There were plenty of players on the Braves last year that were unlucky, but there were also some that had fortune on their side.
The Atlanta Braves had some terrible luck when it came to injuries last season. We also explored that for some players, the bad luck went beyond just injuries themselves, and that the underlying metrics showed poor luck. This meant these players are serious bounce-back candidates.
The flip side of the coin to bad fortune is obviously good fortune. The Atlanta Braves had some players in this situation as well.
Much like with what we looked at in the previously mentioned article, there are ways to measure if a player is likely to have a negative regression to the mean. In other words, likely will not perform as well as the previous season. These measurements are never perfect, but when making decisions or predictions for the future, it is always wise to play the probabilities.
There are many areas to look, but we can start by looking at weighted on base average (wOBA) versus expected wOBA (xwOBA) for both hitters and pitchers, batting average of balls in play (BABIP) for both hitters and pitchers, ERA versus expected ERA (xERA) for pitchers, and strand rate (LOB%) for pitchers among other high level statistics. These stats can be used to spot red flags to start digging deeper into a possible future drop-off in performance.
Of course, there are many other indicators that we can look at and get much more granular. However, if you are not a professional scout, it helps to have some high level starting points to save some time and start digging into a player’s profile.
Reynaldo López
Let’s start with the most obvious candidate. López had an incredible year. Had he started a handful more starts, he may have been legitimately in Cy Young award talks if he could keep up the same rate stats like ERA and strikeout to walk ratio. His performance even netted him some Cy Young down votes with him coming in eleventh.
Nothing can ever take away from his performance. He deserves all the praise that he has gotten. That being said, you could look at his previous seasons and his sterling 1.99 ERA and have a gut feelings that the odds of a repeat are virtually zero.
There are some nuances such as him not starting more than nine games since 2019, so it is clear that he would likely get tired out as the season progressed. That being said, there are some signs of regression that draw the eye almost immediately when reviewing his profile.
First, and likely the area that could have been guessed by most, is that his xERA was higher than his actual ERA. What may be shocking though, is how much higher. His xERA was almost a full two runs higher than his actual ERA at 3.94. One of the reasons for the much higher xERA is that hitters were hitting the ball very hard against him. His average exit velocity against him of 89.9 MPH was among the worst 23.0 percent in MLB. Somehow he only gave up 0.7 HRs per nine innings pitched.
Another area that sticks out is that he was very fortunate in stranding runners. His career average strand rate is 73.6 percent, but in 2024 he was somehow able to strand 87.0 percent of runners. The odds of that happening again are extremely slim.
We can look at his wOBA of .271 to his xwOBA of .307 on the season and see negative regression was inevitable over a longer period of time. His curveball is the the pitch that he was the most fortunate with. Hitters only had a slugging percentage of .264 when they had an xSLG of .452.
Now for some good news. One may assume that López tired out as the season went on, but he actually got better in terms of xwOBA as the season went on. Of course, he had rest when he was out due to injury, but it is still a positive sign. We can see from the graph below a positive trend in terms of xwOBA against him as we go month by month.
He also did not get lucky in terms of BABIP. BABIP is typically a clear sign of regression if it strays far from the mean, but his .287 in 2024 was close to his career average of .282.
Odds heavily favor that López will not repeat his stellar 2024, but he still shows signs of being a solid rotation arm if he can keep up with the work load.
Orlando Arcia
On the flip side of the coin from López is Orlando Arcia. Saying Arcia had a poor offensive season in 2024 would be an understatement. With the slash line of .218/.271/.354, it resulted in a wRC+ of 72. This ranked second to last among all qualified hitters in MLB. The only player worse was Maikel Garcia.
One would hope that with an output like that then it would mean there is nowhere to go but up. Unfortunately, the underlying metrics do not necessarily show this. His wOBA of .273, which was already in the bottom 4.0 percent of MLB, was higher than his xwOBA of .261. This is a sign of possible negative regression to the mean.
His expected batting average (xBA) of .206 was lower than his .218 batting average, and his xSLG of .323 was lower than his actual slugging percentage of .354. In 2023, Arcia was able to spike his xSLG up on both off-speed and fastballs, making it his calling card to success. This past season his xSLG dropped on breaking balls, off-speed, and fastballs.
His walk rate of 6.8 percent was his lowest since 2018, and his hard hit rate was his lowest since 2019. In other words, he is not showing signs that he was just unlucky. He is actually showing signs that he could get worse. His saving grace may be that his BABIP of .249 was well below both league average and his career average of .281.
Good news for the Braves is that these two players are the only two on the roster that stick out. If you wanted to stretch, you could say Raisel Iglesias just to add another name since his xERA of 2.24 was higher than his actual ERA of 1.95. But, that seems disingenuous since his profile looks excellent across the board. You would really have to stretch to prove signs of potential regression when you consider that even if he declines slightly he would still be one of the best in MLB at what he does.
In summary
By taking the time to look at possible bounce-back candidates, and now possible negative regression candidates, it does paint a positive picture for the Braves. Last season the Braves had a lot more go wrong that was out of their control than players getting lucky. This trend shows there is a high probability of a Braves bounce-back as a team.
There seems to be some legitimacy to the PECOTA projections that show the Braves have the third best odds to win the World Series.