The Atlanta Braves were eliminated from the postseason on Wednesday, dropping Game 2 to the San Diego Padres. The Braves, the final team to qualify for the playoffs, will now head home for the winter following a frustrating year.
After consecutive 100-win efforts, the Braves entered the spring primed to compete for their seventh consecutive division title and their second World Series championship in four years. When we previewed the Braves back in the spring, we concluded they were in the rarefied air where they could proclaim it was "World Series or bust" and mean it. All these months later, we can declare it a bust for the 2024 Braves.
Atlanta still won 89 games and made it into the tournament. It wasn't easy and it often wasn't pretty. The Braves needed all 162 to get in, finishing the year with a 36-31 second-half stretch that saw them fall as far back as 10 games in the East.
If there is a bright side to this Braves season -- besides the emergence of right-handed starter Spencer Schwellenbach, anyway -- it's that their struggles were understandable. Quantifiably, no team was hit harder by injuries than these Braves. Consider the following key losses:
- Ace right-hander Spencer Strider appeared in two games before requiring season-ending elbow surgery
- Outfielder and reigning NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. went down for the season with a torn ACL in late May
- Third baseman Austin Riley had his season end in mid-August
- Even lefty Chris Sale, likely this year's NL Cy Young Award winner, had to be scratched from his final scheduled start (and held off the playoff roster) on account of poorly timed back spasms.
Baseball Prospectus tracks the amount of projected Wins Above Replacement players lost by each team to injury throughout the year. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the Braves were the runaway leaders in that category. They lost a projected 13 WAR to the shelf. For reference, there was only one other team in the entire majors who lost as many as eight WAR to the IL (the Los Angeles Dodgers).
Does that make this less of a lost year? No. It does, though, make it easier to intellectualize where things went left. You take three of the best handful of players off any roster and you're going to be left with a lesser club. Of course, it wasn't that simple, either.
The Braves had a slew of other veteran hitters underperform expectations: first baseman Matt Olson recovered late, but finished with the second-lowest OPS+ he's posted in a full-length regular season; second baseman Ozzie Albies, who also missed time due to injury, checked in below his career norms; All-Star backstop Sean Murphy had a miserable showing at the dish, seeing his OPS drop more than 200 points year to year; and so on.
You don't have to ask how the Braves came up short; it's an easy diagnosis. The real question is what do they do now? Presumably the Braves will enjoy better health next season, and presumably they'll receive better production from the aforementioned scufflers. Beyond that, it'll be interesting to see how general manager Alex Anthopoulos, undoubtedly one of the boldest executives in the game, approaches the winter.
If we had to guess, Anthopoulos' winter starts with the rotation.
Remember, the Braves stand to lose left-hander Max Fried to free agency and right-hander Charlie Morton either to retirement or his own free agency. Strider and Sale are lights out when healthy, but how much can the Braves count on them making 50 or more combined starts next season? Schwellenbach looks like a gem, and Reynaldo López was as impressive a free-agent addition as any for his price tag. Yet, again, both have experienced their share of physical ailments that makes it tough to think they'll serve as staff workhorses, either.
The Braves have several talented youngsters waiting in the wings -- former first-round pick Hurston Waldrep and Wild Card Series Game 1 starter AJ Smith-Shawver among them. Perhaps they give those pitchers a chance to claim a spot as their own. It does seem reasonable to think the Braves will at least inquire about some veteran help all the same.
While Atlanta's lineup is largely set in stone -- or, perhaps, in paper given the long-term extensions they've steadily handed out -- there are some obvious areas for improvement. Among them: left field, where Jarred Kelenic turned in yet another disappointing season, and shortstop after Orlando Arcia failed to conjure his recent magic.
One of the worst things you can do as a team-builder is grow complacent. We suspect Anthopolous won't fall victim to such an alluring mistake, even though the makings of another really good Braves team are largely in place. He should have the means to get creative, too. The Braves project to have some financial breathing room between their winter starting point and this season's Opening Day payroll, opening up the field for whatever Anthopoulos can dream up.
We'll have to see what that is, but it should come as no surprise if we find ourselves again next spring writing that it's World Series or bust in Atlanta.
