Or is this a self-inflicted lost season?
Say what you will about the Braves at this point — they’ve done well to get to
where they are, but seem to be passively mediocre production-wise at this point — but Ozzie Albies doesn’t even meet that definition. His season is kind of a nightmare right now: a .290 xwOBA that he’s underhitting, below-average defense, and on pace for his worst season ever, even worse than 2020, in which he missed half of the shortened schedule.
The projections don’t see him as cooked — just mediocre at this point. But to get there, he’s going to have to break some self-inflicted awful habits. To wit:
- A career-low barrel rate and a pathetic hard-hit rate, and nearly a career-low average exit velocity in total.
- Nearly a career-worst performance on breaking pitches, but also a career-worst performance on fastballs, in xwOBA terms.
- All sorts of screwed up plate discipline stuff, including a career-low rate at swinging at strikes, but the second-highest chase rate of his career.
- Declining bat speed.
All this for a modest, not-that-noticeable improvement in walk rate. Seems like a bad tradeoff.
There was a point, earlier, where you could live with Albies’ hitting from the left side because he destroyed southpaws when batting righty. His best xwOBA mark against right-handed pitching at any point was .325 (2019, 2023). Batting from the right side, though, he cleared .350 in four of eight seasons, and was below .300 twice (one of which was a tiny sample in 2020). In 2025, though? He’s got a sad .263 xwOBA against lefties, to go with a less sad but not good .300 xwOBA against righties.
There are a bunch of other screwy things, too, that don’t fit neatly into any narrative. His bat speed has declined more as a lefty batter. His intercept point (how far in front of the plate he hits the ball) has dropped precipitously, yet it’s somehow resulted in a bunch of weak pulled fly balls, which seems somewhat difficult to do when you think through the component pieces. Tim Hyers has mentioned a “bat path issue” for Albies, but that can’t be the only issue, because his swing decisions are much more awful right now than at points past.
So, will he bounce back? Maybe things click. Maybe they drop whatever they were doing and he has an adjustment period and goes back to the altogether average-y bat he was in the recent past. Maybe he’s irreparably broken now. Maybe whatever broke him was just natural decline and not team-introduced meddling, though I’m more skeptical of that one given how different the 2025 Albies is from the prior ones.
Another thing to consider — it’s not unequivocally getting better. While Albies’ big drop in fastball effectiveness came in May (he was okay against them in April) and he has hit secondaries much better, he’s also chasing more in May. Things are sort of all over the place comparing the first five weeks of the season with the most recent three, but it’s safe to say things haven’t fully clicked yet. If this is indeed an adjustment period to something that will pay dividends down the line, it doesn’t appear to be in its final stretch.
Daily Notes
Record: 24-24
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: n/a (Season rank: 13th | 12th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: n/a (Season rank: 15th | 13th)
Yesterday’s homers: n/a
Yesterday’s homers allowed: n/a
Record when out-xwOBAing: 15-10 (League: 533-195)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 9-14 (League: 195-533)
Record when out-wOBAing: 20-3 (League: 620-111)
Record when out-wOBAed: 4-21 (League: 111-620)
Record when outhomering: 10-4 (League: 380-109)
Record when outhomered: 5-12 (League: 109-380)