I agree that this one is on AA - Weiss was in a tough situation with no sign that the hitters were going to wake up and mount a rally and with Suarez out there's not much room for using the high leverage guys in this game, especially with 13 straight games.
As an aside, I thought Young looked pretty good. Your thoughts, Lindsay?
I agree on Young, yeah. You can see he's rusty in getting behind a lot of batters, so something he needs to clean up, but the sinker/sweeper combo isn't really something we've had out of the pen and is super useful against lefties specifically. Hyped to have him and can't wait for him to get more settled
"(and it’s time for the DFA-to-minor-league-contract carousel to stop)," AMEN!! Get your last man in the bullpen to be two or three minor leaguers that can swap out (getting starts in AAA to working garbage time in the bigs) to prepare them in a "no-pressure" environment. Like you, I'm sick of dead arms being sold to fans as "oldies but goodies". We've tired of that tune.
I usually agree with your views, but I think you’re going too easy on the “Carrasco decision.” This isn’t second guessing as I made these comments before the game. 1. Carrasco shouldn’t have been on the roster and 2. You need all 13 arms in today’s game. If Elder can’t go, put him on the 10 day IL and bring up Karinchek or Harris or Murphy or…And bring up 1 or 2 guys over the course of the next month to figure out who can be counted on. If another reliever had been blown up in the 9th, it’s something you have to live with and the team and pitcher can learn and grow. But Carrasco getting blown up does nothing for this team, but remind us of the last time he did it.
You're right in that Carrasco shouldn't have been here at all, and we shouldn't have been playing a man short in the pen. But he was and we were, meaning the decision for Weiss was either let him pitch a 2nd inning or use a leverage arm in Fuentes or Iglesias despite the fact the offense had two total baserunners after the 2nd inning.
I don't love the outcome, but I understand *why* he made that decision in the moment. As I was telling some folks after the game, if we had baserunners in every inning and just couldn't quite get them across the plate, I probably go with Fuentes for the 9th. But at the time, with the information he had, why would you shoot the shot on one of the two (and have them be down tomorrow) to support an offense that hadn't done squat in six innings?
In a perfect world, he gets DFA'd tomorrow and either not re-signed or not called back up to Atlanta. We have enough relief arms with options that we shouldn't need to use him any more
Agree, I’m not faulting Weiss, although I’m guessing these roster decisions are a collaboration with AA. There isn’t a “back end of the bullpen” in today’s game. You need every arm. Although, it seems like Braves still operate in that mode too often. Looking at today’s completed games, teams used an average of 4.4 pitchers. That’s running your entire staff out every 3 days. Obviously, that’s not workload, but you have to play with 13 pitchers plus 2-3 that can move up and down to cover innings these days. And a veteran with no options and a ERA of almost 6.00 isn’t the right approach.
I agree that this one is on AA - Weiss was in a tough situation with no sign that the hitters were going to wake up and mount a rally and with Suarez out there's not much room for using the high leverage guys in this game, especially with 13 straight games.
As an aside, I thought Young looked pretty good. Your thoughts, Lindsay?
I agree on Young, yeah. You can see he's rusty in getting behind a lot of batters, so something he needs to clean up, but the sinker/sweeper combo isn't really something we've had out of the pen and is super useful against lefties specifically. Hyped to have him and can't wait for him to get more settled
"(and it’s time for the DFA-to-minor-league-contract carousel to stop)," AMEN!! Get your last man in the bullpen to be two or three minor leaguers that can swap out (getting starts in AAA to working garbage time in the bigs) to prepare them in a "no-pressure" environment. Like you, I'm sick of dead arms being sold to fans as "oldies but goodies". We've tired of that tune.
I usually agree with your views, but I think you’re going too easy on the “Carrasco decision.” This isn’t second guessing as I made these comments before the game. 1. Carrasco shouldn’t have been on the roster and 2. You need all 13 arms in today’s game. If Elder can’t go, put him on the 10 day IL and bring up Karinchek or Harris or Murphy or…And bring up 1 or 2 guys over the course of the next month to figure out who can be counted on. If another reliever had been blown up in the 9th, it’s something you have to live with and the team and pitcher can learn and grow. But Carrasco getting blown up does nothing for this team, but remind us of the last time he did it.
You're right in that Carrasco shouldn't have been here at all, and we shouldn't have been playing a man short in the pen. But he was and we were, meaning the decision for Weiss was either let him pitch a 2nd inning or use a leverage arm in Fuentes or Iglesias despite the fact the offense had two total baserunners after the 2nd inning.
I don't love the outcome, but I understand *why* he made that decision in the moment. As I was telling some folks after the game, if we had baserunners in every inning and just couldn't quite get them across the plate, I probably go with Fuentes for the 9th. But at the time, with the information he had, why would you shoot the shot on one of the two (and have them be down tomorrow) to support an offense that hadn't done squat in six innings?
In a perfect world, he gets DFA'd tomorrow and either not re-signed or not called back up to Atlanta. We have enough relief arms with options that we shouldn't need to use him any more
100%!
Agree, I’m not faulting Weiss, although I’m guessing these roster decisions are a collaboration with AA. There isn’t a “back end of the bullpen” in today’s game. You need every arm. Although, it seems like Braves still operate in that mode too often. Looking at today’s completed games, teams used an average of 4.4 pitchers. That’s running your entire staff out every 3 days. Obviously, that’s not workload, but you have to play with 13 pitchers plus 2-3 that can move up and down to cover innings these days. And a veteran with no options and a ERA of almost 6.00 isn’t the right approach.