Our friends over at FanGraphs recently took a look at the top defensive teams in all of baseball right now and as it turns out, the Braves are at least excelling in one department.
The All-Star break is right around the corner and to let you know just how “well” things are going for the Atlanta Braves here in 2025, Ivan The Great is out here writing Braves-related Greek comedies and two high-quality starting pitchers are currently on the IL after suffering major injuries that weren’t apparent until the day afterwards. It’s been a doozy of a season where not much has gone right for the local baseball club.
It’s really felt like there’s always been at least one thing missing for the Braves in a lot of their games this season — mostly it’s been a case of the lineup wasting a gem from the pitching staff but there have also been slugfests where Atlanta’s pitching delivered a letdown despite the offense having a rare outburst. It’s been an incredibly frustrating season to watch and I can only imagine what it’s like to actually be actively participating in this — and we’re only halfway through!
However, one thing that has gone consistently well for the Braves so far this season has been their defense. The Braves lead baseball in DRS at 55 DRS for the season. They’re far ahead in that department as well, with the Cubs trailing far behind in second place by nine points in the DRS metric. They don’t have a monopoly on the two major defensive metrics, as OAA paints a less-rosy picture of Atlanta’s collective defensive performance so far this season. Still, the Braves have 16 OAA as a team so far this season, which is still good for the lofty placing of fifth among all teams.
The two most popular defensive metrics suggest that the Braves are a very good team when it comes to flashing the leather and we got further proof of that thanks to the bright folks over at FanGraphs. Jay Jaffe wrote an article that went up on July 2 concerning the best team defenses of 2025 so far and sure enough, the Braves are rated as the second-best defense in all of baseball and the best defensive team in the National League according to an aggregation of metrics. DRS, non-catcher DRS, Fielding Runs Value (FRV), non-catcher FRV, Baseball-Reference’s Defensive Efficiency metric and FanGraphs’ own metric to grade catcher framing were thrown into consideration and aggregation. With all of these metrics considered, the Braves came out as an elite squad on defense.
Here are some of Jaffe’s thoughts on Atlanta’s defensive performance so far:
Their catchers didn’t crack the top three in any of the metrics, but veteran Sean Murphy and rookie Drake Baldwin are both above average across the board, and on pretty even footing relative to one another. Matt Olson leads all first basemen in both DRS (12, one run shy of last year’s majors-leading total) and FRV (6). He’s played every single inning for the team at first base since the start of the 2024 season — and right now it’s paid off, as his offense has rebounded and he’s already matched last year’s 2.6 WAR. Nick Allen, who supplanted Orlando Arcia at shortstop, is the position’s co-leader in FRV (10) and is second only to Taylor Walls in DRS (9); even with a 69 wRC+ to date, he’s totaled 1.1 WAR. Harris is tied for fourth in DRS among center fielders (9) and tied for fifth in FRV (7), but for as strong as those numbers are, his 50 wRC+ (!) has dragged his WAR below zero (-0.3). Spencer Schwellenbach is tied with former teammate Max Fried for the major league lead in DRS among pitchers (6).
This all makes sense. The note about the catchers not cracking the top 3 in any of the metrics but still remaining above average makes plenty of sense. Sean Murphy is currently just outside of the Top 10 among all catchers in baseball when it comes to Catcher’s Caught Stealing Above Average and even Drake Baldwin is running with a positive number in that metric as well. Matt Olson’s performance with the glove isn’t particularly shocking since that was one of his calling cards dating back to his days in Oakland. Nick Allen’s defense is one of many reasons why Orlando Arcia is playing in Colorado right now and Atlanta’s pitching staff currently has the sixth-highest DRS number at 3 for the season. The Braves will probably see a dip in that performance since they’re missing a Gold Glover in Chris Sale until potentially August and Schwellenbach until September, but let’s just enjoy what we got to see for now.
What’s fascinating is Michael Harris II’s performance so far this season. I’m going to be real with y’all, here: It’s been absolutely mortifying to watch Michael Harris at the plate at times this season and all you have to do is visit his StatCast page to see just how mortifying it’s been for him swinging the bat. However, one thing has remained at the same high level for Harris recently and that’s his defense. He’s sitting on 8 OAA for the season so far, which places him in the 97th percentile. This isn’t his magnum opus as far as defense is concerned but he’s still been extremely impressive roaming center field as a defender this season and that’s likely the main thing that has ensured that he’s stayed in the lineup every day instead of falling into some sort of platoon with a bench outfielder instead.
Plus, you know, Money Mike easily passes the eye test.
So I know this seems like a very hollow consolation prize at the moment. I think everybody here would much rather see this team being at the top of the W/L leaderboards instead of the defensive leaderboards but here we are. Again, not a lot has gone right for the Braves this season so when something does go right, it’s worth being mentioned. It’s also encouraging since Atlanta’s defense is likely the foundation that has kept this season from completely collapsing into something even worse.
A lot of things may change on a year-to-year but one thing that usually stays consistent is defense. It’s a bit of a bummer because I’d love to see this defense combined with the strong pitching from last season and the great hitting from 2023 and 2022 as well. Instead, we just have to enjoy this small little victory for the Braves. Again, I’m anticipating a slight dip going forward because Chris Sale and Spencer Schwellenbach won’t be able to help bring their defensive capabilities to the pitcher’s mound for a couple of months, at least. Still, it’s something that the Braves can hang their hat on and hopefully it’s something that will continue to be great as they continue to work their way through this season.