Anatomy of a “Collapse”: Why the Braves Blew It

The Braves may have ended the season in a slump, but don't call it a collapse.  By Evan Weston

(AP Photo/David Tulis)

     Let’s get this out of the way right now—the Atlanta Braves did not “collapse”. That word implies a complete and utter disintegration of everything the team has, including its will to win. No one can accuse the Atlanta Braves of not trying or not having enough “heart” to make the playoffs. The Atlanta Braves were simply bad at baseball in September. Even great teams have rough stretches—the Phillies lost eight in a row just this month after clinching the NL East title. Let’s take a look at what went wrong for the Braves in September, and whether it’s a harbinger of bad things to come in 2012 or simply a nasty bit of small sample size.

1. The already-poor hitting fell apart – You know when Alex Gonzalez and a way-past-his-prime Chipper Jones are your best hitters in a month, you have trouble. The Braves’ big bats completely fell off a cliff in September. The usually solid Michael Bourn had .316 wOBA (weighted on bat average). Martin Prado was far more putrid, posting an atrocious .257 wOBA. Prado was actually terrible for the last three months of the year, and it’s becoming more and more likely that his best days are behind him. Superprospect Freddie Freeman and All-star Brian McCann stunk it up, putting up wOBAs of .291 and .277, respectively. McCann’s slump is particularly concerning, as the catcher was poor offensively in August as well. However, in that month he was terribly unlucky (throwing up a pitiful .088 BABIP). 
2. The young starting pitchers didn’t have it – GM Frank Wren and the Braves’ front office put way too much pressure on Mike Minor, Randall Delgado and Julio Teheran in the final month of the season. The three combined to put up a cumulative 1.1 WAR in 25 starts. Not horrible, but consider this—1.4 belonged to Minor, while Teheran and Delgado were worth -0.3. And the latter’s 2.83 ERA was a product of sheer dumb luck. These kids will be great someday, particularly Minor, but it wasn’t fair for the Braves to expect season-saving stuff from these guys. 
3. Ventbrel went AWOL – The rock of Atlanta’s “winning close games” mantra all season, Johnny Venters and NY ROY candidate Craig Krimbel finally crumbled under something—pressure maybe, though more likely overuse—and let the team down in September. Venters managed a 5.11 ERA in 12 September appearances after that holding that number down near 1.00 the entire year, while Kimbrel was only slightly better, posting a 4.76 ERA for the month while also finally allowing two crushing 9th-inning homers after letting only one ball fly out of the park over the first five months. Too many late-game blown saves doomed the Braves. 

     Again, the majorities of the Braves’ late-season woes were due to an offensive outage-particularly from Prado, Freeman and McCann. Atlanta is still a really good young team, but just like any good team, they are subject to long, nasty slumps. Theirs just hit at a bad time.