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Larry Lambert’s All Atlanta Braves Team, Position Players
The Braves have had some thunder in their lineup.
The Braves have had an interesting array of players represent them over the years. A couple of choices were slam dunks, but some positions didn’t really have choices that jumped out at me. Here we go.
Catcher: Brian McCann
Brian provided a solid bat and decent defensive skills behind the plate in his 9 years with the Braves. He was good for about 20 home runs and 70 RBIs in a year. His OPS was .823, and his WAR was 23.5. He hit 176 home runs in his stay with the Braves. McCann edged out longtime Braves backstop, Javy Lopez. Lopez had similar offensive numbers to McCann. Lopez didn’t have a particularly good reputation for his defense, but his defensive WAR was actually close to McCann’s. If I went back a few more years, I would have made Joe Torre the starter. Joe had some good years after 1965 for the Braves but did even more damage for the St. Louis Cardinals at third base.
First base: Freddy Freeman
This was basically a two-man race between Freeman and Fred McGriff. In recent years, Freddie pulled ahead of Fred. Freeman’s WAR while in Atlanta was 43.1. Leading the Braves to a World Series win was a capper on Freeman’s time with the Braves. As for McGriff, Fred…
