Well, there's not much to say about this lineup. David Peterson throws with his left hand. The Braves don't have Lane Thomas on hand anymore, so it's basically your standard lineup with Sean Murphy and Ha-Seong Kim bringing up the rear.
This is the same lineup the Braves used in what ended up being that 12-2 game against the Phillies. Given that Peterson probably won't last long given his inefficiency, the Braves may be hoping for a similar result.
I guess I'll talk about Ozzie Albies. He's hitting cleanup for the 21st time this season. His season is basically tanking. He started out with a near-.400 wOBA in April while running an average xwOBA, had a poor May, an okay-ish June, and then ran another huge xwOBA overperformance on a bad xwOBA in July. Since then, it's been absolutely grim. In August, he had a .275 wOBA and .283 xwOBA. In September, he's down to a .212 wOBA and .218 xwOBA. As has also been the case for a while, Albies is no longer terrorizing lefties. In his first seven seasons, he had five where he hit lefties super-well, and one of the ones where he didn't was a tiny-sample 2020 where he was hurt. In both 2024 and 2025, his xwOBA against lefties dwindled to an okay .325ish. This year? He's down to .282. He's only posted an xwOBA at or above .300 against lefties this season in April and July. In September so far, it's .171. There's not really that much time for Albies to change the script of his season, but this is a really disappointing follow-up to 2025 and it's going to be the third straight year where Albies turns in an underwhelming season.
Anyway, should we do batter versus pitcher while waiting for the Cubs to post their lineup? Sure, I guess. These guys are very familiar with Peterson, after all. Amazingly, neither Drake Baldwin nor Mauricio Dubon have ever faced Peterson, and Kim only has four PAs against him, but everyone else has somewhere between 12 and 30. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Matt Olson have destroyed Peterson in their careers, and Riley's been fine, but everyone else has struggled a bit. Add this all up, and you get a .318 wOBA and .347 xwOBA in 141 career head-to-head PAs.
As for the Cubs, well…

#peterson #woba #well

"What are the Braves doing at shortstop?" Kind of the recently-eternal question, after the Swanson swan song, Orlando Arcia's one decent season, and then The Issues since. Seriously, from 2024-2026, the Braves are not only dead last in shortstop fWAR (1.3 in 1673 PAs), but they're so far down that even the 29th-place team, the Rockies (always the Rockies) has more than double the Braves' shortstop production (2.7). While Braves' shortstops have been good defensively (seventh in defensive value in that span, thanks Nick Allen!), they haven't hit at all, with a 64 wRC+ putting them in their own sad tier, well below the Guardians, Rockies, and Rays, whose shortstop wRC+s over the past three seasons are hanging out in the low-to-mid 70s.
Jim Jarvis, de facto starting shortstop against right-handers for a fair while now, is the latest contributor to this value-bleed, and is now going away.
The #Braves today recalled OF Brewer Hicklen to Atlanta and optioned INF Jim Jarvis to Triple-A Gwinnett.
Jarvis was a fun story, and presented as a fun guy. Acquired as a non-return for Rafael Montero last year, he fared well in Atlanta's minor league system. He then got a decent run in Atlanta in July, and put together a 111 wRC+. It wasn't at all supported by his inputs, but even those inputs were decent (.336 wOBA, .308 xwOBA).
But then the calendar turned to August, and Jarvis languished. In 42 August PAs, he has a -36 wRC+ (yes that's a negative sign) and a .208 xwOBA. Sure, he's underhitting his xwOBA by nearly .100, but a .208 xwOBA is… really bad. Put this together with shortstop defense that was above-average but not awesome thanks to some goofs on simple plays, and you have Jim Jarvis, 124 major league PAs, a 56 wRC+, and -0.1 fWAR.

#jarvis

The Toronto Blue Jays have plenty of recognizable stars, but one of their most valuable players is quietly putting together an outstanding stretch in MLB.
Alejandro Kirk has been one of the best offensive catchers in baseball since the All-Star break, and his numbers make a compelling case that he deserves far more attention.
MORE: Astros call up top prospect, make multiple changes to rotation
Aug 18, 2026; St. Petersburg, Florida, USA; Toronto Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk (30) rounds third base to score a run against the Tampa Bay Rays in the first inning at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
Among qualified catchers since July 17, Kirk ranks first with a .361 batting average, .439 on-base percentage and .969 OPS. His .530 slugging percentage ranks second, while his .350 xwOBA ranks third.

#ranks #make

There's no such thing as a bad one-year deal. It's an old baseball axiom that has remained true for quite some time, even if some cases tend to test that theory. This is one such case, as it's become very clear that the Ha-Seong Kim one-year deal hasn't worked out anywhere near the level to where both parties figured it would once they agreed to the one-year, $20 million deal during the offseason.
During the series recap for the Diamondbacks series, I mentioned that Ha-Seong Kim had made "progress" after he recorded his fourth RBI of the season during that blowout loss on Saturday to Arizona. Not his fourth RBI of the game — his fourth of the season. I would never lie to you on the internet, so here's video proof!
This was his first RBI since June 3 and that only came after he had what looks like a hot streak in comparison back in late-May, which is when he picked up two RBI in a three-game span. That is absolutely anemic in terms of counting stats.
Somehow, Kim's four RBI don't have him in last place among hitters with at least 80 plate appearances. Four other players have made at least 80 plate appearances and have produced fewer RBI than Kim has done so far this season. With that being said, some of the stats that Kim has put up this season have truly got to be seen to be believed.
Among batters with at least 80 plate appearances, he's last in Isolated Power (.000), he's last in BABIP (.094), he's last in batting average (.066), he's next-to-last in On-Base Percentage (.165), he's last in slugging percentage (.066), he's last in wOBA (.126), he's in a three-way tie for next-t0-last in xwOBA (.207) and he's last in wRC+ with a scarcely-believable 29 wRC+. This is astonishing.

#year #deal #least #plate

What can you really say about the Braves' lineup at this point… or ever? Mauricio Dubon is back in left field tonight, and hitting fifth.
Dubon had a really fun time in June while the rest of the team was imploding offensively, with a .378 wOBA and .368 xwOBA. Unfortunately, he's more or less fallen apart as the team clambered out of its doldrums, with wOBAs and xwOBAs in the .280 range irrespective of how you slice and dice the six-ish weeks since June ended. But, here he is, hitting fifth. It doesn't really matter, but Mike Yastrzemski and Austin Riley have been on a tear in August, so this is a case where the Braves' lineup construction is relatively staid, even though we've seen it get relatively reactionary earlier in the season with regards to other things.
The Twins lineup gives Martin Perez a steady diet of righties to contend with:
It's kind of an interesting array. Luke Keaschall will hit leadoff for the first time all season; this will be his second career game in that spot. Kaelen Culpepper has hit seventh a few times and ninth a few times, but never eighth (until this game).
This Twins lineup has pretty solid numbers up and down on paper. Hopefully the Perez pachinko comes up favorable for the Braves… or they just crush Bailey Ober.

#lineup #dubon #time

Jim Jarvis currently has a notable line, at least compared to earlier in the season. He started out massively outhitting his xwOBA, but that's done now — he's at a .274 wOBA (69 wRC+) and .271 xwOBA. His defense-plus-positional adjustment rounds to zero runs above average. Combine that with 0.1 runs of above-average baserunning (sadly it's not 0.0), and he's at 0.0 fWAR.
But, the Braves don't have too many other options. Ha-Seong Kim, well, even the Braves won't go that far. (And, the more Jarvis plays, the more time Kim is likely going to need to get back into the swing of things.) The other obvious option is just playing Mauricio Dubon at shortstop, but the Braves haven't committed to that either.
So, when we get to the playoffs (barring an epic collapse, which lurks on the peripheries of probability), will the Braves still be of the inclination to give Jarvis a start? What do you think?

#xwoba #seong

For 114 games this season, Ozzie Albies has been in the starting lineup. Sometimes he's hit third, sometimes he's hit sixth, he had a long stretch hitting second… but he's been in there.
Tonight, for the first time in 2026, Albies won't be in there. He gives way to Mauricio Dubon, who will slide over to the keystone and bat fifth.
The rest of the lineup is more or less as expected, with the Braves loading up on lefties against right-hander Janson Junk, a day after they loaded up on righties against right-hander Eury Perez. Austin Riley remains set in the eight-hole, as the Braves double up on lefties after Dubon.
Given that Junk has already made one start against the Braves this year, there's no lack of familiarity here, though neither Drake Baldwin nor Jim Jarvis have stood in against him yet. And, really, we're not talking a lot of PAs for the other seven guys, as Mike Yastrzemski leads the way with nine. The collective line is just a .255 xwOBA in 34 PAs… but it does come with a .340 wOBA. Both Riley and Dominic Smith hit three-run homers off Junk earlier this year.
The Marlins still don't have a lineup, which always seems to be the case — they are definitely one of the latest lineup-posters in MLB and have been for quite a few years now. I'll update this if they ever put one out.

#junk #albies #sometimes #lefties

Up until July 20th, Yankees trade acquisition Ryan Weathers was sporting a disappointing 4.40 ERA in 102.1 innings. His four-seam fastball was getting battered, and he was allowing too many home runs to have a chance at sustained success. Baseball, however, is a game of adjustments. The talented left-hander has allowed just one earned run in his last three starts and 18.2 frames, with 13 hits, no homers, five walks, and 17 punchouts. He seems like a completely different pitcher, much less vulnerable, and has dropped his season ERA to 3.79 over that span.
What changed? Well, if you have a fastball that has surrendered a .628 xSLG (expected slugging percentage) and a .408 xwOBA, you just don't throw it very often, as our own Peter Brody suggested a few weeks ago. The writer prescribed more sinkers and fewer four-seamers as the recipe for success. Let's see Weathers' pitch mix in his last start on Tuesday, when he held the St. Louis Cardinals scoreless for six frames, conceding just four hits and a walk while fanning six:
Changeup: 30 percent
Sinker: 25 percent
Sweeper: 24 percent

#weathers #fastball #frames

One way to find hitters who could bounce back in the second half is to look at expected metrics. Most expected batting average (xBA) formulas involve exit velocity. We want hitters to hit the ball hard. If hitters hit the ball hard and make enough contact, positive outcomes should occur. That’s a case where we want to trust a player’s skills instead of luck.
The visual below shows the hitters with the biggest gap in their xBA and actual BA. That suggests these hitters should have a better BA based on their skills.
We’ll take this a step further, looking at the hitters with the biggest expected wOBA difference in their actual wOBA, adding another layer to their profile. Unsurprisingly, some of the hitters with potential positive regression in their xBA also land on the list of xwOBA improvers, as seen below.
That said, let’s examine several hitters who could rebound in the second half based on the advanced metrics.
After hitting 20+ home runs and stealing double-digit bases in the two previous seasons, most of the projections have Nimmo under 20 home runs. The Mets' home park ranks 18th, with the Rangers at 17th in Home Run Park Factors for left-handed hitters in the three-year rolling average. That said, it’s a neutral change. However, the Rangers' home park ranks 12th and the Mets is 19th in Home Run Park Factor for left-handed hitters if we filter by this season.