An Opening Day liability has turned into a mid-season upgrade for the Braves.

It is quite amazing how the Atlanta Braves have improved their bench just over the 1st half of the 2017 season. The productivity that Atlanta has received from their bench is one of their best in recent years. In 2017, just the names that have changed on the bench is quite eye popping, and makes the bench in Atlanta very good:

Atlanta Braves 5-man bench at the start of the 2017…

Chase d’Arnaud, Anthony Recker, Emilio Bonafacio, Jace Peterson, Kurt Suzuki

…versus the current Atlanta Braves Bench:

Lane Adams, Danny Santana, Sean Rodriguez, Johan Camargo, Kurt Suzuki

Need I say more? The Atlanta Braves front office has been doing amazing work lately in getting rid of under-performing players and bringing in other players who show quality performance off of the bench, and while giving starting positional players days off.

The pickup of Danny Santana was really the icing on the cake in seeing how the Braves were going to handle their situation utility player situation.

The Improvements

2017 Braves batting productivity off of the bench:

I counted plate appearances by number of pinch hit appearances (and designated hitter appearances) PLUS the number of pinch run appearances each player had.

2017 (with ATL) simplified batting stats:

As you can see in the list(s) above, the current bench (not including Sean Rodriguez since he only just made his 2017 debut) have brought in numbers that are much more productive than the players coming off the bench at the beginning of the 2017 season.

In particular, the replacement of Emilio Bonifacio and Chase d’Arnoud have been a huge benefit to the bench in Atlanta. But is there any way the Braves can improve their talented bench?

Initially, my first instinct was to suggest trading Kurt Suzuki to a team that needs a catcher, such as the Cleveland Indians, Minnesota Twins, Colorado Rockies, or the Arizona Diamondbacks. And once this is complete, call up Micah Johnson from Gwinnett for the bench.

However, Suzuki has been doing extremely well for Atlanta: much better than Anthony Recker did for Atlanta in 2016 and his short stint in 2017. Also, Suzuki makes for a much better back-up catcher for Tyler Flowers than Anthony Recker on any day.

So what is the best thing for the Atlanta Braves to do with their bench? Play the waiting game. Lane Adams and Johan Camargo can develop not only into supernatural utility players, but they could become every day players before it’s all said and done.

[ Ed. note: welcome to new staffer Dalton! ]