Takeaways From Atlanta's Series Win Against the Miami Marlins

You can thank Sean Murphy for some of Hurston Waldrep's success

Trying something new here - I’ve had a bunch of thoughts about this series bouncing around. Some have made it on podcasts, or in a “Today’s Three Things”, or a radio hit, but let’s dump out the preverbial notebook after the series all in one place.

The Braves won four out of five games against the Marlins this weekend, impressively putting up 31 runs in the process. Here’s some of what I noticed from Atlanta this weekend.

Waldrep’s new pitch is the key

The Mayor of Splitter City, Hurston Waldrep, came up over the weekend to start game one of Saturday’s doubleheader and was superb: Six innings pitched with just one run on four hits, walking only one and striking out six.

The way he did it was interesting, too - throwing a sinker.

It was Sean Murphy’s idea, as Waldrep explained to reporters (including David O’Brien of The Athletic) on Saturday. “The day after (that) start, he called me in,” explained Waldrep, referencing a start against Nashville where Murphy caught him while on a rehab outing. “He’s like, ‘Hey, man, let’s go over the start a little bit. Let’s look over some things.’ He noticed some things in my four-seam. He’s like, ‘I think it would be really easy for you to throw a sinker right here.’ And I agreed. I threw in the bullpen two days later.”

Waldrep admitted that it took a lot more work to get it ready for game action, researching the exact version that would work for him. “It was a lot of video, a lot of comparing myself to other guys who have about the same arsenal and how it would play and work with (hitters on both sides),” he said. “But (Murphy) was really helpful in the process and kind of opened some doors for me, and I knew that from what he was seeing that it would play really well.”

I’ve developed a bit of a reputation over with the Braves Postcast crowd for being a cutter propogandist, but that’s rooted in a belief that unless you have an elite fastball, you should throw multiple different fastballs. It’s a theory that the Boston Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers have adoped and ran with in recent years, both in the majors and the minors.

And if you think about it, it makes sense. Speaking specifically on Waldrep, if the problem with his four-seam fastball is the mediocre movement profile that makes its flight predictable, then artifically create unpredictability by intermixing a cutter and a sinker with the four-seamer. By diversifying your pitch mix, you can get the ball off of the barrel and generate weak contact because they can’t sit a specific fastball shape in a fastball count.

It’s not a perfect trade-off, sure - you typically sacrifice whiffs when introducing a sinker, for instance - but throwing multiple fastballs tends to make a pitcher better, not worse. Waldrep’s the new Atlanta poster child for that. With him being a conventional call up over the weekend rather than the designated 27th man for the doubleheader, he’s likely sticking around for a few more starts. He lines up for sometime this weekend in Cleveland, likely Friday.

Is the offense…fixed?

As of Sunday afternoon, Atlanta’s offense had been one of the best in baseball since the trade deadline. They’re 7th in runs (111) despite being 13th in homers with 28 and 23rd in batting average at .238.

It feels like there is two explanations here - they’re finally hitting with runners in scoring position and they’re dominating in the walk department.

On the scoring position thing, the ‘aircraft carriers’ have consistently done well. Austin Riley’s hitting .311, while Matt Olson’s at .295 and even Ozzie Albies, for the dreadful first half he had, is at .261. The catchers are also performing, with both Drake Baldwin (.333) and Sean Murphy (.286) more than respectable.

It’s everyone else that was the problem. Marcell Ozuna (.222), Michael Harris (.211), even Ronald Acuña Jr. (.176) underperformed and most of the fill-ins - Stuart Fairchild, Jarred Kelenic, Alex Verdugo, etc - didn’t get the job done when it counted.

But recently, the Braves have been much better in that regard. They’re hitting .321 in the last seven games when a runner is in scoring position.

It helps that Atlanta’s manufacturing those situations, too. Since the All Star Break, the Braves lead MLB in walks with 103. The next closest is the Los Angeles Dodgers at just 78.

Is this the Tim Hyers offense at work? Their swing rates in and out of the zone are remarkably similar, although post All Star Break is a small sample size so it may not be fully statistically valid as of yet. My expectation is that this is simply a factor of having better players in place outside of the ‘aircraft carriers’ that have (mostly) been here all year - Jurickson Profar’s much better offensively than Alex Verdugo or Jarred Kelenic, while Ronald Acuña Jr. played a much larger percentage of post All Star Break games than pre All Star Break games. Marcell Ozuna’s return to the lineup of late is undoubtedly helping the walk rates, as well.

On the offensive philosophy front, I’m really curious to see what the Braves do with the coaching staff this offseason. Manager Brian Snitker is widely expected to retire from managing after this campaign concludes, although he’ll likely take a front office/special assistant job so that he can complete 50 years with the organization. Does the new manager, whether someone from the Bobby Cox coaching tree (Walt Weiss?) or from outside (like Skip Schumaker or David Ross) retain Hyers and double-down on his philosophy, or do they bring in their own coaches? There’s an argument to be made, assuming you buy this recent offensive surge as being fueled by Hyers, that both he and Rick Kranitz (pitching coach) should be given the chance to return. We’ll see what the Braves do after the season when Snitker officially announces his decision.

How Iggy got his groove back

An ERA of over six and a half in early-June is something that Raisel Iglesias has never dealt with before. After representing the back half of a catastrophic collapse against the Diamondbacks on June 5th, Iglesias was 3-5 with a 6.76 ERA and lost the closer role.

Since then: 1-1 with a 1.90 ERA and eight saves. of his five earned runs over the last 23.2 innings, four of them came off of a grand slam by the New York Yankees on July 19th.

Much preverbial ink has been spilled, both here and elsewhere, about his slider being one of the main culprits. On the season, it’s allowed a .409 average, 1.227 slug, and six homers - two more than he gave up all of last year.

But as he’s minimized the slider usage, he’s finally leaned into his underrated four-seam fastball, pushing up both its usage and its velocity.

The first chart here from Statcast is a month-by-month look at his pitch usage, with the slider going from greater 20% early in the year to under 10% now. Since the start of July, he’s pushed the four-seamer to a Braves tenure-high 47.3% usage.

The second chart is a game-by-game velocity chart, where he’s almost consistently pushed and maintained his fastball velocity at greater than 95 mph of late.

Exempting a brief blip in mid-May where he was throwing in the low-90s, his monthly average has consistently been in the 94s. This is below last year’s 96, coincidentally where he had the best season of his career, but a great sign that whatever was bothering him early in the year is behind him and he could potentially be back to the dominant closer we all remember.

Does this open the door for a return?

This year’s closer class is expected to be stacked - even if Edwin Díaz and Robert Suarez don’t opt out of their deals (and they likely will), there’s still all style of closer on the market this winter. Devin Williams is the formerly dominant unicorn pitch-wielding closer coming off a poor season and potentially open to a pillow contract. Kenley Jansen is the formerly dominant unicorn pitch-wielding closer looking for one last chance to hit a milestone. Kirby Yates is the savvy veteran reliever trying to win the big one before he hangs it up. Aroldis Chapman is the lefty flamethrower. Ryan Helsley is the righty flamethrower. You get the idea.

Guys approach a loaded free agency market in one of two ways - they either lean into it, or shy away from it. Does Iglesias hop into the crowded market and position himself as one of the best remaining options if you strike out on the others, as Dansby Swanson successfully did in the shortstop-filled 2022 offseason? Or does Iggy decide that approaching Atlanta about a one-year deal, likely at a discount on this season’s $16M contract, is the right move to both rebuild his highest value and push himself into a much less crowded 2027 class?