Do We Already Know The Braves Opening Day Lineup?

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the Henbor Territory Podcasts, Episode one five seven of My name is Brad. What I'm joined today? As I often am. I my co host his name is Scott Coleman. Scott, how are you on a Sunday afternoon? Hey, Brad? I'm doing great.

00:00:34
Speaker 2: I am gonna knock on every piece of wood within fifty miles of myself before I say what am I about to say? But so far, it's been about as good of a spring training as you can ask for for the Atlanta Braves. Not that wins and losses matter, but they are now six and two after winning on Sunday, and the team has been healthy and performing well, and I think some of the questions about the roster that we had coming into this spring, it's been mostly good news there. So again, I promise you I am not trying to do the podcast jinks on it. But now that we're a couple of weeks into the spring, I feel like we're in pretty good shape now as we approach the midway point of being down in.

00:01:13
Speaker 1: Florida, I think that is all reasonable. And yes, I actually watched you softly knocked on while you were doing that. While We're on YouTube, so it is what it is. But yeah, yes, the Braves. It's been going well. It's our first podcast of the month of March. We're not into March officially. This is March if you are a college basketball person, as both Scott and I am. But we should also say at the top of the show, we are part of Foul Territory as a network, we are Hammer Territory. We cover the Braves all year round on this podcast, usually most of the times a week, even during the dead zone. And then as ween wrap up now now that there's actually baseball games going on, even more and more action on the show from us, we shall also plug We did a show not us, it was actually our colleagues Sean Coleman and Stephen Tolbert on Friday evening. And then also before that a Farm System kind of deep dive that I did with Gorea Badak that was a lot of fun to re, so lots of stuff going on in braves Land. Scott nods at me.

00:02:04
Speaker 2: That podcast that you did overshadowing or overviewing the farm System was really really good and I highly recommend Gorev's work and all the workover at Battery power dot Com, especially on the minor league side, and I mean I was learning something new with basically every player you all talked about, whether it was Drake Baldwin or rising expectations for aj Smith Shaver or some of the deeper, maybe sleeper type of prospects in the system who could find themselves in the mix this upcoming season. So highly recommend that Prospect Deep Dive. If folks didn't listen to it earlier in the week.

00:02:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, that show is available now and it was oft because of me. That show was good. Gorey was great, and also people should be listening to their podcast. They do a monor league focus, exclusively focused podcast called Peach Date Prospects. That's a fun listen as well if you are into that sort of thing. We always admit on the show. I know, at least the two of us for sure, we're not prospect guys. We do follow the system, but in a way that like the scouts do, like Gorove and Garrett Spain, those guys are old guy Eric Cole, et cetera, et cetera. But I like to talk to those folks every once in a while, check in a little bit, and of course switch raining is a good time for that because there's a lot of prospects playing baseball this time of year. It's not always the regulars. Even when the regulars play, as we'll get into here in a second, they don't last long in these early games. They might play three innings, four innings and then be out of there. So here we are, Scott, not that much to get to today, but still here we are. It's been a couple of days to stay some this podcast on the feed. They play two games since then. You mentioned they've been playing well, Saturday and Sunday. My I guess our lead topic, if you want to say that, is that you brought this up to me. I think it's the absolutely right thing. The brains have kind of tipped their hat a little bit, we'll tip their hand a little bit when it comes to what their lineup might be for opening Day, and it's because of and that, you know, part of this discussion is left field, which we'll get into in a second. But does that sound reasonable as your point in the first place, But if you will get at their a lamp that they've only used I think maybe once or twice so far with like everybody playing basically it looks a lot like a laugh that they might use On March twenty seventh.

00:04:06
Speaker 2: Brian Snicker is historically a manager who likes a lot of consistency with his lineup when he can help it. He has pretty much the same one through eight or one through nine most days. Maybe there's a platoon bat in there that he moves around, or of course, injuries can sway that, as we saw very frequently last year. But based on two games this spring, and it is a small sample, but it seems like we have a pretty good idea of what the Braves Is regular lineup is going to be, at least while Ronald Cocunya Junior is out, and then even when Ronald comes back. I think Snicker is setting it up to make it really easy to just kind of slide everybody back one spot when they add the former MVP at the top of the order.

00:04:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that makes total sense to me. You know, we did a little bit of this when they sign Jerks and Profiler in particular, like, hey, where's it get hit in the lineup? And I think we even all four of us to some degree on different shows, kind of agreed. But I think that Profar has pretty clearly the best like leadoff profile of anyone they have available. It's not Ronald with Kunya, he gets on base, and that's that was one of the lead factors of in acquiring Jerkson profile is that he gets on base in a way that this lae up does not exactly have a ton of those like on base first guys, and he kind of is that. And he's been leading off in those lamups that are kind of the we think sneak peak lineups, and he's followed up by the power guys, and then you know, you get in your Assy Albi's your Michael Harris, et cetera. What do you make of what they have been doing here? Do you agree with it? Obviously we don't do a ton of line up talk anymore. We used to do more of that, honestly, probably four or five years ago. But it's a good time to kind of peek at it a little bit. Do you agree with this? Because I think you and I do. We're want to stay page that snip. I think it's foreshadowing this a little bit, but do you buy it? This is something that you would actually do with the line up.

00:05:48
Speaker 2: So in two games where the Braves have played most of their regulars. This has been the lineup Jerkson Profar leading off, Austin Riley second, Matt Olsen third, Marcelo Zuna fourth, Michael Harris fifth, Ozzy Alby's sixth, and we haven't gotten the full one through nine just yet. Usually snit will do that towards the very end of the spring in what is more of like a dress rehearsal for opening day. But you have Profar, Riley, Olsen, Ozuna, Harris Alby's, which funny enough, is switch hitting right handed left handed, right handed left handed switch hitting, which really comes into really beneficial, especially in the late innings when it comes to be a matchup. Maybe you want to bring in a lefty to face Matt Olsen, but with the three batter minimum, then that lefty has to face perhaps Austin Riley or for sure Marcelo Zuna, and even Michael Harris, who is not terrible against lefties. And then we know what Ozzy Alby's does against left handed pitching, so there's a lot of balance there. And then when Ronald Acuna Junior comes back at some point, you just bounce everybody back one spot. You still have Profars on base at the top of your order, you have a Kunya leading off where he's been leading off basically every day he's been healthy for five seasons now. And then you have two really good on base guys when everything is going right with Acunya in Profar ahead of Riley Olsen, Ozuna, Harris Alby's. I mean, that's as good a one through seven as there is. And then if the Braves get a bounce back from Sean Murphy, which I think we're all hoping for, you're talking about a ridiculous one through eight, and then kind of what the Braves have talked about now for two seasons and an ideal world, Orlando Arcia is batting ninth is a little bit better than what he did last season, and it's just not killing you in the bottom of the order because you have really, really good.

00:07:42
Speaker 1: Hitters ahead of him.

00:07:43
Speaker 3: I think this is the way I would do it. I don't know about you, Brad, but this feels like the lineup to me. It takes advantage of your on base at the top. You allow your power guys and Michael Harris and Azsi Alby's to hopefully drive in a million runs behind a really good top of the order and.

00:07:59
Speaker 1: It's balanced too.

00:08:00
Speaker 2: As I said earlier, there's no it's not too right heavy, it's not too left heavy. It just feels like the lineup I would go with if I were calling the shots.

00:08:07
Speaker 1: But maybe you feel differently. No, we were on the safe page for sure. I mean, it's not like they have to be married with the same group every day. You're right, though, Snith does like to do that as much as he can. Then occasionally, and that's when it becomes more noticeable. Like he when he makes a change, it's actually noticeable because he doesn't make a lot of changes. Like last year Roley was struggling and he went to fifth and that was like a oh okay, that was notable. They changed it, Like it's not He likes to kind of stick with the guns that they kind of go come with. And there are by the way, we will not do it's on the show. There are these philosophical things and you know, kind of the new ag things where like, for instance, when you and I were kids, I'm a little bit older than you, but you know, the cleanup hitter was like the big guy, like like your best hitter hit clean up all this stuff. Then it became third, and then it became second. Like it's kind of this, This stuff does kind of change depending on what your era is. It's just an old school guy, but obviously there's some consultation there with the analytics guys at the front office, et cetera. Yeah, but it all makes sense to me. I mean, you want, you want your guys to get on base early. Profi gets on base. Do you want maybe occasionally, do you want to have Ozzie Alby's hit higher than the line up? I guess the lefty. Sure, Like there's that kind of thing things that you can do, but generally, yeah, Running leads off, and then I'm fine with Profar hitting second or first first with Ronnie out, for sure. That's the one thing, the one thing. There are few a few things that I'm pretty rigid on. I am definitely in the lead Profar off until Running gets back. Camp I like that decision. He's the best on base guy. And then after that, Like, do I care that much about the order that Riley, Olsen and Azuna are in? Not really, but they're they're gonna be in that two three, four five mix. The three of those guys will be in some order between two and between two and five we kind of know that, so yeah, it makes all sense to me. And also they've done this a little bit where at the bottom of the lineup we all understand that RCA is their worst hitter. You also could have Arcia hit eighth and slot someone like Michael Harris at ninth. They've done that, They've done it before. Obviously Michael Harris is a better hitter than Arcia. But there's one again, one of those preferential things where it's like, do you want to maybe have a quote unquote second lead off hitter at nine? The kind of laplot anyway, there's philosophical questions about that, but I think what you lay up is perfect. It's they have these spots that are they make total sense for all these guys. They have a bunch of power. And I think this lab that they've been using, as you already said, going back and forth, lefty alrighty, isn't a mandate for me, but it does when you can do it and it makes natural sense, why not do it? Which I think is probably how they land at what they've been doing so far.

00:10:31
Speaker 2: And we'll see, because it looks like the Braves will see at least a couple of lefties in that first week or even two weeks of the season based on who they're gonna face. Now, we'll see maybe Brian Snicker will do a little bit of tinkering. If it's a really tough lefty, maybe they drop Matt Olsen a spot and move Marcelo Zuna ahead of him, and you swap Ozzie Alby's and Michael Harris, because again, Ozzy just crushes lefties but is not as strong against righty's. So there is some built in flexibility here. We're going to talk about this little bit later in the show. But it's also interesting that I think we're leaning towards a platoon with Jared Kelnick and Brian day La Cruz. Of course, one lefty one righty also bring some balance to your lineup. You could pinch hit those guys later on in the game as well. So it seems like after such a frustrating and injury riddled twenty twenty four, you have a new hitting coach in place. God willing, they're going to be healthier than they were a year ago. If they get healthy seasons out of their top eight hitters in this lineup, or even if six or seven of them stay healthy.

00:11:31
Speaker 1: It feels like to.

00:11:32
Speaker 2: Me anyway that we're the Braves are going to be back at the top of the leader boards as they were two years ago and really just hit the crap out of the baseball.

00:11:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're a long way from this, but the Potterys do have I think their top three and I said the Braves play first, if you don't know that in about three and a half weeks from now. The Potterys do have their top three pitchers are all right handed, so they probably go ready, righty ready. But the Dodgers have all kinds of options, and they're the second team of the Braves. Could see, well, we'll see and then we'll see if they throw some Lucky's in there too. But flexibility, and you know, aside from Ozzie, they don't have a ton of guys who are like total platoon split guys. Obviously there are preferences, but he's really the only one that's like a very very sharp platoon split guy out of their regulars. You know, we'll get into an effect. Let's get to it right now, Scott, about this left field situation. We've gotten questions about this. We did discuss it quite a bit when they signed Brian day la Cruz, but that's been like three months now or two months at least, so it's I'm sure we have some new listeners coming on board. But the question we keep getting now already is basically, are they going to platoon Kellen Nick with Brian day la Cruz to begin the season. Obviously, once already comes back, as long as you have Profar Harris and Acunya, that is your outfield. Jerry Kellen's gonna have to sit what what? Everybody's there, but you know, injuries happen and we know for a while there's that spot open without ronin Acunya and Kevin's been good in the spring, which is why it's coming up even more now. I think. I think Bow when somebody wrote already wrote about this, dedicated a couple of weeks ago, like this is gonna be the plan and got snipped, you know, talked to Snip basically said, hey, if you remember last year, we signed Adam Duval in mid March, like they were gonna we talked about it a lot a year ago. They were gonna go into the season with count playing every day, and then suddenly he wasn't. Now they have this kind of built in option and he's not Adam Duval as far as being proven, but Brian de la Cruz was kind of it seemed like to us anyway, signed to be kind of in this role maybe a fourth fifth outfielder or platoon guy. Is that I mean, it's I would say, super early and kind of Look again, he looks good, comic looks really good at this point in time. But are you planning on that, like again, four weeks from now, do you expect to see a platoon early on in the season. I think so.

00:13:34
Speaker 2: And you know, Brian de la Cruz, as you said, we talked about him quite a bit, but just a quick refresher if folks are maybe tuning in now as we get closer to baseball. Once upon a time with the Miami Marlins, de la Cruz was a pretty good hitter. He had about a three season stretch where he was a slightly above average hitter and hit for power and hit the baseball really hard. The reason that he signed a minor league deal this offseason is that since the twenty twenty three All Star Break, Dala Cruz has really really struggled. He has a seventy six WRC plus across quite a few at bats since midpoint of twenty twenty three. For reference, a seventy six WRC plus is slightly better than what Orlando Orcia was last season.

00:14:20
Speaker 1: Which was bad. I guess you grew up out everybody. He was not very good a year ago, and.

00:14:24
Speaker 2: RCA plays good defense at least, and Dala Cruz historically has not graded out very well defensively, although he does have a big arm. So I think, because we know with pretty high certainty at this point, Jared Kolnick is not going to hit left handed pitching a career one ninety two batting average and a fifty eight WRC plus against lefties.

00:14:47
Speaker 1: He was actually even worse.

00:14:48
Speaker 2: Last season against lefties, and a small sample, I think it was like a forty nine WRC plus, which is unplayable. And Dala Cruz, while not Barry bonds against left handed pitching by any means, is a two seventy hitter with a career ninety two WRC plus against lefties, which is serviceable at least for.

00:15:06
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks.

00:15:07
Speaker 2: While Lacunya is out, I'm imagining a platoon of some kind if either player wants to be so good that you can't fathom taking him out of the lineup, great, all for it. But I think we're leaning towards that. Dala Cruz has gotten into the lineup pretty regularly this spring has had a couple of hard hits as well, which isn't.

00:15:25
Speaker 1: A bad sign by any means.

00:15:26
Speaker 2: Should I imagine we're heading towards a platoon here at least until Akunya is ready to go.

00:15:32
Speaker 1: It makes sense. And look, the other thing is, you know Kelnick. I think even the Kilnick skeptics probably would acknowledge he's better than day La Cruise on paper, and he's the strongest side of the platoon. So Kelnick is the guy who hits right. He's better than lefties. You're gonna see more rights and the lefties. That makes sense. And you know, honestly, there might be a stretch and you know the Scott but every it might be two weeks before you see let that start, like you might just you might go forever and see only right head starter, which means Kuntic would presumably play almost every day for a while and again early in the season if the Padres I believe their top four starters are all right handed, so I think they're going to see three right handers to starting the season, and presumably that means Kellick starts, and that makes sense. He's the he's the better player overall, and I do think, well, I think we agree on this. I think kel Nick is maybe a little bit could get a little bit better against lefties. I'm not saying he's going to, but like he's at the age now on the spot now, like the sample isn't so big against lefties where I'm like think he's like totally a lost cause. But until you see it, and I wouldn't bank on it, basically is what I would say. Platooning him does make total sense on a team that's trying to win the World Series right now. It's not about developing Jered Kellnick. Obviously you want to, but you want to win games as well. And I think if you if you ask me, all right, I guess I'll ask you this. If you face a left handed starter on April fifth of this year, do you want Dala Cruz in there? Or do you want Kelvick in there? Dala Cruz, I think I agree with you. So again, Dale Cruz, might he might crash out in the next three weeks. That's their thing. He there's no investment Dela Cruz. I don't mean that in a negative way about him, but like if just if he goes oh for fifty the rest of the spring and looks terrible, they'll just cut them and sign somebody else, you know what I mean. They don't have to keep it up.

00:17:11
Speaker 2: The deal.

00:17:12
Speaker 1: It's more about you know, random outfield or x than it is about Brian Dayla Cruz. At least for me, it's more like you could find somebody. Look, it won't be it probably won't won't be Duval this time, but they could find somebody into Duvall mode if they wanted to on March twentieth and be like, you know, we should have to have somebody to do this. Yeah.

00:17:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I think in a perfect world the Braves have their big three in the outfield for most of the season and they're not gonna need Kelnik or Daila Cruz or anybody else. But the likelihood is is that somebody is going to get hurt at some point. Hopefully it's more of the ten or fifteen day injured list stint in not two months, but Michael Harris has been hurt in both of the last two years and miss significant time. Kunya coming back from the knee. I'm guessing even if the Braves are being very diligent and cautious the spring, the likelihood is we're going to be seeing a lineup where Ronald Acuna Junior is in there and he's gonna get scratched forty five minutes before a first pitch because his knee is four or he felt something and they just want to be extra careful and take the day off, and then kel Nick will be in there, or day La Cruz if it's Lefty. We'll see how the rosteril turns out too, because you can only carry effectively four bench players, and if Acunya is there and you have to have a backup catcher and a backup utility man, then it's basically two players for the bench. And we'll see where all that is. Probably a discussion for the end of April or early May. Yeah, but regardless, I do think to kind of come full circle. I think we're looking out of the tune and if the Braves can get average offensive production and good enough defense and right field until their superstar comes back. I think you take it all day long, especially if the seven guys in the lineup ahead of them are hitting the way that we're hoping they're going to hit.

00:18:54
Speaker 1: We agree, And one of the advantages of having kell Nick, even if you don't love him, is that he can play a functional center field defensively too. That allows you to carry only one back about fielder if you have to. Once Ronnie comes back, you can just go with four and have Kelly be your fourth guy. You know, obviously you're hoping to Michael Harris plays all one sixty two or whatever they want to do with him, but certainly there's some flexibility there. And yeah, I think one hundred percent even if they're I think the Braves have shown so far and said so far, they're probably going to be overly cautious with Ronnie to where when they bring him back, he's going to just go straight through the outfield. He won't have to DH any of that stuff that we were kind of maybe worried about earlier in the winter. But also, I don't think he's going to be on the Matt Olson and play every ending of every game plan. If I had to guess, you probably see Ronnie take a day off every couple weeks something like that, So notable at this point in time. All right, so we mentioned already a couple things about Saturday's game, but you know, day La Cruz a two bit that was good to see. It was mostly a bullpen endeavor on Saturday. It was Dylan Lee and Buck Farmer and Jake Deekman. Look, we don't have to go through every time every single one of these guys pitches. But I have noticed, at least it's been notable to me a lot of the fringy relievers on the roster, your Farmer's, your Deemon's not, Don'tly's not this by the way, the don't lease a different category, but have been pretty good. At least the results have been pretty good. Yeah, it's hard to tell how much of that matters. I'll raise my head right now and say, I'm not going to see every pitch every every game. It's been training. It's just not possible when you have a day job and they play o'clock in the afternoon. But from what I have seen, in particular, Farmer and Digman have looked pretty good to my eye. The numbers have said that same story. I don't they already They already a signed Chase and Shrieve to triple A. So that was one other guy that was like kind of in the mix. It seemed like as a longtime veteran reliever, who's not going to be seemingly in the mix of they opened their bullpin. But anything standing out to you from the relievers at this point in time, where is it just kind of like it's early. We'll see.

00:20:46
Speaker 2: If you would have asked me at the very start of spring when all the pitchers and catchers were showing up, what was my level of concern with the depth in the bullpen? One being not a concern in the world ten being I am terrified. I was at like a seven seven and a half. I was legitimately concerned. And this was before they added Buck Farmer and Jake Deekman on basically tryout deals. After a couple of weeks, based on both what I've seen and the stuff from these guys coming out of the bullpen and the results, I'm lower on now, I would say I'm more in like the maybe five out of ten in my concern, I still do worry about the depth of this team. Maybe that's just something I'm gonna have to get over because I mean, clearly, the front office doesn't necessarily share our sentiments because they have done nothing in terms of adding depth to the pitching staff this offseason other than those aforementioned couple of minor league deals. But it is encouraging that at least through the first couple of weeks of the spring, guys like Farmer and Deekman and Anderson Kolar has gotten a lot of swing and miss, which is encouraging. On help Perdomo, the stuff looks good coming back from Tommy John and then your regulars like Ryce e Iglacia has just cruised through an inning today on Sunday.

00:22:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm again little little ner.

00:22:02
Speaker 2: Just I worry that if an injury or two happens, it's like, oh, baby, Brad, you got anything left in that arm, because you might be on your way to Atlanta. Injuries you can't predict them. I mean we saw last year. Sometimes you're healthy, sometimes you're not.

00:22:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit weird that I think of the four of us, I am the least that's heard about the bullpen, which is not normally where I would be like I'm usually Honestly, I might be the pessimist of the four of us. Maybe you are. I don't know. One of us might might win that award, but uh, I just I don't have the same concern. I'm not saying it's great. I just said I guess I said this last week at some point. But they have a lot of bullets to fire at it. And also if it doesn't work, you can find relievers. Like that's kind of where I would be. But yeah, it's a small increase. I don't know if I'm where I would be on the one to ten scale. Maybe I'm maybe maybe my war level is like a three or four. It's not like it's not a one. I have some concern about the bullpen, but with every encouraging outing, maybe that goes let it goes down a little bit, and perhaps you know, having the four guys that you trust, maybe four and a half with Day's bell is uh I think it that does get underrated I think by some because bullpens are hard and most teams, in fact, I don't think there's I don't think there is a team maybe Dodgers, but that has more than four guys that they actually trust in the bullpen. Spots five through eight in the bullpen on every team, even contenders, is usually not exactly something that you absolutely love. The Braves have been particularly loaded in the bullpen the last couple years, yeah, which has maybe swung a little bit towards this, And honestly, I have to I'll cop to it. I thought Alex is over invested in the bullpen at times, and maybe they're underinvesting. Now both can be true at the same time. But if anything, I've been like, hey, probably cool with the bullpen a little bit of Alex not now, not that it's not this Hue though at the very least it's like, okay, I kind of get it. But also maybe their guards up a little bit too.

00:23:46
Speaker 2: So last season coming into it, Aaron Bummer was like the sixth or seventh man in this bullpen, which is kind of crazy, honestly, but yeah, and now he's third or fourth, depending on where he's gonna fall in the pecking order. I think that's just kind of shows and obviously the Braves don't know what's gonna happen. They were banking on aj Minter a year ago and he barely pitched because of the hip injury, and they also got really good innings out of guys who maybe they weren't expecting to be very good. It really is a tough proposition to predict what a bullpen is going to do. Again, a little more encouraged than I was maybe a month ago, with the options in the system to navigate at least until July when you can bolster at the trade deadline, and hopefully over the next couple of weeks down in Florida, the relievers continue to perform well, and I mean, frankly, maybe make the braves have to make a tough choice because you can only carry eight in that bullpen, maybe even seven. If they're going to go with a de facto six man rotation early in the year, it might be tough. Someone's probably gonna get squeezed off and is going to be released because he wants to go pursue a big league opportunity elsewhere, and that's something we'll have to cross that bridge if and when we get there.

00:24:53
Speaker 1: This one's for the old heads of our podcast. But I'll just say the words bullpen's revoltile and we'll move around. We'll move right along. That's an old standard on this podcast. And this is different, by the way, it's a different show altogether, and we'll probably do again between now and March twenty seventh about the sixth rotation and check ins on on Ian, which I know they talked about Friday Night and Speth Shaver. It's that's coming just on this show necessarily elsewhere in the rotation. I guess on Sunday the race actually used two starters, so Saturday was like a bullpen game. Almost Today we saw Lopez and Schwellenbach, which just I didn't actually I don't know about you. I didn't know Schmallabach was picture today. I just saw Lopez was going and oh, okay, and then twenty through three innings in the middle of the game, which was a nice surprise. Looked fantastic. He is, I think fantastic. At this point in time, Lopez is a little bit more concerning, not like terrifying, but he's not hitting his spots the way he has been last year. One of the things about Ronaldo is that he just didn't walk anybody at all, and that allows you to kind of like float a little bit. And I think we all know his his era in particularly was not sustainable last year. It was like in the ones most of the season that wasn't going to happen again. But any concern with Lopez and his command aka three walks on thinking four innings so far.

00:26:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I watched most of Sunday's game. Rinaldo just didn't have fastball command. He kind of battled through the first inning and then actually didn't make it through the second inning. He left after forty four pitches in total and got two outs in the second. It wasn't bad, and the velocity is still good, but clearly he's still trying to find his command and he is by no means alone in that endeavor across the league.

00:26:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, So hopefully.

00:26:31
Speaker 2: As we get a little deeper into the spring, Ronaldo looks a little bit more like himself. And then dude, Spencer Schwellenbach, I mean, we talked briefly on the last show that he might be a dark horse for some cy Young.

00:26:44
Speaker 1: Votes at the end of the season. It might not be crazy, Brad.

00:26:49
Speaker 2: I mean, just his stuff is so good, his command is so good. He pitches like a guy who's been doing it at a high level for a decade, and he was in a ball a year and a half ago. He had a phenomenal plate appearance against Paul Goldschmidt, probably future Hall of Famer Paul Goldschmith went ahead two, busted him inside with the fastball through a slider just off the plate, and then dotted a ninety five mile hour fastball on the outer corner for strike three. That is a perfect, perfect sequence against a very very good hitter. And it's I mean, it looks easy every time Schwallenbach goes out there. Three innings, he gave up a leadoff single and then the ball did not leave the infield. In the following three innings, three strikeouts, a bunch of ground balls. Nobody was squaring him up. I mean, he is just so so impressive, and I mean, I just pray after some of the bad luck the Braves have had with guys like Mike Soroka and Kyle Wright, I just pray that his health cooperates, because he is looking more and more like a very legitimate front of the rotation, even borderline ace. If he can continue what he did in the back half of last year. For sure, you know, five innings, it's five innings in the spring. It's still early, but five innings, two base runners allowed, five strikeouts, snow runs like he just spend what you would hope to see through two outings and again it's Mark second, but we are on the same pages to say, pro schwelly podcast.

00:28:16
Speaker 1: We're in.

00:28:17
Speaker 2: We could say after every single sentence on this podcast for the next time.

00:28:21
Speaker 1: I mean, I just want to always get the caback be always try to balance you out because you're I know you're all in. I can when when you get excited. I can sense it. I've been we've been doing this a long time. You're excited, and by the way, I agree with you. It's just notable that you're like, all right when someone what's as good as he did today and it excites you as again. I'm told some new listeners, we're not going to rant and ring about guys on March second very often. And he looked that good today, like it's again it's one, it's one outing in the spring, but he looked awesome.

00:28:47
Speaker 2: So people who used to listen in the dark days of the rebuild back on talking Chop. It's funny that we used to be painted in this super negative light and we still got it.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: We still get it. Occasionally we'll get the people like man you guys. So you guys are so negative when we don't. When we're like, hey, maybe the rest goes to Dodgers, it's like, okay, the super negative. But no, you're right. We used to get that old. That was probably our calling card for a long time, is that we were the negative podcast, which is kind of silly, but it's just kind of the wayless.

00:29:14
Speaker 3: Well in like the middle of twenty sixteen, when they had lost eighteen of twenty.

00:29:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, the team sucks.

00:29:20
Speaker 3: You want you want positivity in the middle of an h forty seven stretch or whatever they had at one point. Yeah, So it was thankfully, yeah, thankfully, much much better days now for the Atlanta Braves. And we try not to have too much hyperbole and bring nuance to the show. If you're a new listener, Yeah, just so excited for Schwallenbach and feels like a really good season could be on the horizon if he's healthy. Yes, we agree, and this is namely needing any analysis, but I thought it was at least fun on March second that Roley Olsen went back to back.

00:29:51
Speaker 1: Today, it's like, oh, oh baby, we're here. The season's arrived. Yeah, the two boppers went back to back to begin the game. That was that was fun. And then Kellnic cat home on later on in the game. But it's like, okay, just a nice little warm blanket. You see it on Twitter, you see it if you're watching the game or whatever. It's like a notification. Oh, back to back combers for the two guys that hit back to Macomer's a lot. That's nice.

00:30:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the lineup has looked pretty good again. We'll do our March second caveat but the Braves are six and two. I'd much rather than be six and two than two and six, even if it truly means nothing how teams perform in the spring. Jared Kelnick also had a home run, which was great. Jerks and Profar just missed a home run by about two feet and doubled as well. He put together some nice played appearances. So it's been a good start offensively, and the pitching staff too for that matter. So a nice game on Sunday. I found myself watching at least the first five or six innings until the deep deep sleepers in the organization had a chance to play. But yeah, it was overall, it was a good weekend for the Braves and it seems like, you know, three more weeks and then we'll be closer to real baseball.

00:30:55
Speaker 1: That's right. And we're recording with on Sunday afternoon, probably little bit earlier than we normally would. I'll just know this for people listening before Monday afternoon. The Braves play Monday one oh five against Tampa. I believe Tampa plays their spring ball in like Port Charlotte. I believe that's right. That's not down the street from Northport. So if I had to guess, it may not be the best lineup on Monday afternoon, that's just good, just a guest. I have no idea of recording this only on Sunday, but it may not be the we talked about earlier in the podcast. It may not be the top to bottom regulars.

00:31:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't think Austin and Matt are jumping on that team bus for a long bus ride.

00:31:31
Speaker 1: I do not. If I had to guess, they probably will not do that. Oh, I'm not sure if this is a clarification or correction. HOWE do you want to say that I made a comment on the last show that we got a lot of Actually, I'm surprised how people reply to us about this. Scot's gonna laugh. I want to bring it up. I mentioned on the last show that I don't think the Brands are going to go to Arizona for spring training anytime soon. What I was saying on that show was that they were going to move their spring training operation to Arizona as a team PI corded in Atlanta. They actually do play two games the year in Arizona because they because because they open the season in San Diego, they're kind of going out there a week early and playing two games in Arizona. So I didn't know that that's not what I was saying, but I wanted to just tell everybody. Hey, I guess I could have said that better. So there you go. There we are on the show.

00:32:16
Speaker 2: Maybe if we have any listeners in Arizona.

00:32:18
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna go up to those two games. Okay, so you probably you probably should go if it's closed. I don't know how far is that from me? Is it MESA?

00:32:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, not far? Yeah, No, it's it's a great setup. Cubs have a really nice facility. Obviously, they sell that thing out most days, which is crazy for spring training. But yes, the Braves will journey out West. It kind of makes sense too, with the time change and everything, and you know, the first week of the regular season is going to be really really challenging going out West against probably the two best teams in baseball a year ago with San Diego and La firmly believe whoever won that NLDS Series was gonna win the World Series. So if the Braves start out three and four, two and five, just tell yourself that the probably the most difficult road trip they have all season long is out of the way, much much much easier games on the horizon. I think they host the Marlins after that after a day off, get right against them. But then they play the Phillies, who was also like a top five roster in the game last year and probably will be again. So it is a tough schedule right out of the gate. I don't hate that, Brad, I don't know about you, but especially while everyone is fresh, it is unfortunate they're probably not going to have Strider or Acunya for those three really tough series right out of the gate. But as we've you know, kind of talked about on this podcast, this is still a really good roster even without those two stars.

00:33:43
Speaker 1: In there, so I would even go beyond. Maybe that is their tough series of the season. Sorry, toughest road trip of the season. Yeah on paper because of what you just said. Noacunya at San Diego at LA and for me in its own tier right now on paper. And the Braves want to go there once this whole year. They only go to La once and a second series of the season, so them being on the same road trip and I guess you know, Sante Goes a good team, not a great team, I don't think this year, but playing a good team on the road and then the Daughters on the road that puts you in a different class. But yeah, you know they could also go five and two on that on that trape. I wouldn't met here. Was surprised.

00:34:22
Speaker 2: It's still be five and two. Yeah, we'll be partying in the streets. Just another quick scheduling note, which is odd. The Braves actually play two of their three West Coast trips the first four weeks of the season. They go out to San Diego in LA and then they go out to Colorado and Arizona at the end of April. So I know for the East Coasters it's not ideal, you have to stay up late, put a pot of coffee on at like nine o'clock. But for my money, I would much rather get those series out of the way early in the year than have to do like a ten day West Coast road trip in the end of August, which they had to do a couple of years ago. Actually that that's not cor You worry about guys wearing down, you worry about just being so far away from home, all of those things. I know they're professional athletes, but historically teams when they have to fly all the way across the country do not perform super well. It's gonna be good to get those two long road trips out of the way. I think they have one more trip, but it's not till the summer months, So just a housekeeping note. As we get closer and closer, I don't know, maybe we'll do like a schedule breakdown.

00:35:23
Speaker 1: Second, I'm sure we'll do something the last week before the season that kind of gets into this a little bit. But yeah, look at looking ahead. We're all getting excited. And then we did force out of this earlier in February, like the loll was coming in spring training. The lull that we've referred to where it's there's like two weeks for everyone. It's just like, all right, lets get let's let's get this over with. Even you know I'm talking about by the way, players feel this way, coaches feel this way, media feels this way because a certain point in spring and everyone wants wants to wants it to be over. Everybody's excited for a while. Then that rolls and then at the end it's more of an uptick back up. We're not quite to the le yet, but we're approaching the little I think we'll be here there.

00:36:00
Speaker 2: There was a video a couple of years ago that caught on It was Dansby Swanson and his now wife Mallory Pugh, who's a professional soccer player, and she posted a video of Dansby who was like begrudgingly packing his suitcase for spring training, and you could tell Dansby was not thrilled. I mean, like you just said, the players do not love.

00:36:21
Speaker 1: Seven weeks for veterans, especially if you're proven already, like you gotta do it. I actually think front of the podcast at Capitol Avenue, former Braves blogger smart Guy was just kind of laying it out like, Hey, if you designed the way it's prepared for the season in twenty twenty five, there's no way they would do this anymore. Spring training is a institution and people love it, people go to games. It's a whole thing in itself, and I'm not knocking that, But if you started from scratch, you would not send your professional baseball players to Florida for six weeks to get the right for the season. That's not what they would do. There's no way. So, and I kind of agree with him. It's not gonna change. It's just what it is. And part of that is if you are if you are a proven guy with a family, you probably don't love having to go down there for six weeks. I can't blame anybody for having that thought. So for sure, I mean, I'm sure Drake Baldwin is having the time of his life. Yeah, if you're a young guy, perfectly prove prove yourself, get at bats every day, like it's great for sure.

00:37:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, mentally focused for the year ahead, try to win a roster spot. If you're in a can't battle, try to compete every single day. But yeah, so we'll get through spring training. We've already been talking behind the scenes about some fun episodes and shows. We're gonna do maybe some NL East previewing with our sister shows on Foul Territory with the Mets and the Phillies. We'll do a bold Takes and Bold Predictions episode. Will maybe we'll do a burning questions things that kind of keep us up at night and concerns we really have, especially as we get closer to opening day and have a better idea of what the roster is going to be. Who knows, Brad, maybe they'll sign somebody and add some depth to the system somewhere. But rest assured, three and a half weeks to go until opening day, we will have plenty of content here on the show and try to keep it fun because you're right, we are about to hit the dog days.

00:38:10
Speaker 1: Hey, David Robertson, come on down. If you are listening to this podcast, we have a spot for you. I'm sure they'll pay you some money. Come on down anyway, Scott, thank you for doing this on a Sunday afternoon. Please go ahead tell people where they can find all of your musings. I will not bring up college basketball. After last night's performance for Bears on the Wildcats but what's going on else elsewhere in your life?

00:38:30
Speaker 2: I did want to say, I think for folks still listening and God bless you, I think I'm gonna try to set up a March Madness bracket tournament challenge for listeners if they want to join. We're going to try to get some swag from the Foul Territory Leadership team to give to the winners.

00:38:48
Speaker 1: It'll be for fun.

00:38:49
Speaker 3: I'm not collecting payment on Venmo or Zel for the next however.

00:38:53
Speaker 1: We'll call it the Beat the Beat Scott Coleman Invitational. Everyone wants to beat Scott Coleman and a pickup not hard to do. My bracket.

00:38:59
Speaker 2: I we my wife and I have done a house bracket the last like seven years. I think she beats me every year. I might honestly just have her enter and she'll probably win. But if you are interested in that tweet us, leave us a comment on YouTube whatever you want to do. As we get closer, we'll publish the heck out of that link and it'll be open to anyone to join. But again, I think a lot of our folks, a lot of SEC listeners, which is a just phenomenal basketball conference now, which is. I mean, it's that acc Big twelve, Big ten. You're a big Michigan man, Brad. That's right everyone, and March Madness. For my money, it's the best sporting event in the world. US nothing else to plug on this show. You can find me at Scott Coleman at fifty five on Socials and we'll be back soon with another show.

00:39:45
Speaker 1: All right, you've heard the man. Please subscribe to this podcast anywhere you find your podcast Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Overcast, Podbean, all these places I can name them all I won't, but also also on YouTube, as Scott just alludes to, you like the show there as you're watching it, and also comment tell your friends. We definitely that's the way to grow the show. Honestly, we don't do a whole lot of like organic. We're not paying for Google ad space. It's word of mouse. Hopefully you can help us spread the word on social media, to your friends, to your family. We definitely appreciate that, and we'll have more coming up later this week. I promise you follow the show on Twitter, slash x at Hammer Territory, follow Scott at Scott Coming fifty five, follow me at bt roll if you want to, and without ay further delay, webl sign off now, enjoy March. Everybody, We're here.

00:40:28
Speaker 3: There's more.

00:40:28
Speaker 1: There's baseball, Baseball this month. Baseball this month accounts three and a half weeks from now, and we'll see everybody. Thanks time,