Dodgers 2019 potential playoff opponent breakdown: Atlanta Braves

The Dodgers are coming down the home stretch, with less than two months separating the team from October baseball.  This weekend they face a potential playoff opponent.

Over the next five weeks, I will be going through and breaking down potential playoff opponents for the Dodgers in the National League and how well these teams would match up with the Dodgers in a playoff series.

For the first installment in this series, I decided to talk about the Atlanta Braves, because the Braves are the team that, besides the Dodgers, are least likely to lose their grip on the division before October 3, the first day of the NLDS.

The Atlanta Braves, as of Friday, have a 99.5% chance of making the playoffs according to Fangraphs. That’s because they’ve been able to combine their solid offseason and trade deadline acquisitions with their young and quickly developing core.

This 2019 iteration of the Braves is not nearly the same as past Braves teams. In fact, I think they’re much better than the 2018 team.

In the next few slides, I’ll get into the weeds on the Braves’ roster and how well that roster matches up against the Dodgers’ own.

Up and down the roster

Last season, the Dodgers beat down the Braves in a 3–1 NLDS victory. That was against a Braves starting rotation and bullpen that lacked serious firepower. The starting rotation was led by Mike Foltynewicz, who this season was sent down to Triple-A to regain some of his 2018 success.

Beyond Folty, the Braves rotation was not very deep and included several veteran castoffs.  Anibal Sanchez, Kevin Gausman, Julio Teheran and rookies Max Fried and Toukie Toussaint pitched often down the stretch and in the playoffs as well with limited success.

But this season, the Braves have a much more experienced and powerful rotation. From last season, both Teheran and Fried have taken many steps forward this season in terms of innings and overall numbers. Teheran’s 2019 rebound has been incredible for Atlanta, as his 138 innings of a 3.71 ERA have made him the 3rd most valuable starter on the team at this point in the season.

For Fried, with 23 starts and 126.1 innings pitched with an ERA just under 4.00, he can be a solid strikeout lefty in the playoffs to potentially open games against Bellinger, Seager, and Verdugo at the top of the order.

But beyond these two starters, the two real playoff arms the Dodgers would have to do battle with are current and former All-Stars and a former Cy Young award winner: Mike Soroka and Dallas Keuchel.

Let’s start with Soroka, a 2019 Rookie of the Year hopeful, who is the de facto ace of the Braves. Holder of a 2.32 ERA through 21 starts and 128 innings, Soroka has been one of the best pitchers in the National League and seems more dominant even than Foltynewicz last season.

And of course, Dodger fans remember Dallas Keuchel. Not that Keuchel dominated the Dodgers back in his 2017 World Series starts with the Astros (he threw 10.1 innings in 2 starts while allowing 11 hits and a 5.23 ERA), but just that he has plenty of career playoff experience in his back pocket. Keuchel has a 3.31 ERA over 9 starts in the playoffs over the course of his career.

Between Keuchel, Soroka, and a revamped Teheran, the rotation is unequivocally better than it was just last season. And so is the bullpen and the offense, two of the best features for the Braves to use to compete with the Dodgers.

Pitchers vs. Hitters

I was interested in seeing how the core of the order for both teams has done this and last season against the opposing starters and top relievers, so I did a little research.

Here’s what I found.

Acuña Jr. has faced five Dodger pitchers this season, recording a hit only against Kershaw. It was a home run. But in a slightly larger sample size, Acuña Jr. is, combining his 2018 and 2019 numbers, 1-7 against Kershaw with two strikeouts. In a 43 AB sample against the Dodgers over the same two-season span, Freeman is hitting .348 with a pair of doubles and a pair of home runs.

But against the Dodgers’ likely starters and Jansen? Freeman is a combined 3-16, with all three of his hits coming in 2019 (a homer off Buehler and two hits off Kershaw).

On the other side of the ball for the Braves, Folty and Fried are the only two potential playoff starters with games against the Dodgers in 2019, and neither fared especially well.

Soroka and Teheran have only faced one man who could make an appearance for the Dodgers in the 2019 playoffs: Jedd Gyorko. And new trade deadline bullpen arms Shane Greene and Chris Martin have not faced the Dodgers either.  The two clubs do matchup this weekend though.

The only reliever with any experience against the Dodgers actually happens to be one of the most experienced back-end bullpen arms in the game: Mark Melancon. Recently named the Braves’ closer over Greene, Melancon has held Dodger hitters to a triple-slash line of .200/.238/.250 in 20 AB’s against him. In those 20 AB’s, he allowed one walk, one double and just 2 runs to score.

Amongst potential Dodger starters, only Seager has a hit off of Melancon, the lone double he has allowed to them this year. However, this same Dodger team, or a similar one at least, has faced Melancon in every season since 2016, and veterans like Justin Turner and the de-facto veteran Corey Seager could likely help neutralize his arsenal against the rookies.

Overall?

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The Dodgers seem to match up well with the Braves. They have the lefty-hitting to mash their righty-heavy bullpen of Greene/Martin/Melancon and have the right-handed pitching in their own bullpen to garner a slight overall advantage.

But Freeman and Acuña Jr. are two of the best in baseball with even splits across the board. If the Dodgers can handle this pair of All-Stars, then they should be able to succeed in a series against Atlanta once again.

The key to this matchup really hinges on unknowns. Will the Braves bullpen of trade deadline transplants be able to beat up on the rookies in the Dodger lineup?

Will the Dodgers’ balanced attack overwhelm the weak underbelly of the Braves’ rotation or overcome the rookie sensation, Mike Soroka? Will the Braves’ lineup be able to come through against righties and lefties alike?

Hopefully, some of these questions are answered in the upcoming series between the two division leaders. Or at the very least, hopefully, the Dodgers take two of three.