{"id":659427,"date":"2026-04-02T19:55:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659427\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:55:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:55:15","slug":"former-ny-mets-coach-hasnt-shared-his-best-secrets-with-the-braves-just-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659427\/","title":{"rendered":"Former NY Mets coach hasn\u2019t shared his best secrets with the Braves just yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5p\">Through six games, the Atlanta Braves are 4-2 and only a game better than our New York Mets. It\u2019s funny how a 4-2 record feels so much better than 3-3. How have they done it? The pitching has been superb with only a 2.00 ERA thus far. The hiring of Jeremy Hefner seems to be going well for a ball club impacted a lot by pitching injuries.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5s\">Hefner wasn\u2019t the only Mets coach to leave the Big Apple for Atlanta. First base coach Antoan Richardson became one of the more popular members of the 2025 Mets. His ability to help turn Juan Soto into one the league\u2019s best base thieves didn\u2019t go unnoticed. His departure from the Mets this offseason was <a href=\"https:\/\/risingapple.com\/ny-mets-two-things-true-antoan-richardson-losing-braves\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">an early talking point<\/a> which went forgotten only because of how many players left as well.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5v\">Richardson is in the same position with the Braves as their first base coach. Has he turned Matt Olson into a speed demon? It\u2019s early but so far the Braves have been one of the league\u2019s least efficient at stealing bases.<\/p>\n<p>Antoan Richardson has yet to turn the Braves into a base stealing threat<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"61\">They\u2019ve stolen one base, a theft belonging to Ronald Acuna Jr. They\u2019ve also been thrown out 3 times. It\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/stats\/team\/stolen-bases\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the worst ratio in baseball<\/a>. The one stolen base is tied for a low. Only the Cincinnati Reds with 2 runners thrown out have more caught stealings than actual stolen bases.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"64\">The Braves didn\u2019t try to steal much last year. They had 82 successes, 26th in baseball. Thrown out 25 times, it pales in comparison to what Richardson helped Mets base runners achieve.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"67\">The 2026 Mets stole 147 bases and were thrown out only 18 times all year. Was it all Richardson? The Braves are two series into the year and already they\u2019re 1\/6th of the way to where the Mets were in failed stolen bases.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6a\">Atlanta\u2019s hiring of Richardson wasn\u2019t meant to suddenly change the structure of how the team handled their time on the base paths. However, it should at least help them go from one of the league\u2019s worst at stealing bases to somewhere closer to average, or at least that\u2019s what the logic would tell you.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6d\">Stolen base opportunities will surely increase for the Braves as the season chugs along. Acuna is the one to watch most closely. He stole only 9 in 10 attempts last year in a 95-game season. He stole 73 in 2023 and 16 the following year when he was in 49 games. Coaches are rarely, if ever, hired solely to help out one player in one part of his game. The Braves should run a little more than they did last year at some point. Right now, the Richardson fear of making the Braves into a club of prime Rickey Hendersons just ain\u2019t there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through six games, the Atlanta Braves are 4-2 and only a game better than our New York Mets.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,4166,5,192,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-659427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-braves","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-atlantabraves","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-braves","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116336874348598943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}