With the New York Mets’ win on Sept. 19, the Atlanta Braves have officially been eliminated from MLB playoff contention. Despite a late surge, there will be no October baseball in Atlanta for the first time since 2017, snapping the club’s seven-year playoff streak, the third longest in the league. But for Braves faithful, the writing was on the wall as early as July. You may ask, “When did things go wrong?” The better question is this: Did things ever go right?
The season’s disappointment started before a single pitch was thrown. The Braves had a surprisingly quiet offseason for a team that was still in contention in the National League title. They lost ace Max Fried and deadline acquisition Ramón Laureano to free agency and their only notable addition was outfielder Jurickson Profar. To much of Braves Country, this move felt like a consolation prize, and those feelings soured after Profar was suspended for 80 games in the first week of the season after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. The news dropped while the Braves were in the midst of a seven-game skid to start the season, a start that they would never recover from.
Fast forward to the beginning of June. The Braves are 27-31, which, oddly enough, was one of the few positives surrounding the club at the time. Their season had been defined by injury, primarily to starting pitchers. The club’s best three pitchers by wins above replacement (WAR), Spencer Schwellenbach, Grant Holmes and Chris Sale, all missed significant time; as of today, not a single one of them cracks the top 100 list for innings pitched across baseball. Bryce Elder was the one exception, being the club’s most available arm, although he posted an earned run average (ERA) above five with negative WAR.
Despite this, Braves fans still clung to the hope that the returns of Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuna Jr., stars who both missed most of the 2024 campaign with season-ending injuries, could somehow light a spark in the club. Unfortunately, Strider never returned to form, as he battled nagging injuries throughout the year. Acuna, despite playing well when healthy, spent even more time out injured. The latter will fail to reach 100 games played for the third season in his seven-year career (excluding the COVID-shortened 2020 season).
At the start of July, the Braves slouched to eight games under .500, and by now, it became quite apparent that a dramatic turn around would not happen. By the end of the month, they were 16 games under and firmly out of the playoff conversation. Even so, injuries and their poor record weren’t nearly the most pressing issues surrounding the club – Braves fans were most concerned with the regression and underperformance of their healthy key players.
Three-time all-star Ozzie Albies? Firmly in the middle of the pack in terms of WAR among second basemen. 2022 Rookie of the Year Michael Harris II? The worst outfielder in all of baseball in terms of offensive value, according to Fangraphs. Marcell Ozuna regressed, Austin Riley regressed; in fact, the only Braves meeting expectations this season were rookie Drake Baldwin and veteran Matt Olson.
This season is the latest in a string of disappointments. Since winning the 2021 World Series, the Braves have gone 2-8 in their last 10 playoff games, and they won’t have the chance to improve upon that mark this year. This puts general manager Alex Anthopoulos in a tough spot as the offseason approaches.
The Braves’ core is still very young, but with the injuries and underperformances of this season, the front office may reconsider major moves in the near future. Now, thanks to their contract philosophy— taking bets on young players before securing them on long-term team-friendly deals —some players, like Harris and Albies, don’t make sense to move. Their contracts are so cheap in comparison to the rest of the league that even if they regressed to replacement level, they would still be worth keeping . Even Austin Riley’s contract, one of the Braves’ most expensive, will begin to look better as MLB payrolls continue to balloon. Though it would be rash to trade Strider or Acuna after one down year, it might not be out of the realm of possibility to sell aging stars in Olson, Ozuna and Sale to begin retooling for the long-term future of the team.
This is the most pivotal off-season for the Braves since the 2021 Freddie Freeman fiasco, and whether their championship window is extended or slammed shut rests squarely in the hands of Anthopoulos.
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