I mean probably not, but…
Yesterday’s loss marked a funny (not haha-funny) turning point. For the first time since July 28, 2021, the Braves are not projected to finish a season above .500.
It’s not surprising, it’s just kind of stark, driven by both the actual record right now, and the fact that Spencer Schwellenbach’s injury was enough to basically tilt the roster into “Well, crap” mode. At roughly the same time, Dan Szymborski pushed a ZiPS midseason update, and while ZiPS was never as high on the 2025 Braves as Steamer (and therefore the FanGraphs Depth Charts projections) as a whole, you get this:
ZiPS still thinks Atlanta is a very competent team, but even if you assume that there aren’t more nasty pitching injury surprises waiting and that there’s nothing fundamentally broken about Ozzie Albies or Michael Harris II, the team has a 39-46 record, and is at the point where they have to consider short-term retooling.
Of course, that’s more or less the season in a nutshell. The Braves are top 12 in both xwOBA and xwOBA-against, and are a good defensive team. The other teams that are top 12 in both are:
- Yankees (48-39, 90%+ playoff odds);
- Phillies (51-36, 90%+ playoff odds); and
- Tigers (54-34, near-unity playoff odds);
Yes, you read that right — the Braves have a bazillion problems, but there are only three other teams in the top 12 in both of those inputs metrics. And, if you say, “wait, xwOBA-against is a terrible measure of pitching quality,” you’d probably be right… except that the Braves are third among MLB teams in xFIP-, meaning the Phillies are the only team in baseball with better hitting and pitching inputs than the Braves.
I said my peace about this season in metered verse yesterday, so you know where I come down on what’s happened here. But, leave either a cavalcade of “nos” or something more optimistic in response to this question, I guess.
Daily Notes
Record: 39-47
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .206 / .296 (Season rank: 19th / 11th)
Yesterday’s opponent wOBA and xwOBA: .388 / .384 (Season rank: 13th / 12th)
Yesterday’s homers: 1
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 2
Record when out-xwOBAing: 28-16 (League: 949-340)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 11-31 (League: 340-949)
Record when out-wOBAing: 34-7 (League: 1,093-199)
Record when out-wOBAed: 5-40 (League: 199-1,093)
Record when outhomering: 21-8 (League: 705-201)
Record when outhomered: 6-24 (League: 201-705)