Atlanta Braves

Atlanta Braves

Carrasco, 38, is a long-time big league veteran who started three games with Atlanta last summer when the team was at the apex of injury issues with the starting rotation. He was designated for assignment but re-signed with the organization and finished the year with Gwinnett. Vines, 27, didn't pitch last season due to injury, but has been in the organization since being drafted in 2016 and has nine major league games under his belt, appearing with Atlanta in both 2023 and 2024.

Atlanta Braves Holdings, Inc. released their third quarter numbers on Wednesday. Yes, one of the benefits of the Braves becoming an asset of a large corporation and later spun off is that they are compelled to tell us all about their money. You don't get that kind of transparency with the Miami Marlins or the Pittsburgh Pirates. Who knows what they're up to. But the Braves had a good third quarter of the year.

Back before the 2025 season, I wrote an article that the 2025 bullpen could look a bit different than the bullpen of the three most recent Braves seasons. Basically, that article had a table that indicated: Braves' bullpen preseason projected rank was top four or better from 2022-2024, top eight the two seasons before that, and then dropping to ninth ahead of 2025; Braves' bullpen finished in the top ten in fWAR each year from 2020-2024;

After a college career that spanned two seasons at Ohio State and one at Arkansas, the Braves took Landon Beidelschies in the 6th round of the 2025 draft, using the 187th selection on the Razorback. He received a signing bonus of $297,500 to leave college early and begin his professional career. What were the 2025 expectations? Obviously since he was a 2025 draftee, the expectations for Beidelschies were understandably low.

While the scouting reports are fully behind a paywall there are still some interesting tidbits for those without an account - including Baseball America's Best Tools update which has quite a few newly drafted Braves prospects. For example Conor Essenburg, the fifth round draft pick out of 2025, claims the Braves best power hitter, while Briggs McKenzie takes home best curveball, and best changeup. Not surprisingly, Alex Lodise took home best infield arm, and best defensive infielder.

Kinley will receive a $750K buyout and head into free agency rather than collecting a $5.5MM salary for the 2026 season. The move to decline Kinley's option is something of a surprise. The right-hander pitched to a 3.96 ERA with a 3.69 FIP in 72 2/3 innings of work overall in 2025, but those solid yet unspectacular overall results don't tell the whole story.

Well Walt Weiss has begun assembling his coaching staff, replacing Fredi Gonzalez and Rick Kranitz with two young and respected coaches from the Mets' 2025 staff, Jeremy Hefner and Antoan Richardson. While I preferred a younger and perhaps more tactically modern choice for manager, I thought the Weiss hire was defensible due to his familiarity leading what has been considered a healthy clubhouse. If Weiss and the front office intend to fill his staff with young, modern thinkers, that makes the arrangement significantly better.

The Braves picked up Carrasco from the New York Yankees prior to the Trade Deadline on July 28. He'd signed with the Yankees as a minor league free agent prior to the season and had spent time on the big league roster before being designated for assignment by New York in June. He returned to the Yankees organization, pitching at Triple-A, prior to his trade to Atlanta.

The Braves have released right-hander Nathan Wiles, according to Lindsay Crosby of the Braves Today podcast. Wiles came to Atlanta's organization in a trade from the Rays back in March, and the righty made his MLB debut this season in the form of one inning of work (and three earned runs allowed) during the Braves' 10-4 loss to the Cardinals on April 22.

Baldwin was very impressive this season, as he earned an opportunity to step up as the starting catcher right out of spring training (following Sean Murphy fracturing a rib during camp). He took that opportunity and ran with it, as he finished the season with a slash line of .274/.341/.469 with a wOBA of .351, 125 wRC+ and 19 home runs.

As all of Braves County knows, this is a very important off-season ahead for Atlanta after the past two seasons have ended well short of expectations. However, though the Mets and Phillies had better seasons than the Braves, both NL East rivals fell short of expectations as well. And like the Braves, both the Mets and Phillies could be progressing toward significant changes this off-season. However, one change that will not occur is that the Phillies will not be looking to trade Bryce Harper.

The Atlanta Braves had one of the more unfortunate seasons in recent memory, especially with regard to injuries to their rotation. In fact, there was a point where all five members of the Opening Day rotation were on the Injured List at the same time. This resulted in quite a few roster moves to bring in pitchers to eat some innings, especially after it was pretty much a done deal that the season was effectively over. Erick Fedde was one of these moves, and worked out (or didn't) just as much as you'd expect.

Well the bittersweet part about watching that absolute classic of a World Series Game 7 last night is that it means we've officially entered the offseason. The bad news is that there's no more Major League Baseball until next season. Blah.

I started watching baseball in 2001. 2010 was a bit of a renaissance for the team, as it spent the years prior to that wandering in the wilderness of mediocrity. But hey, at least 2001-2005 were good. So, who's your favorite Brave from that era? Difficulty: the guy had to be a Brave only somewhere from 2001-2009, and not before or after.

The Braves signed Jhancarlos Lara back in 2021 as an international free agent. The team was still dealing with their international sanctions from the John Coppolella era at the time, significantly limiting what they could spend. So getting a real prospect in this time would require finding a diamond in the rough for almost no bonus - which is exactly what happened with Lara, as he signed for just $10k bonus.

It was just announced this morning that the Major League Baseball Player's Association (MLBPA) has named Ronald Acuña Jr. "Comeback Player of the Year." And breakout rookie Drake Baldwin received the "Outstanding Rookie" award. If you can recall, Acuña's return to Truist started out (on the very first pitch) with a solo shot to left field back in May. This had the crowd erupting and at once gaining the hope that the offense has turned around for the season.

Well, we got some actual news on the managerial search earlier today but other than that, it still appears to be a case of a little smoke but not much of a fire - at least for now. Still, it's great to start seeing things start to get whittled down a bit in terms of candidates. With that being said, anything can happen (especially considering what's going on in San Francisco and Knoxville right now)

A recent MLB Trade Rumors article previewed the 2025-2026 shortstop free agent class, with names like Bo Bichette and Trevor Story. It's a good read for Atlanta Braves fans, given the question mark at shortstop. Ha-Seong Kim has an opt-out this offseason, and after a down year at the plate, his return to Atlanta is far from certain. With few strong options on the market, his decision will be one to pay close attention to.

The Braves visited the Detroit Tigers for their final road series of the year, with Atlanta's season moribund and Detroit desperately trying to hang on to a playoff spot. The first game of the series was a Friday night game and Atlanta absolutely rocked Detroit's starting pitcher - whom they acquired in a Trade Deadline deal. That set off a chain of events that led to one of the emotional high points of Atlanta's 2025 campaign,

The number of MLB managerial openings grew on Monday, with the somewhat unexpected news that Padres manager Mike Shildt is retiring. While this likely does not have a major impact on the Braves process to fill their own opening, it is one more attractive job for potential candidates to consider.

If there's one thing that definitely feels like it needs correcting over and over, it's the idea that Michael Harris II has declined consistently since his rookie year. He hasn't, but his results have. Harris won the 2022 NL Rookie of the Year award with 4.7 fWAR in 441 PAs... because he outhit his .335 xwOBA by an egregious amount. Only 12 other hitters with more PAs than Harris outhit their xwOBA by more that year. In 2023, his xwOBA went up but the wOBA went down, so 3.7 fWAR in 539 PAs.

I don't know. I think I'll have to talk to my agent, and I don't know anything about my future.

Amidst the Atlanta Braves managerial buzz, Hall of Famer Chipper Jones told 680 The Fan that he has no interest in managing his former club. He did, however, make mention of possibly joining the staff as a hitting coach. It would not be Jones' first appearance on the staff. Beginning in 2021, he took on a part-time role as the Braves' hitting consultant. So, while Jones has ruled out managing the team, there is still a possibility he serves the team in some capacity.

The right shortstop could play 150+ games (well I guess we're all about that club 162, though right?), hit above average and field at least average shortstop level. The Braves lineup looked much better with Ha-Seong Kim rather than the more offensively-challenged group of Nick Allen, Orlando Arcia, and Luke Williams (although Vidal Brujan was decent). The right shortstop could add two or as many as eight wins to a playoff-adjacent team.

If we do our job the way we want to do it, [the media] won't have anything. Before Skip Schumaker was named [as the Rangers manager] last night, there were eight openings. I remember some other years where there were a bunch of manager openings but I can't remember there being this many. That's a lot of openings, a lot of turnover, a lot of places where you have to get permission to speak to other coaches. That makes it incredibly challenging.

The Atlanta Braves entered the regular season waiting on the return of two of their biggest stars in outfielder Ronald Acuña, Jr. and starting pitcher Spencer Strider. Before the regular season began, the team lost starting catcher Sean Murphy in to Spring Training with a fractured rib. By the time July rolled around, the team had those three players back, but lost their entire Opening Day starting rotation to injury.

My recent pull of cards have been eerily consistent. Last night, though, it took a turn and basically told me that my life is built on a house of cards, so when you no longer hear from me, you'll know why. I've been steadily learning cars without having to really look it up every time, but I've got a ways to go yet. My next goal is to do more involved card readings. One card doesn't give you a lot to go on, and the interpretation can be trickier.

In my opinion, I've always maintained both publicly and privately that Atlanta would likely stay in-house when it came to their next manager. The cynic in me figured that the writing was on the wall when Fredi González returned to the fold as the "new" third base coach for the Braves earlier this season. Even if it wasn't Fredi, Walt Weiss is here as well and while he's never sat in the big chair for the Braves, he has had that experience with the Rockies.