Atlanta Braves news: Camargo, among others, makes things interesting for the future

BRAVES NEWS

Atlanta drops first of four-game series against Miami

The final series of the season for the Braves got off to a sour start as the Marlins powered their way to a 7-1 victory. The game got away from Julio Teheran and Atlanta in the third inning, which is when the Marlins scored four runs to pull ahead of the Braves. Meanwhile, Giancarlo Stanton hit two dingers and there’s a decent chance that he’ll crack 60 before the season ends.

CBS Sports: Braves have intriguing future

With the season coming to a close, we’re starting to see the national publications give their postmortem reports for each team, and CBS Sports recently got around to doing theirs on the Braves. Any season that ends without a postseason appearance is a bit of a bummer, but Matt Snyder thinks that there’s plenty of reason for the Braves to be optmistic going forward.

Utility man [Johan] Camargo didn't flash a huge offensive profile in the minors, but that doesn't always matter. Things click at different times for everyone. So far in 80 games, he's hit .297/.329/.452. Camargo has played shortstop, second base, left field and perhaps most importantly, third base. In fact, he seems better suited at third than short so far.

I say "perhaps most importantly" because if the Braves so choose, they could always try to stick Camargo there alongside Freeman, Albies and Swanson as their long-term infield. They could also try to add someone like, say, Mike Moustakas to the group via free agency and use Camargo as a roving utility man with good upside. Then he's there in case of injury or even a sophomore slump from Albies not unlike Swanson's.

Either way, Camargo has given them flexibility here.

Change to the coaching staff could be announced next week

There have been plenty of rumors concerning changes to the coaching staff, and now Mark Bowman is reporting that at least one change will be announced next week. I’d imagine that speculation is going to run rampant until then.

Charlie Sheen thinks Albies is a future Hall-of-Famer

In weird news that is only news because the internet is a strange place, it turns out that Charlie Sheen is a huge fan of Ozzie Albies. Sheen tweeted that he figured that Albies would make the Hall of Fame if he stayed healthy, and Albies tweeted his appreciation in response. It’s weird, but I sure hope that Wild Thing is right about this one.

Here’s some weird hitting stats about the 2017 Braves

Ivan gave us a post yesterday concerning some “minorly weird stats,” and as usual, it’s a very interesting read. Here’s my favorite tidbit — and by “favorite” I also mean “the saddest.”

26 percent of the time that [Matt] Kemp could have grounded into a double play, he did. For comparison, the league average rate is 11 percent.

Kemp lost nearly half a win off his fWAR for his double play tendencies (four runs), a 25 percent greater demerit than his next-closest competitor.

MLB NEWS

How did Minnesota go from cellar to the playoffs?

Last season, the Twins were pretty bad and that led to them picking first in this year’s draft. However, unlike the other teams who had high draft selections back in May (save for the Diamondbacks), the Twins will be playing on into October (for at least one game). How did they do it? Our friends at Twinkie Town tried to explain it for the rest of us:

Obviously, there are many more reasons behind these five that explain the Twins’ incredible success this season: improved pitching, a savvy front office, Jason Castro’s magical pitch-framing abilities, like five times backup catcher Chris Gimenez had to pitch, so on and so fourth. But also, as mentioned, the Twins are still sort of the underdogs, sneaking into the postseason with only 83-75 record (currently).

Here’s some food for thought: Thirty years ago, the Twins ended their season with an 85-77 record. Their Pythagorean win-loss record—meaning, how much they should have won or lost based on their run differential—was 79-83. And guess what? Those Twins beat the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games to win their first World Series championship.

Milwaukee looking to upgrade in big way this offseason

It’s looking like the Brewers are going to come up just short of making the playoffs this year. With that being said, they did a lot better than anybody predicted they would, and as such, expectations have been raised for Milwaukee and the team is reportedly planning on making plenty of upgrades to the team next season. I suppose this is an early warning shot from the crew in Wisconsin.