Around the yard with the Braves as 929 The Game Braves insider Grant McAuley joined Dukes & Bell for his normal appearance and talked about why Dansby Swanson has been the Braves MVP so far in the 2022 season.
When asked about Dansby’s hot stretch over the last month of the season.
“I’d say the last thirty games certainly showed us the kind of player Dansby Swanson can be, especially when he’s firing on all cylinders. It’s the defense we’ve seen all year long, the bat was such a huge question mark the first two or three weeks of the season because Dansby was striking out essentially fifty percent of the time, no extra base hit, next to no runs knocked in, next to no runs scored, it’s hard to do those things if you are striking out and not on base,” said McAuley. “Beginning over the last thirty games, Dansby is hitting close to .330, he’s got half a dozen homers, he’s driven in twenty one runs, he’s scored twenty runs, he’s got an OPS well over .900 and by the way he is the top defender in several metrics in the national league and one of the best in all of baseball this year.”
McAuley talked about why Swanson has been the team’s MVP so far this year.
“He has been the Braves most valuable player this year in terms of “Wins above replacement” and that is no small thing when you’re on a team with some of the teammates that he has and particluary one who got a slow start in Ronald Acuna Jr. because of injury. But Dansby has certainly found something here and let’s hope he keeps it for a while because the Braves desperately needed it.”
