Reasons behind Atlanta Braves poor season last year – MLB Feature
While ideal pre-season activities see impetus, confidence and aggression into a team, only those clubs with laurels bagged last season can experience that kind of euphoria. A team plagued by the recriminations and every inch of scrutiny of the players triggered
by the dismal performance last season finds it tough to prepare for the next season.
Unfortunately, Atlanta Braves, one of the teams decimated last season in the final stage of the season suffers from this malaise. One of the reasons responsible for this shaky state of the team includes prevalence of painful memories of the last year in
the minds of the players. As one starts the quest to ransack the weak-links responsible for the debacle last year, one fears the repeat of the same performance this year unless the present atmosphere in the team is changed.
Atlanta Braves started the season well, but as the games progressed, many off-field and in-field issues sprang up affecting the team’s progress in the later matches. Inability to manipulate the batting line-up by Fredi Gonzalez proved counterproductive as
most of the players could not show up to their potential. Had there been a mix of young and veterans in the team line-up, at-least injuries and player’s fatigue were not to be the biggest reason behind their failure.
Who knows, few of the young rookies from the Minor Leagues if were picked up could have gone on to put-up a surprising show and hence could have avoided the team's humiliation that culminated in the crucial games of the season. Braves’ pitcher, Derek Lowe,
had a terrific last September but could only add to the woes of the team and even some believe was responsible for the last 17 losses of the team in the season, just because he was overused in the hopeless attempt to draw a same performance from him of previous
season.
Despite the presence of quality players, Atlanta Braves could not receive the kind of performance from their hitters. As many believe, if the manager Gonzalez instead of going by the rigid batting order had inducted few new players up the order, it might
have generated many hits for the runners. Many still wonder why the stock of promising young talent in the Atlanta Braves had in its artillery was unused as there was a need. Players like Mike Minor, Julio Teheran and Randall Delgado had shown the credentials
to replace the ageing lot of veterans.
Meanwhile, as the current players are still unable to recover from the losses last year, their obsession of the past failure may reflect into the team future performance in a negative way. Thus the induction of fresh players is a dire need for lifting up
the morale, perhaps the only thing that the Braves need at this moment.
While the expiry of the contracts of many players is around the corner, team management has to be cautious going into trading. The fact only three players namely Craig Kimbrel, Eric O'Flaherty and Jonny Venters pitched almost for 239 innings last season
points to the paucity of options with the team when it comes to their performance and management which must account for this fact during the acquisition of new players. If Peter Moylan and Kris Medlen two players who had to miss out last season due to injury
were healthy, it would have been a great option to possibly mitigate the need for buying new players.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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