thirteen percent walk, right. He gets on base a lot and is an awesome hitter and can run and all that stuff. So if it's me, Ryan's leading off unless he just is so opposed to it, then it's gonna be a problem, which I can't imagine that could be the case. He's been there forever, so why would it be a problem now. Yeah, But barring him like raising a stink, he's hitting lead off. For me, it's not even a difficult conversation in my opinion.

00:07:31
Speaker 2: And if for some reason Ronald is not leading off, then I think you have to bat him second.

00:07:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, Profar leading off and Ronnie second would be totally fine with me. But you know, we don't have to go all the way into the way the book, the Modern Day book lays out the lineups. But gone are the days where your best hitters should be hitting third and fourth. That was kind of always like the old school way of thinking. That's not the case. Now. You see a lot of teams go with their best hitter hitting second, for example, and Ronnie is either leading off or he is your best hitter hitting second. Either one of those, that's fine with me. But anything lower than that I would be disappointed by. For sure.

00:08:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.

00:08:07
Speaker 2: And you know there's some math too that shows that batting third is actually not optimal. Optimal for your lineup because you're guaranteed to hit in the first inning, but there is a decent chance that the first two hitters aren't on, and then you have your best hitter batting with nobody on base in two outs. So again, it's probably one of those things that over the course if you could sim it out one hundred and sixty two games. To be honest, I don't know how much of an actual impact it would really make on the Braves offensive production. You can never predict who's going to go three for four that night and who's going to go zero for four.

00:08:40
Speaker 3: But I think to put a bow.

00:08:42
Speaker 2: On Ronaldcunya Junior, I would bat him lead off. It sounds like you would too. Our guess is that on opening day Walt Weiss will have Ronald batting lead off. But if he's at two in the order, that might be interesting if you want to try to get Ronald on base with a few more runners on instead of those solo homers are awesome, but instead having a couple of two and three run homers. Sure I wouldn't. I don't think we'll do a podcast wondering why Ronald's batting second instead of lead off. But yeah, one of those top two spots, and I think we're good to go.

00:09:11
Speaker 1: Ronal Akunya has about three thousand plus plate appearances in his career at leadoff and less than six hundred anywhere else. I think that's the right approach. Just hit Ronnie lead off two to nine. There are more arguments to be had, in my opinion than there are about who hits leadoff. That'd be where I would leave it as far as my opinion is concerned. In a second we'll get to the rest of the lineup in particular, how to maybe some at least a big picture of thoughts about how to construct things, flipping orders, flipping platoons, all that stuffs coming off, I promise you in just one moment after I word from our ours. Okay, Scott, let's say Ronnie hits lead off. Do you have a optimal number two hitter in your brain.

00:09:56
Speaker 2: It's a great question, I think, given the rest of the lineup construction, I think it has to be a lefty.

00:10:03
Speaker 3: Now, maybe you.

00:10:05
Speaker 2: Can make it a righty if you're facing a good left handed pitcher and the idea that you want to optimize your rity's at the top. But for me, I think second should either be Drake Baldwin or matt Olsen.

00:10:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I tend to agree. This is the one spot where I'm not quite as they have to have a lefty here just because of how good Ronnie is against righty's anyway, Like he's like kind of platoon proof, so I'd say he's a right handed hitter. But you know, the platoon advantage of having this having the guys you know staggered isn't quite as large when Ronnie is one of them, because he just doesn't he's an alien. But I'm still with you. Look, if you are of the mind that the best hitter should hit second, the best hitter is probably matt Olsen. Not can't run, so if you care about that at all, he can't do it. But I don't really care about that very much. I'd like to have him as much as possible, so it would be out of the ordinary from att Olsen to hit second. That doesn't bother me. I probably wouldn't bother him. I wouldn't think. I'm looking now as we're talking to see if he's batted second very much in his career. He did a little bit, actually, two and fifteen games of banting second, so not like a totally out of the ordinary place for him to be. I would probably do that. Balwin will be fine with me. Even Profar would be fine with me, because Profar is this switch hitter, but he could hit left handed and gets on base on that stuff. But so I think you got three options. What I would certainly not do is have Riley hitting second. By Kunya, he'd be the only guy of the reasonable candidates. And in my mind, the reasonable candidates are Akunya, Olsen, Riley, Profar, Baldwin for the top five hitters in the order. Basically, the only reasonable candidate I would not do would be Riley. Anything else will be.

00:11:53
Speaker 2: Finally, yeah, and the challenge if you bet Riley second is then you have Olsen, Baldwin, and Yastremsky who are going to be batting three to six more than likely, that's three out of four hitters would be would be lefties, with Profar mixtent. So I mean, teams would just set up lefties all day long in the for their bullpen and just bring in one.

00:12:15
Speaker 1: And then here, I mean, and you got Harrison Harris at the bottom, who king lefties at all as we know, So yeah, yeah, I'm a few hundred percent on that. I don't think they'll do that either. I don't think it would be I don't think anybody, uh would big brain themselves in their front office slash coaching staff into Robbie hitting second mind of Kunya. But everything else is fine. I mean, it's one of the luxures of this offense is that I think Olson, Profar, and Balwin would all be reasonable. Candadiate's to hit second behind Ronny, That'd be totally fine. They're all really good hitters. There is, I mean a minor question about Baldwin's sophomore slump stuff, but only because we haven't seen it, not because of anything he did profile wives. He was awesome last year. So yeah, I'm in on I'm in on any of those three. I think the most traditional path is like it's probably pro far like if Weiss went kind of want wants to go a little bit more of the old school, like you know Corn guy that's not a big bopper but gets on bass kind of thing, Profar, But all three of those guys have power, all three of them take walks. Yeah, I would probably lean to Olsen, I liked I like Olsen to bat more. But if you want to tell me you prefer Baldwin, I you know, fine with me. Balden was great last year. If you do that again, then no no issues here.

00:13:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I would agree.

00:13:30
Speaker 2: And you know, thinking about Baldwin, he's not somebody who strikes out a ton, and that might be something that Weiss wants at the top of his order, a guy who's a little more contact oriented. Whereas we know, Olsen has incredible power. I mean, he said fifty homers in a year before, but he does have a little more swing and miss to his game, even if he does a good job overall of getting on base. But yeah, you know, it's interesting as we talk this out, I'm actually kind of leaning towards Drake Baldwin batting second and then having Matt Olsen fourth. But if you flip those two, I mean I wouldn't fight you on it.

00:14:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you mentioned the strikeouts. Pro far is also a very low guy. He's a very high high walk, low shrekout player. So if that's a priority two, he could be the other option versus ballwin in that spot. Okay, we've we've crossed the top two off to some degree. If they, as we assume put one of those three hitting second, Do you hit hit Riley third and just say you've been there before, big fella, Hopefully you'll be back to where you used to be as a hitter. He's been there a lot, so it wouldn't be out of the order for him. Again, as you already laid out, he's the only pure right headed bat of this group.

00:14:40
Speaker 3: I think so.

00:14:41
Speaker 2: Now, if Austin is struggling and continues to struggle, then I think there's a chance that Riley could be dropped to fifth or I mean maybe even sixth, Like if he continues to not hit the way he's not hit over the last year and a half whenever he's been healthy and on that. No, that might sound like a little bit of an outlandish claim, but a few weeks ago, Brad and I had a pretty candid conversation about both Austin Riley and Matt Olsen. I would encourage you to go listen to that show. It's about forty minutes long, really digging into Austin Riley. At this point, I really do feel like Riley's going to bounce back, And assuming he does bounce back, I would bet Austin third. But if he's struggling and he's striking out a bunch, and you presumably are going to have a bunch of base runners at the leadoff spot in number two getting on base. If it's Akunya and Olsen or Acunya in Baldwin, then.

00:15:31
Speaker 1: Maybe you go Jerkson Profar third.

00:15:33
Speaker 2: As a switch hitter. Profar batted third quite a bit when he was with the Padres during his breakout season. I don't think that's necessarily optimal because that means that Austin Riley is struggling again. But I mean, my guess is that they will open the year with Riley betting third. It would not bother me at all if they opened the season with Roby hitting fifth.

00:15:53
Speaker 1: It just wouldn't. I think that's the level he's performed at the last couple of years. I also understand if they don't want to do that and want to, you know, go into it and thinking that he is just going to bounce back and be his old cell from three years ago. That's certainly within within the roll of outcomes, and I think that's, you know, hopefully what you'll see if you're a Brace fan. I do think the Profar would be the other option hitting third, if it's not Riley in the same way Profar you know has had more plate appearances as left hand and batter or recently because that's just the side that's the stronger platoon side. But he's been totally fine to good as a right handed hitter against lefties, will be totally fine there and was a better here than probably was last year. So I don't know what they'll do. That's again the kind of the on the uncertainty and the fresh eyes of a new manager. And I just want to say this out loud, and it's not a shot at Walt Weiss at all. I promise people got to realize that in twenty twenty six. Well, I know that Alex and Snitt were always publicly on the Snit has the lineup card aspect of things. A lot of organizations do not have it that way. There's at least some influence of the front office analytist guys. They may not dictate to the manager, but I can assure you what Wiss will be given all kinds of information to help him form his decisions. And I know what Snit was given like more cart blotch than most managers are in the modern than the modern baseball I think with the lineup, and that was the way that him and Alex found their detante. You know, I don't know that's gonna make cares of Wice.

00:17:28
Speaker 3: We'll see.

00:17:28
Speaker 1: Maybe Bice will have the same power. I have no idea, but it's not just one guy sitting down with a pencil in a room alone putting the lineup cart together. I can assure you that there'll be some information passed his way.

00:17:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, And it's interesting.

00:17:42
Speaker 2: Joe Girardi was on Foul Territory a while back and was talking about his time as manager, and he talked about just agonizing over what kind of lineup he should build out with the data that's available, and what is the optimal lineup and splits and career histories against pitchers and all of those things. And he said that at the end of the season he went to the front office guys and they ran some simulations of all the lineups they put out there, and they found that there was basically no correlation as if if Bryce Harper was hitting first, first, hitting second, first, hitting third, verse hitting fourth, and across the board, and sure, naturally there's there's going to be stretches where a certain lineup is working out, because that's baseball. Teams get hot. It comes down to one or two played appearances so many times, and if you get the hit, you win the game, and if you don't get the hit, you probably lose the game. But yes, I mean to just what Brad said is I think is accurate, and I'd be interested to know and see what we hear in the months to come about kind of Weiss's operating style and how it's different from Brian Stittcker and if the front office appears to be a little more involved with the day to day management of the team.

00:18:50
Speaker 1: I used to lose my mind about line of construction on this podcast and in other places.

00:18:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too.

00:18:59
Speaker 1: I think things are different. I think I'm a little bit different about what I was myment over. But also teams just don't make the insane mistakes they used to make, like because of the influence of numbers. The most famous example of me going crazy was when the Braves would willingly bat Daniel Castro second like they would literally this is in a little it's a lot of time ago, it's even pre snit like they would use Dio Castro was a player that people don't even remember existed, but was a no bat utility guy and he routinely would hit second in the lineup. And it's like that just doesn't happen anymore, Like teams don't do that. And yeah, if the Braves come out on opening Day and they hit Ozzie Alby's second against a right handed pitcher, I will hit the roof if that happens. Yeah, but within reason. What you just said is one hundred percent, like this stuff matters, but it matters a lot less that people think that it is. Does that make sense? Is that a reasonable framing? I feel like and because of that, like the marginal marginal things like I might prefer this to this or whatever. I don't go crazy anymore. It's just the outlier examples where I might be like, what is going on here? Like when Rona Hoody hit seven in the lineup, I hit the roof, right, I did lose my mind on not that I was mad about that. It was insane. I stand by my reaction. It made no sense at all. But I do that like once every three years now, you know what I mean? Like, it's not a normal thing. Because as much as st and I'll probably don't see ey to eye on everything with baseball. He wasn't doing crazy stuff with the lineup every day. He just wasn't.

00:20:29
Speaker 2: As long as there's nothing egregious, and I don't think we're going to see that. I mean, yeah, if if Ozzie it's a perfect example. Or if Mauricio Dubon is betting second on opening.

00:20:38
Speaker 1: Day, Michael Harris, I guess lefty out opening day is hitting second, and then I'll be.

00:20:42
Speaker 2: Mad, but you know, we'll talk about it then. But hopefully we don't have to cross that bridge.

00:20:47
Speaker 1: Let's hope. So let's just discuss a little bit about some of the platoon based interesting there's going on with the bridge this year. The most famous example is probably in Mikashimsky, who the Braves acquired gave real money to, but not a crazy contract like he's being paid like a fourth outfielder type, third outfielder, fourth out third type. But he has a clear as day platoon split to the point where it was acknowledged in Alex's comments. Everyone knows the deal of Michael Scremsky. He hits right, he's really really well. That's why he was signed. He could play defits in a corner as fine, he's fine there. But the reason he was acquired is that he hits right headed pitching. That's why he was signed very clearly.

00:21:30
Speaker 3: Yep.

00:21:31
Speaker 1: So when he's when you're fessing a righty, he's a totally fine guy that had in your lineup in like the top six of the lineup against the Ryan pitcher. He's that kind of he's a good hitters. I guess the lefty he probably shouldn't be playing at all, and if he does play, he should be hitting a lot lower in the lineup, like it's that big of a split. So through that lens, we talked about five guys already against Bacunya, Olsen, Riley, Profar, and Baldwin. If bab won't play every day, he's a catcher, he'll play a lot, but won't play every single day. Probably the other four in Baldwin, if they're in the lineup, that's your top five, probably in some order, six to nine, Like I think is probably your sixth best hitter against righty's like he's in there. Maybe Sean Murphy is part of that against lefties. If Sean Murphy is healthy, that we'll get we'll get there, when we get there, and then you got your your Harris Alb's dubon. You mentioned like White earlier as a platoon guy with maybe with Uscremsky for example. But how do you think that's like big picture, how do they approach this? Because there are some simple ones like hey, yas in against rightys and yeas out against lefties. But there's some nuanced stuff too, especially especially around for me, it's like where does how do they use Murphy? And then how much does Baldwin d H when he's not catching? That's another big one too. It's like that goes along with the Stremski because for me, Murphy should never DH against against alrighty. That would be a mistake. You can DH profar Dsky.

00:22:58
Speaker 3: In that spot.

00:22:58
Speaker 1: But if you're flight sing a left and you want Ball would to be in the lineup, I could see Murphy and ballould both playing US lefty. So there's all these little things, but how do you how do you view this as kind of just it might be day to day. It's interesting, it might be a lot a lot of like day to day decision making. Yeah, I mean a lot of a lot of points there. So we'll go kind of one by one.

00:23:17
Speaker 2: So I think to put a quick bow on the top of the lineup, I think we feel confidently. I mean, my guess it's going to be Akunya Olsen, Riley Baldwin, Profar would be my guest. If I had to put one hundred bucks on it today last week of January, that would be my guess. Against righty's, I think Mike Yustremski should absolutely be batting sixth. Agree, I mean, if he's really hitting the way he hit the last couple of years, I think you might even be able to say Eustremski should be batting fifth. But the reason being, and I know he's the new guy, so quick numbers on him. The last three years he has a one oh seven WRC plus, which is good above average overall. And then but really that's weighed down by him not being very good against lefties. So the last three seasons against right handed pitching, Mike Kyastremsky has a eighth nine ops and a one twenty WRC plus which is very strong again upwards of eight hundred ops against right handed pitching. So I think you bat Yustreemsky sixth. And then I mean you want to do the Catcher discussion now with Baldwin and Murphy. I mean we don't, and we don't know.

00:24:28
Speaker 3: I mean we don't.

00:24:29
Speaker 2: It sounds like, if you read between the lines on Alexanthopoulos's comments, Sean Murphy may not be ready to go at the start of the year as he recovers from his hip surgery that had apparently been bothering him for years, which is kind of crazy to me. I think this lineup is so much better when Drake Baldwin is in there just about every day. I think the Braves will probably try to be strategic every now and then and give Baldwin a day off completely. But I think Baldwin is going to catch and dight a lot this upcoming year, and then we just have to hope that Sean Murphy brings some kind of consistency because we've seen him man. I mean, when he's hot, he is scorching hot. When he is cold, I mean he's not hitting Brad Rowland's best curveball that day. I mean, it's it's been very Jekyll and Hide with Sean Murphy the past couple of years.

00:25:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll probably do a Catcher episode at some point soon. But I do think that it's worth remembering that most catchers, like there are a couple of total outliers, don't DH every day. They're not playing catcher like cal Rally. Cal Raley played every day last year. Basically occasually you'll get a Salvador Perez up there too, but most catchers kind of maxed out, like one hundred and forty games even with their dhing some that's kind of where I would put ball win. And my projection is like maybe he plays one to forty, he catches one hundred and ten times, and dch is the other thirty something times, something like that. And these are all roll of numbers, but you know what, you get the idea he's gonna play a lot, not every single day, is my guess. Like maybe a day off after a day game, after a night game, he won't play that kind of thing. You're hoping, to your point, Murphy's back in relatively short order. We don't know when. I do think the blessing of having Baldwin be as good as he is is that there's a little bit less pressure on Sean Murphy. I know he makes a lot of money.

00:26:19
Speaker 3: I get it.

00:26:19
Speaker 1: Everybody I promise, I understand. But he can be a backup catcher for a little while as he gets his legs under him, and it's not a big deal by the midute, but over the full season, you needed to be closer to Sean Murphy ideally because then there's some freedom you can DH to him. Because like at times in the last couple of years, Sean Murphy has been a DH level player at the plate. At times he has not been, So they'll we'll find that out, how healthy he.

00:26:45
Speaker 3: Is all that stuff.

00:26:47
Speaker 1: But for example, like Profar is really a DH on defense, Like he can play left field, but ideally he's dhing a lot. Yeah, he can play left field, but not play it well. He can stand there. He's not Azuna. He can stand there, but it's not ideal. So for me, I'm hoping to see a lot of Profar at DH this year. It's hard to do that if Ba's gonna DH a lot. So like there's only one spot at DH if is playing, you can have him play left and have Profar DH, but that means Baldwin's either catching or not playing. So there's lots of moving parts to where if you're gonna play Baldwin, Ustremski, and Profar at the same time. Balwa has to catch or he's not in the light that's or or Ronnie is sitting out that there or whatever. It's gonna be like, there's only so many main units you can play. You do have a somewhat worthy extra guy, Eli White, who can maybe slightly platoon with yt Ski. He can hit lefties a little bit in the way that Yaz cannot. I don't think you want to play Yellowa. You don't have to plan on playing l A White that much, but he can do it on some level. So a lot of it's about Murphy. A lot of it's about health. We've already seen a major piece go down during the winter, so a lot of is this perfect world stuff where we kind of know that not everyone will be healthy all the time, but it really might come down to who's available that day. How what the philosophy is on Murphy. Honestly, Murphy and Baldwin in particular, because if they're okay just saying hey, Drake, you're young, You're going to be in there every day in some form of fashion, that changes things, versus him playing one hundred and twenty games I don't really know. It's unanswering questions until we know what Wall says, so what Why says? But a lot of shuffling, even Dubon, Like Dubon is a pretty big platoon split. He it's left, he's a lot better than righties. Early in the year, it won't matter he's going to have to play because Kim won't be there. But once Kim's back, Dubon is someone you want to like use judiciously. Maybe maybe he platoons a little bit in some ways, and his flexibility is useful. So a lot of questions that we can't answer right now. It's basically what I'm saying.

00:28:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh there's a ton and I think that's what. While the Braves didn't go out and add like a high level, super high impact bat to this lineup this offseason, they did go add some real versatility and flexibility with the group, and even you know, even Michael Harris in centerfield. I mean, we're all, I guess cautiously optimistic that he's going to bounce back, but there's some real questions about Michael at this point. You know, but if there's probably a real chance that you might want to give Michael a couple of days off against left handed pitching, which he has historically not been as good against, and you could have Eli White in centerfield. You could eventually have Mauricio Dubon in centerfield. I think, yeah, yeah, it's not ideal, but I mean this team was rolling Adam Duvall out in center field during its World Series run for a lot of it. I mean, you you don't want Mike Streemsky making one hundred and forty starts in centerfield, but he could do it, you know, every now and then and probably not lose you the game.

00:29:58
Speaker 3: So we'll see.

00:29:58
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of it, too is based on things we don't know right now. Is Ozzie Albay's gonna bounce back, Is Michael Harris going to bounce back? Is Ronald Acuna junior MVP level Ronald or is he more just like good, you know, which has been kind of where he's been the last two or three years since he went nuclear and won MVP Austin Riley is a big question. I mean, there's so many questions about this lineup, Brad, as we talked through it, but you're right, it's gonna be really interesting to see how they break down the catchers in particular, and how they kind of rotate around the lefties in this order, especially against tough left handed pitching, because that's probably the chance to give them a day off. If they're gonna face I don't know, pick the let they're facing Trek Schooble that night, it might be an opportune time to give Drake Baldwin just a full day off, because guess what, most people aren't gonna hit Trek Scuble no matter what.

00:30:51
Speaker 1: There are as far as these supporting pieces are concerned, Like the non top five guys, there are some platoon splits we've already kind of export briefly. But Ozzie always had a platoon split. He hits lefties better than righties, always has. Sean Murphy hits lefties better than righties, always has. Basically Dubond hits lefties better than righties, so he's the opposite. And then you have Shremsky who hits righties. So like you have these guys who are extreme, not especially all the stretch is extreme.

00:31:26
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:31:26
Speaker 1: The rest of them are like pretty normal to maybe a little bit stronger than usual. But almost all of these supporting pieces Harris can't hit lefties.

00:31:33
Speaker 3: It's another one.

00:31:33
Speaker 1: Harris HiT's righty's more than lefties. Almost all of these non top five bats have a pretty significant platoon split, which means it's not and that's not gospel. I understand that there are always pictures who who don't have the same exact you know, tunneling and like leads to different situations where like you might not ignormal platoon splits. It's not it. It's not the end all be all. It's just a convenient way to kind of siphon these out. But how they build their line up up, it's going to really depend on who's playing well, but also who, like who's facing who, and who's available in all those things. That's kind of the short version of how they do this. And then I mean even Eli White again a small appletude split for a supporting player. I think what you want to add, I mean, we could do a whole segment about Baldwin and we will at some point. Like by the way, it Shosta Balwin, who just won Rookie of the Year and received that award on Full Terroristory's air over the weekend. I read the promo and people were like what's going on. It's in the promo folks Foul Territory YouTube. Drake Baldwin, he spoke to had to like receive an award and speak. So if you want to hear Drake Balman talk, it's on there for you.

00:32:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:32:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was a really nice way to just kind of cap off a fantastic rookie year for Drake Baldwin. This.

00:32:43
Speaker 3: I mean, the kid's so good.

00:32:45
Speaker 2: There's nothing in his profile that gives me any reason to think he's not going to be very good again next year. And as we talked about a little while ago, I think Baldwin is very comfortably going to hit second, third, fourth in this lineup and we'll hopefully have yet another good I mean, if in a year from now, if we're saying Baldwin is a top three catcher in baseball, I would not be surprised in the least.

00:33:08
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. The literally the only thing I'm worried about Balwin, and worry is like not even the right word. I'm not even worried. Is just the sophomore adjustment thing. But I think he'll make it, like most guys that are as good as he is are gonna be able to figure it out, and I think you will. The underlying data is really strong. There's no smoking mirrors stuff with Baldwin. The brains have had some guys without naming them, that have come up and been on fire and it's been like, oh, this is not gonna last, and that's not like that with Balwin. It's really it seems very sustainable what he was doing at the play last year, which you love to see. And plus everybody loves the kid, like, oh yeah, yeah, he's great, so good.

00:33:46
Speaker 3: I was gonna say so.

00:33:47
Speaker 2: We're also going to do a couple of mailbag questions, and you said a moment ago, do I want to add anything else? And it was this idea came to my mind and we actually got a mail bag question from uh T Greg twenty one twenty one on Twitter. Would you, Brad Rowland, take Marcel Ozuna back on a one year contract, call it six to eight million dollars? Would you take him back? Knowing the limitations, knowing how good Ozuna has been but then had a very you know, by his standards average year, he's getting older, he's gimpy, he can't play defense at all. I mean, he's he is not a young man at this point. But I mean, is there a chance the Braves could reunite with Marcelo Zuna?

00:34:36
Speaker 3: And should they?

00:34:38
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, there's a chance. There are two questions that we have to have the answer to that we don't have the answer to do really ask this question. Number one is payroll constraints, like which Alex will ever tell us it's only in this scenario. It's five to eight million. That's not a crazy number, no matter what. But will that's stop to do something something else?

00:34:59
Speaker 2: Like?

00:34:59
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer to that question.

00:35:01
Speaker 3: That's one.

00:35:02
Speaker 1: Number two is his health, because last year he was very open about how he like was very hurt and tried to play through it. It didn't work very well. So is he back? Is he healed? He's not signed? It's January twenty fifth. Yeah, I don't know. Part that's he's he's a tough sell, but part of that could.

00:35:21
Speaker 3: Be Sorry, yeah, not to cut you out.

00:35:22
Speaker 2: I mean, the fact that Ozuna has seemingly had no market makes me think the medicals on his hip are probably not very clean.

00:35:32
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know if I have seen.

00:35:34
Speaker 2: Marcel's name reported like one time this entire offseason.

00:35:39
Speaker 1: No, it's been very quiet, and I do wonder if that's why. So that's two questions we have to answer now in a let's assume a second perfect world where he's healthy. If that's the price tag. I know that the Braves would have kind of a logjam if you bring in Marcel Zuna because he can't do anything but hit. I get that he's a DH, but I have to share this stat. It's from our guy Capitol Avenue on Twitter, former blogger Braves fan. Very smart person. He shared these numbers the last three years twenty three to twenty five ex wOBA, which is the expected. I know it's an advanced stat everybody, but it's a very good advanced stat about how well you hit the baseball. Essentially, he shared the top ten of that stat in the last three years. Unsurprisingly, there are nine star players out of the top ten, and the tenth is Marcelo Zuno. It is Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Choi Otani, Ronald Acunya. You're an Oliver, You're Don Alvarez, Kyle Seeger, Sorry Cory, so you're not Kyle, just Kyle la Guerrero Junior. Then Marcel is eighth, Kyle Tucker, who just signed for a billion dollars, is ninth, and Kyle Schwarba is tenth. So what that all that means is that when Marcell has been playing the last three years, he's hit the piss out of the baseball. We could be honest about that, and the Braves do have a situation where we're all I think we're all okay with the lineup. I'll let you talk about it more. But Steve and I talked about this a little bit on the show Thursday or whatever whatever. We talked on the podcast, like if they want to add another bat, I won't hate it. And I think that Marcel, given the money that he probably will not come in, Like I think he's gonna be relatively cheap at this point. I'd have a hard time criticizing them if they were to sign Marcel. And yeah, it has to be an understanding of hey, big fella, if unless you're mashing, you're not playing every day, because that's just not what we can do at this point. But if he's healthy, man, he's better than the guys they have, Like he's a good hitter, he's really I mean, he's really good at hitting the baseball if he's available, and it would be insurance on other things. And I don't know, man, if it's if that's the price that and that. I'm pretty sure we said this in like November, you and I like, Hey, if the price is low enough, you gotta consider it. The price might be low enough now, or if he has no interest at all by late January, the price has to be lower. What are we doing here?

00:37:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think the big question with Azuna, So you had that great stat from twenty three to twenty four and twenty five, Ozuna was as good as basically anyone at baseball at hitting the baseball. The question, of course, is that a lot of those numbers are being carried by outstanding years in twenty three and twenty four, oh for sure, because Marcell was nowhere near and because he's getting older. So I mean, Marcel is a just turned thirty five. So because of the age and because of the fact that his expected wOBA was three ninety three in twenty three four to oh two in twenty twenty four, but then dropped fifty one points this past year. I mean, that's a big drop for a guy who apparently has a real hip problem. I don't believe Marcell has had any kind of surgery to fix that hip.

00:38:49
Speaker 3: I think we would have heard that by now.

00:38:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it has to be announced and you're a horpsent, right. I have one more set I forgot to say about this is dooct topic. Last year year, first fifty games of the team, I think it was I think I think he played in forty s out of them, he had a nine. He had like a nine hundred oh ps like he was still playing at like an elite bat level for two months last year. And we'll never know when the hip started to flare up, but if if you go by the numbers, it's like if you had to make a guess as to when it was going to be. My guess is probably like late May, early June, because as soon as that happened, the numbers went like this, and then he had and then he sat for a while last and that's I can't remember when the actual report came out about him being hurt, but it was after that. And I think there's a reason to believe I'm not sure this is the case, but there's reason to on the outside believe that maybe it's just the hip because he was playing at that same level for twenty three and twenty four for the first six, seven, eight weeks the last season, it's just that from that point four he wasn't the same. But you're right to bring it up. I mean, the age come by with the injury makes you we just don't know. We have no way of knowing, and that's worth acknowledging for sure.

00:40:00
Speaker 2: And it was really interesting because in those first two months, while the numbers for Ozuna were really strong, do you remember that he was walking like a madman? So the power had dipped those first two months. We didn't necessarily see it on the whole, but when you're walking literally like twenty one percent of the time the first handful of weeks of the year, the whole numbers look great, So the power did dip off To answer the question without knowing, and I thought you said it perfectly without knowing how much money alex Anthoppolis has to spend ideally to add a starting pitcher as well. I'm interested in Ozuna, like, if he gets back to mashing the way that he was a few years ago, then absolutely he makes the Brave such a better team offensively. But if it's going to be more of the same. And if his hip is cooked and still in big trouble and the Braves maybe don't have that much money to spend and they feel like they could add a starter, I don't know, but it's it is a very interesting thought exercise here, especially knowing that you have already lost one piece offensively in Hasan Kim. For at least the early days of the season. We'll see if there's room on the bench and financial room to take another kind of a mini gamble on Azoonna bouncing back.

00:41:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is one of those things that I like to acknowledge when we just don't have any way of knowing. And this is exactly one of those situations where Marcel's medicals if he hasn't market at all, which we're guessing he doesn't because he would have probably signed by now. But it's tricky. I have long said it was always going to be harder for another team other than the Braves to give Marcel a real investment because of the off field thing too. I don't know, people have kind of forgotten that now and pigeonhold it. But if it was a new fan base that comes with its own baggage, whether you think it should or not. That does come with a pr question of some kind. If you are not the Braves. The brains already have already dealt with this for years now. It's not new to the Braves. They know what's going on. So maybe it's all that throne into one and he's a DH only player, and that's it's tough. If you already have a DH you can't sign Marcel. Yeah, and the Raves don't have I mean, the Rice kind of do with Profar, but at wish they were willing to talk about Profile playing with fields.

00:42:12
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Profar can play left You could sub him out in the ninth inning like he's not probably not going to kill you out there. I mean his numbers, Profile's numbers and left field were not good, but they were not unplayable.

00:42:23
Speaker 1: They were not a Zuona level. And one more time, if you pay him, let's say six million, I think the question was five to eight million, six million dollars, that's what you could pay for a bench guy. It's more than you want to pay for a bench guy. But it's not crazy to have an extra bat kind of player who's a platoon or a part timer for that money with one year, that's not a big investment. I'm sure at some point we said, hey, if it's like fifteen million, we can't do it anymore with Marcel. That's not where we are anymore. Like that's why I'm interested in him, and I think the bat is really good and it gives you some insurance if you know, knock on wood, knock on air piece. If Matt Olsen ever is destructible at some point, having Marcel Zuna to play first base for a month would not be the worst thing in the world. Like that kind of thing, like gives you a little bit more insurance because right now we just talked about it. They have five guys or five and a half guys maybe with you half of half of your strim Ski that you like at the plate, but you don't have nine that you like at the plate.

00:43:22
Speaker 2: Well, and if you get another outfield injury, if arist or Accoon you go down, yeah, then all of a sudden your Yastremski profar d h is no longer because.

00:43:34
Speaker 1: You're suddenly Eli White's playing half the time and you're playing Dubon in the outfield. You know, all these which they can do and they are better set up than they have been for a while to withstand injuries. But they already have one. They're withstanding with Kim, and you're gonna have one man like you're gonna have some stuff. So I think given the price point of Marcel, maybe it is worth the call. Is it realistic? I don't know. I won't claim it know by any means, but alex is sign Marcel before they know him and they know he can hit. It would not shock me though, if his hip is so bad that no one wants touch him, that wouldn't surprise me at all.

00:44:11
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's the that's the ten million dollar question that we just we Legally we could not have answers to. No.

00:44:18
Speaker 1: And I don't know if his agent's talked about it or anything, but I did. I did a cursory google Starce Sport. We're talking. There's just been like no reporting at all. Like we've we've made fun of this many times, you and I especially you about the free agency process in baseball and how slow it sometimes is. But when you've been a free agent for I mean, he's been a free agent for three months, like he's been the Brad's been done playing for four months, three months, four months, four months, and not a single thing that I've seen and I'm trying to find on right now like a like a report. Something in our soul is nothing zero. Yeah, maybe I miss something, but because Google's broken at this point. But still there's not a been a lot of us about Marcel and I I get why. But also he's still good at hitting as of the last time we saw him.

00:45:07
Speaker 2: So yeah, we'll see an interesting thing to keep an eye on in the next couple of weeks before spring training.

00:45:14
Speaker 1: One hundred percent, Scott, We've gone longer we were supposed to go. Are you shocked? Am I shocked? No? No, I'm not. No, we're missing football too. This is this is not, this is not, this is not. Okay, if your team or my team were playing WEB, I wouldn't been missing football. But let's get out of here, shall we. Let's you have more to add. We could we could say some other questions we we got. We got some questions from listeners that we will certainly get to at some point along the way. We got another month until pitchers and catches report, and then, as we've talked about many times, that's a two day story. And then you get into real spring training, which is a slog in itself, so there'll be plenty of time to answer with questions, anything else to add, And if not for the new people, they might be listening to this podcast on a Sunday evening slash Monday. Where can folks follow along with Scott Coleman.

00:46:03
Speaker 2: I'm at Scott Coleman fifty five on Twitter if you want to follow along there, And as always, a big thank you to everybody for checking out the show. We will be back this upcoming week and then I mean spring training players start showing up in like three and a half weeks from now. Yeah, it'll be here, and then of course spring training starts, and then there's seven weeks of just you know, keeping everybody healthy until opening day. But baseball is around the corner and we will have plenty of Braves content in the weeks and months to come.

00:46:32
Speaker 1: According to the release I just found, all thirty teams are expected to have people in their camps by February twenty first, so that's four weeks from now.

00:46:44
Speaker 3: That would be late.

00:46:45
Speaker 1: I feel like that's like, that's like everybody in camp, I think, not just your gas, Like that's like everybody reporting, so stay tuned, folks. Also, we are part of the Fola Tartary network of podcasts. Please listen to thou Territory subscribe there, and please subscribe to Hammer Territory where you get your podcasts Apple, Spotify, YouTube, et cetera. We are hosted by the four of us, myself, Scott, Steven Tolbert, and Sean Coleman in some combination most of the time, so keep it locked here. Ratings reviews appreciated. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday into Monday, and we'll see you guys in just a few days, as we always would on the podcast.