This season couldn’t have started much better for the Braves, at least to date. They are the only team that hasn’t yet lost a series (they did split one, though), they have baseball’s second-best record (behind the Dodgers, tied with the Padres), they’re top ten in both position player and pitching fWAR, and they’re top five in a bunch of other things like batting inputs and defensive value. Even though it’s early and a small sample could be responsible for pretty much anything, the only guy they’ll
ultimately rely on that are struggling are Mike Yastrzemski. It’s baseball, and things can change on a dime at any time. But, right now, anyway, the Braves look pretty good. This recent series with the Guardians reminded me a lot of 2022-2023: broadly and wildly successful, but on the basis of smashing the ball rather than any kind of holistic, fundamental baseball excellence. In other words, booting balls and getting thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double doesn’t matter if you’re pummeling the opposing team at the plate.
All of this leaves the Braves’ lack of success in the ABS challenge system as incongruously jutting out from what’s going on with the team otherwise. This is self-evident both from watching the games, and from the data here: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/abs and here: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/abs-challenges.
I’ll be quick, but essentially, a few things jump out at me:
- Yes, the Braves have been really bad so far.
- However, the Braves have not been really bad at actually swinging strikeouts or walks as a result of challenges.
- On top of that, where leverage is meaningful, the Braves are okay if not actually good at challenges, at least on a rate basis. They just don’t get these opportunities a lot… because they waste their challenges early on, where it doesn’t matter.
So, I’m not going to write out a long heuristic here (that’s your job), but I do think that whatever heuristic they implement, should they choose to do so, it should definitely include:
A) Only challenges that are relevant to a walk or strikeout, not other stuff futzing with the count; and
B) Only challenges in some semblance of leverage, i.e., tying or go-ahead run at the plate or on deck, and if a low-scoring game early, then not at all until the fourth inning or whatever.
There are of course more complicated and probably better heuristics, but these are also things the players need to remember in real-time. I’d love to say, “Only challenge in the first three innings if you’re 90 percent confident you’ll win” but the players are probably 90 percent confident every time they challenge, so that’s not helpful to anyone.
Anyway, have at it…
