It is June 10, and on Sunday the Atlanta Braves did something they did not do until July 4 last season: They lost their 28th game. Sunday's loss to the Washington Nationals (WAS 8, ATL 5) dropped Atlanta to 35-28 in 2024. An excellent record, to be sure, though the Braves are now 9-15 in their last 24 games, and 17-22 in their last 39 games. Something's amiss.
"We're in a tough stretch right now, but we could win 12 in a row, 20 in a row starting (Tuesday)," outfielder Jarred Kelenic said after Sunday's loss (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). "I don't think we're really caught up in all that stuff. I would say that we're really focusing on moving forward and how we can get better, because we got to play better baseball on both sides of the ball. So I think that our main focus right now is getting better and we got an off day tomorrow, and showing up on Tuesday and going to work."
The Braves find themselves nine games behind the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East heading into Monday's off-day. The Phillies have the largest division lead in baseball and this is the first time the Braves are as far as nine games back since June 2, 2022. Atlanta of course rallied to win the NL East that year. That's a good reminder plenty of season remains to turn things around.
Losing Spencer Strider and reigning NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. to season-ending injuries is a tough blow, no doubt about it. Those two are close to irreplaceable. That said, the Braves did win the World Series after losing Acuña to a torn ACL in 2021, and the majority of the core that won 104 games last season and the last six NL East titles remains intact. The talent is there.
Here are three reasons to be optimistic about the Braves moving forward despite their current extended slump and significant deficit in the NL East.
1. They're a virtual lock for the postseason
Let's call a spade a spade: The National League stinks. Four if the 15 NL teams -- four! -- have a winning record: Braves (35-28), Phillies (45-20), Los Angeles Dodgers (41-26), and Milwaukee Brewers (38-27). Six other NL teams are within three games of .500, but they all have losing records. It's a very, very top-heavy league, and the Braves are among those teams at the top.
The Braves are 9-15 in their last 24 games and 17-22 in their last 39 games and, according to FanGraphs, their postseason odds have dipped from close to 100% to merely 91.2%. Only the Dodgers and Phillies have better odds in the NL.
There are six postseason spots per league now, four of which are available to the Braves (they're good, but they're not going to win the NL Central or NL West), and the competition is weak. The Braves can't rest on their laurels, they haven't clinched anything yet, but the NL's widespread mediocrity gives them an easy path to October and thus the luxury of time to figure things out.
2. Olson and Riley will be better... right?
A year ago the Braves hit 307 home runs, tying the single-season record, and they slugged .501 as a team. An individual hitter with a .501 slugging percentage had a great season. An entire team doing it is truly insane. The 2019 Houston Astros previously held the American/National League record with a .495 slugging percentage. Atlanta shattered that.
Offense has not been as easy to come by this season and that's not entirely unexpected, the Braves were never going to slug .501 again, though the drop off has been more significant than anticipated. Other than Marcell Ozuna, who's been on a rampage since last May, players up and down the roster are underperforming. Here are the adjusted-OPS numbers:
| 2023 OPS+ | 2024 OPS+ | |
|---|---|---|
125 | 106 | |
98 | 79 | |
115 | 83 | |
162 | 112 | |
129 | 84 |
Even Acuña had seem his performance slip before his injury: 169 OPS+ in 2023 to 105 OPS+. With a player that talented, it could click at any moment though. Aaron Judge was hitting .197/.331/.393 as recently as May 2. He's now hitting .305/.436/.703. It can turn around fast and loud for elite talents like Acuña and Judge. Still, Acuña was not MVP-like before his injury.
Albies dealt with some injuries earlier this year, so we can cut him slack. Arcia has never been much of a hitter outside the second half of 2022 and first half of 2023, and in theory the Braves should be able to carry him as a glove-only shortstop at the bottom of the lineup. Harris has long had swing-and-miss and approach concerns. Those have popped back up this year and held him back.
The Braves feel the offensive underperformance most with Olson and Riley. Olson set the franchise's single-season record with 54 home runs last season and he's gotten caught pulling the ball too much this year. He has so much power that he doesn't need to sell out to get to it, yet he's selling out anyway. Olson hasn't been bad, but that 112 OPS+ is well south of his career 135 OPS+.
Riley is much more worrisome. He has been such a dangerous and complete hitter the last few seasons and it all has completely collapsed in 2024. Every time he's strung a few good games together, it quickly came apart. It's been a fight all year and Riley is not doing nearly as much damage when he swings. This heat map is worrisome:
Expected slugging percentage, which is calculated using exit velocity and launch angle and the like, is a good measure of how well a batter is hitting the ball more than a definitive "his slugging percentage should be exactly this" metric. Last year, and really for the last several years, Riley could punish pitches in all parts of the strike zone. This season he's doing anything but.
Riley missed 14 days with an intercostal injury last month -- the Braves never put him on the injured list, which was frankly absurd -- and the hope is he will get back to being himself as he gets further away from the injury. That said, Riley was hitting .245/.319/.388 the day he got hurt. It's not like he was mashing, got hurt, and has been searching for it since. It's been a grind all year.
I can't lie, I thought it would be easier to explain the reasons to be optimistic about Olson and Riley moving forward. Olson appears to have some timing issues -- "point of contact" issues, as the kids say today -- that have led to him catching the ball too far out in front of the plate, leading to too many balls pulled to right field. Waiting back a bit longer is an easy fix, in theory.
Riley is much more worrisome because the hard-hit ability isn't there and there is an injury involved. The best reason to feel good about him figuring things out is his track record, which is outstanding, and his age. Riley is only 27. This isn't a veteran in his mid-30s trying to rediscover his past glory. Riley is in his prime. The Braves have 99 games to play and talent usually wins out.
Bottom line, Olson and Riley have been MVP-caliber performers the last few years, and it's not ridiculous to expect them to right the ship at some point given their talent level and age. It has happened, but it's not often players this good and this young go from being high-end performers one year to so-so or worse the next. Olson and Riley will be better (right?).
3. Anthopoulos will be active at the deadline
Do I know this for a fact? No. Does history strongly suggest this will be the case? Absolutely. Braves GM Alex Anthopoulos is one of the most aggressive GMs in the game and there is no reason to believe this trade deadline will be any different. Acuña and Strider are done for the season and reinforcements are required. History says Anthopoulos will upgrade his roster this summer.
The biggest difference between this year's Acuña (and Strider) injury and his 2021 injury is timing. In 2021, Acuña tore his ACL on July 10, three weeks before the trade deadline. Anthopoulos acted quickly to reinforce his outfield because the upcoming deadline necessitated quick action, and that led him to Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario, and Jorge Soler. Those were A+ moves.
This year Acuña tore his ACL on May 26. The trade deadline is still weeks away and the trade market has yet to really take shape. Anthopoulos can be patient, let the market develop, see how his internal options perform (not good, so far), then act. It hasn't happened yet but it will. There's just no way Anthopoulos will let the deadline pass without getting help.
The schedule does the Braves no favors. They'll begin a three-game series with the Orioles in Baltimore on Tuesday, then next weekend they'll be in New York to play the Yankees. The toughest stretch of Atlanta's interleague schedule arrives at a time when they're trying to get their season back on the rails. That's baseball though. There are no shortcuts.
Anthopoulos will get his team help before the trade deadline, I'm sure of it, and the NL wild-card race is not exactly a gauntlet. Atlanta has a nice leg up already and time to figure things out. Olson and Riley (and Albies, Harris, et al)? Eh, there are red flags there, though it would be premature to write them off 63 games into the season. They need to turn things around though, especially with Acuña and Strider out. Hard to see Atlanta making a run without those two being significant contributors.
"Keep grinding," Braves manager Brian Snitker said Sunday (via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution). "Keep fighting the fight, that's what we do ... Excited about going there and playing."
