Sep 29th 2011, 13:38:21
It's always easier to come up with ideas on how good a team is when you've got everyone through an entire season.
The Braves clearly have rebuilt a very strong rotation. Considering who was available, the only rotations that I'd easily take over Atlanta's in 2011 would be Philly and San Fran (Maybe St. Louis with a healthy Wainwright, but sans Wainwright, this is easily Atlanta).
They clearly never had the bats they needed though to really be a threat for the World Series. Once the rotation was compromised by injuries late, this pretty much hamstrung Atlanta, as they can't really win consistently in high scoring games.
Their top RBI and HR guy was their 2nd baseman. Now Uggla is a very potent run-producer for a 2nd baseman, but after Uggla, the production drops off faster as well. The only guys that have solid production offensively are Uggla, Chipper, McCann, and to some degree Freeman (good production, but that's expected from a 1B).
Meanwhile, for positional players, there were 4 players on the Cardinals that had a higher WAR (Wins Above Replacement) than Brian McCann, the top WAR guy for Atlanta--Pujols, Berkman, Holliday and Molina, and they have two other guys in Freese and Craig that put up almost as high of a WAR (a counting stat) in under 100 games as Uggla did in 161.
Uggla, McCann, Freeman and Chipper aren't the problems, but they just lack the offensive production and depth elsewhere that is needed. Assuming Heyward bounces back next year, his bat will help a lot in fixing this problem. An .850 OPS year from him probably makes Atlanta an average lineup instead of below-average by himself. Same with Prado. If he put up the OPS he did the previous two years, then you've got an above average lineup with a wicked rotation.
Atlanta either needs to upgrade in a crucial position (SS or CF seem like the best options from looking at the roster--tough positions to get a significant upgrade though...) or they need to add some depth in case injuries/poor production in a crucial position or two hit them again next year.
Like Mars said, increasing the payroll might be in order, but I would say that I applaud Atlanta for being patient and letting their young players develop before they went all-in on some free agent that is probably on the decline. A $100M payroll wouldn't have helped Atlanta in 2010, and clearly it was unnecessary until the injuries revealed a lack of depth in 2011, but I would imagine, if spent wisely and not just out of desperation, one more big piece of a couple of complementary pieces for the Braves would put them in position to win more than 89 games next year.