The Daily Chop: Previewing Marcell Ozuna and Cristian Pache

I just wanted to take a second to thank all of you for reading the 2021 Braves season preview content that we have been rolling out over the course of the last couple of weeks. We of course will continue to cover the preseason goings-on, but as for the official rollout...make sure you stay tuned over the next few days as we wrap up the rest of the roster and turn our attention to the rest of the NL East. I suspect the usual roundtables where we make guesses that look silly several months into the season isn’t far behind after that. On to the links...

Braves News

Marcell Ozuna looking for another big year after re-upping with Braves

One of the bigger reasons that the Braves nearly made the World Series last year was due to the torrid run that Marcell Ozuna went on in 2020. It isn’t unreasonable to say that if Freddie didn’t do what he did, Ozuna might have won the NL MVP last season (it would have been a tough race to be sure). Now that the Braves made the most important move they had to make in bringing him back, everyone is hoping for more of the same in 2021.

Cristian Pache looks to claim the CF spot for years to come

There is going to be a lot of discussion about Cristian Pache this spring with a lot of the focus being whether he will be the Braves’ starting centerfielder on Opening Day. Here is a bit of a preview of who he is as a player and what we could expect.

Quick review: league-wide FIP distribution

I have one hard and fast rule at Talking Chop and that is if Ivan writes something, I read it because I always learn a lot. This article is no exception as he dives into FIP and what constitutes a good or bad FIP. These measurements are still fairly new in terms of usage in baseball vocabulary, so having more concrete understandings of what these numbers mean in relation to other players is the good stuff.

Talking Chop Podcast Episode 277: Bullpen preview and more

For reasons passing understanding, Brad keeps allowing me to appear on the Talking Chop podcast and I did so again on Saturday evening. After going through the newsy items like Snit’s extension and the flurry of minor moves, we dove into the bullpen and gave our best initial guesses as to how it was going to go. I also made fun of Brad and ranted about Liberty Media...possibly in a different order.

MLB News

Bauer set to make Dodgers debut Monday

The Dodgers were already an insane team coming off a World Series win...and now they have Trevor Bauer in their rotation. We will get our first look at Bauer in a Dodger uniform on Monday as he makes his spring debut.

Pujols’ decision? He hasn’t made it yet

Its hard to watch the shell of Albert Pujols play these days as he is well past his prime and earlier this week, his wife accidentally gave the impression that 2021 was for sure going to be his last season. Well, its now clear that that decision has yet to be made. As a friendly reminder, even though Pujols best days are long behind him...the Angels still owe him an insane amount of money.