FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION II- Atlanta Braves -1.5 (-120)
2% game rating
Starting Pitching: List Allen and Sale
Home Plate Umpire: Chris Guccione has been assigned his 490th career home plate assignment for tonight's Game 1 of the Interleague Series between the Braves and the visiting Guardians. All five of Guccione's home plate assignments totals have closed at nine or fewer runs. The record of those five is 3-1-1, over-under-push. Of the 10 teams involved in those five home plate assignments with Guccione working the dish six of the 10 ranks as the least productive offenses in the league; with the 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th ranked teams all playing a role in Guccione's 3-1-1 record, over to under, in the Gooch's five home plate assignments.
Venue: Truist Park in Atlanta
Weather: The forecast for Truist Park calls for first-pitch temps in the mid-70s with no precipitation expected while a ESE wind blows from the leftfield to the rightfield corner between 5-10 mph.
Logan Allen threw a solid game plan against the Giants last summer, a mid-September start versus the Giants before ending his rookie season with a move to the Injured List 10 days later. I was interested in watching Allen for the final time last season due to several interesting variables. The fact that the American League Central was the softest of divisions in baseball as season ago issued me reasons to begin accessing which of the five teams would be in the best position to improve their roster in the winter and be in a position to earn a division title in 2024, this season.
Allen owned a 3.60 ERA and 1.35 WHIP through 122.1 innings of MLB work but the eye test was different than his surface numbers suggested he was or he could be.
Allen's underlying peripherals were not typical of top pitching prospects year in and year out. This was especially the feeling I had considering the division that the Guardians play in and the number of starts that Allen had versus division foes. Of Allen's 25 starts in 2023 the 25-year-old was involved in 10 starts against AL Central members. Allen started four games against the Chicago White Sox, three games against a 106-loss Kansas City Royals team, twice against the division-winning Minnesota Twins, and once against the Tigers of Detroit.
Allen was 1-2 vs the White Sox 0-2 vs the Royals, 1-0 in the two starts vs the Twinkies, and 0-1 against Detroit. In the 10 starts vs the Central cast of characters, he was the pitcher of record seven times with a record of 2-5 overall. Allen finished his rookie campaign with a 7-8 record across 25 starts meaning he was 5-2 against non-division opponents. His five wins other than the two he had in the division came against the below-average Angels squad, a wild card squad in the Reds, the less-than Pirates, the AL East Champion Baltimore Orioles outfit, and a wild card Miami Marlins squad.
The difference between Allen and other rookie prodigies was that Allen did very little that was special. Yes, he won nearly as many as he lost with a 7-8 rookie mark but he demonstrated league-average skills (22% K and 9% BB). Allen's 4.41 SIERA was nearly a run higher than his ERA.
What scouts, MLB pundits, and traditional baseball crazies liked most was that Allen was a lefty who has a four-pitch mix with some oomph on his four-seamer. That supposed oomph was more of a whiff in my opinion. Allen has anything but elite Velo. The Southpaw averaged 91.6 mph on his heater and without an elite breaking ball MLB pitchers who have a top end at 92 mph without an elite secondary breaking ball are average throughout their careers, or they don't have a long career.
Yes, I trust the Guardians and their reputation of developing pitchers but Allen is lumped in with a dozen of young lefthanders that have reached their best with Velo and spin rates that are league-average.
The Braves Chris Sale, who is approaching his mid-30s, is head and shoulders more talented, capable, and equipped to be elite at 35 years of agent than Allen his junior of a decade.
Sale still owns a boatload of talent after a handful of arm injuries in the neighborhood of baseball savvy that has come from his 1000 innings of baseball experience. Toss in the fact that Sale has an offense like the Braves backing him up and the math tells you that Sale doesn't have to be much better than average tonight to earn a win with his Atlanta teammates.
Sale got his spring training off to a good start, striking out four in two perfect innings against the Pirates in his debut for the Braves. Sale's entry into the realm of Bravedom comes on the heels of a season in which he surpassed 100 innings of work for the first time in three seasons with a 4.30 ERA against American League East talent pitching for the Red Sox. Sale's surface numbers weren't as good as his underlying peripherals. Sale pitched to a 3.72 xFIP, 10.96 K/9, 2.54 BB/9, and 13.2% SwStr%. Those metrics aren't just good, they're are bordering on great and are good enough to add 15 wins to his career resume this season.
Across 102.2 innings of work for the Sox the 34-year-old lefties swinging-strike rate north of 13% while limiting the opposition to a 72.% contact rate and a 34.5% hard-hit rate (per Statcast) were not talked about enough. The fact that his average fastball velocity came in at 94 mph a season ago has also not been discussed. The average of 94 mph is only a half tick below his career average.
Sale posted his best start of the season against the Diamondbacks in the first week of April, the best of his four starts. The southpaw allowed two earned runs in 5.1 frames while striking out six against zero walks. Sale owns a 27:6 K:BB rate, a 4.38 ERA with a 3.22 xFIP through four starts. Sale is inducing ground balls in half of the batted balls against him on game day, and game night.
If you take Jose Ramirez out of the current Cleveland position players slash lines vs Sale the combination of Arias, Gimenez, Kwan, and Laureano have combined for two hits in 11 at-bats with zero walks against one strikeout and two only one at-bat with an EV of over 95 mph.
The current Atlanta Braves roster rates as one of the top 5 offenses when facing pitchers for the first time in their careers. This rating is mine and is weighted with umpires playing a significant role when mining all of the criteria required for the data.
It is easy to write that this is a bad spot for Allen, especially considering his recent form. I could write that about 50 percent of the pitchers the Braves will face in the next 30 games. However, I believe it to be particularly factual with a high likelihood because I am of the belief that Allen is pitching through some soreness or fatigue, a tired arm is what the media likes to label such an event, or occurrence.
Allen has lost a tick, at times two ticks, off his four-seamer across his last two starts. He has 25 hard-hit balls in 48 batted ball events in his last three turns in the rotation. Those games were versus the White Sox, Yankees, and Athletics. Only six of the batters that Allen faced when pitching against the Yankees, Athletics, and White Sox had more than 4 career plate appearances against Allen. So it is not like the group as a whole had uber-experience against the young lefty.
Allen has surrendered four homers and seven runs on 11 hits over 11 frames pitched in his last two appearances, vs the Yankees and the Athletics. An note, the least talented or effective offense in baseball through the sixth of the regular season, Chicago White Sox, scored five runs in the first inning off of Allen this month.
Allen's SwStr% in each of his last four starts has been less than 9.9% and his Chace Rate has been non-existent.
FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION II- Atlanta Braves -1.5 (-120)
2% game rating
_________
As noted in the introduction of this Dead President Report coversheet above;
The complete outline of Tony Finn's DPR positions for this contest is below
Once you receive this Dead President Cover Page (this first page and outline of the entire report) you may find time isn't your friend – use the outline below - a user-friendly list of Tony Finn's DPR positions. The complete and detailed analysis for each of these official Dead President Report entries can take as little as 5 minutes or as much as 15 minutes to be completely transferred/forwarded and land in your email inbox – Good luck tonight, to both, all of us, with this Dead President Report.
__________
1. FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION I - Atlanta Braves Team Total Over 4.5 runs (-135) | The Braves Team Total is good Over 4.5 runs at -150 or less.
4% game rating
2. FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION II- Atlanta Braves -1.5 (-120)
2% game rating
3. FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION III- Atlanta Braves -2.5 (+135)
1% game rating
4. FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION IV - 1st Inning Atlanta Braves Over 0.5 run (+175)
1% game rating
5. FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION V - 1st Inning Atlanta Braves Run Line -1.5 (+400)
1% game rating
6. FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION VI - Logan Allen (CLE) Outs Recorded Under 15.5 (-120)
2% prop rating
7. FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION VII - Chris Sale (ATL) To Record a Win? YES (+100)
3% prop rating
8. FINNs INTERLEAGUE MLB DEAD PRESIDENT POSITION VIII - DraftKings Same-Game Parlay 3-Pick | Atlanta Braves Over 5.5 runs / Atlanta Braves -1.5 runs / Ronald Acuna Jr 2+ Total Bases | + 300
2% parlay rating