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The Official 2018 Atlanta Braves Season discussion thread

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Rabs

Member
Jan 25, 2011
616
0
Land O Lakes, FL
I stopped watching after we were down huge in the 9th. Woke up and saw we lost in 15 innings I was shocked. Then when I found out we should have won it in the 9th I was not surprised we could not get the winning run in. No reason Freeman should have been sent home with 0 outs. He would have still been on third.
 

death2redemptions

New member
Feb 4, 2016
12,488
0
The Carolina on the Southern side
I stopped watching after we were down huge in the 9th. Woke up and saw we lost in 15 innings I was shocked. Then when I found out we should have won it in the 9th I was not surprised we could not get the winning run in. No reason Freeman should have been sent home with 0 outs. He would have still been on third.

Yup, I said the same exact thing. It was quiet ridiculous. The play wasn't even close either.
 

WizardofOz1982

Well-known member
Sep 30, 2017
1,736
1,498
Oklahoma
On my latest episode of "Slob his Knob" I take a look at Freddie Freeman and his NL rank among every important traditional & sabermetric stat:
.344 avg - 1st
.435 OBP - 1st
.590 slg% - 1st
1.025 OPS - 1st
88 Hits - 1st
44 Runs - 6th
14 HR - 3rd
48 RBI - 3rd
6 SB - 19th
151 Total Bases - 1st
34 XBH - 2nd
41 Walks - 6th
3.6 rWAR - 1st
3.6 fWAR - 1st
181 OPS+ - 1st
175 wRC+ - 1st
.429 wOBA - 1st
.246 ISO - 6th

Which brings us to this question...

https://www.foxsports.com/watch/mlb-whiparound/video/1255438403676

Is Freeman the clear front runner for NL MVP? I'll give the same exact answer the guys in that video gave....yes, yes, yes. No other position player even comes close to stacking up against Freeman & at least for the moment, the Braves are contenders so we don't have to get into the debate of whether or not a player who's not on a contending team should get consideration & even if he weren't on a contending team, his stats are far better than any other NL position player that I think he'd still be the top candidate. The only other NL player who could give Freeman a run for his money at this point in the season is Max Scherzer. Now, I'm not a big fan of pitchers winning the MVP award unless their stats are drastically better than any position player candidate and while I do believe Scherzer has had an incredible season so far I'd say his stats are comparable, or at best, slightly better than Freeman's.

Throughout his career I'd say this season would be his best shot at winning the award, with the Braves in contention and Harper struggling. However, in order to win it he's going to have to avoid the DL this year. I don't believe serving the minimal time on a single 10-day DL stint will drastically hurt his chances but he has to avoid those major injuries that require significant recovery time.

And again, he could go in a major slump while Harper goes on the hottest streak of his career & the Braves fall out of contention...all things that hurt his chances...but I'm just talking about right now & right now he's the front runner.

And that includes our latest episode, as it only ends when "the player's Knob is full of my Slob". I'll catch you next time when a Braves player's Knob is in need of some Slob, so long folks!

Freeman is having a great year but he's actually third in the NL in fWAR. Scherzer has 4.2 and DeGrom has 3.8. If Scherzer keeps it up he'll win the Cy Young and the NL MVP this year.

I don't know about slightly better. Scherzer is on pace for 8+ fWAR, 22 wins, 300+ Ks, and his ERA is 2 with a FIP and xFIP that back it up. He's leading the NL in just about every pitching category imaginable other than ERA and DeGrom's will come up some so it wouldn't surprise me if Scherzer won the Pitching Triple Crown.
 
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death2redemptions

New member
Feb 4, 2016
12,488
0
The Carolina on the Southern side
Freeman is having a great year but he's actually third in the NL in fWAR. Scherzer has 4.2 and DeGrom has 3.8. If Scherzer keeps it up he'll win the Cy Young and the NL MVP this year.

I don't know about slightly better. Scherzer is on pace for 8+ fWAR, 22 wins, 300+ Ks, and his ERA is 2 with a FIP and xFIP that back it up. He's leading the NL in just about every pitching category imaginable other than ERA and DeGrom's will come up some so it wouldn't surprise me if Scherzer won the Pitching Triple Crown.

That was written nearly a week ago, a lot has changed since then (in regards to Freeman at least). Also, at the time that was written I was only including position players with the analytic stat rankings.

As for the Scherzer vs. Freeman comparison, if I were to have written that piece today I'd actually say that Scherzer is more deserving, especially since Freeman has cooled down significantly & Scherzer continues to dominate, although I still wouldn't like to see him win the MVP, as I tend to hate when pitchers do.
 

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