Defensively, the Atlanta Braves were not especially helpful to their pitchers in 2017. There are a bunch metrics that you can use to describe the problem, but here are a few more obvious ones:
- Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) – 23rd in baseball (-23). So that’s like giving away 23 runs during the year. But this doesn’t necessarily mean…
- Errors – 19th worst in baseball.
- Which kind of errors? Fielding or throwing…didn’t really matter: the Braves were 20th overall in both categories.
- Passed Balls – despite how well our catchers did offensively (#1 in baseball), they did tend to ‘give back’ as well: 20 of these – trailing only the Yankees for worst overall.