It was widely expected that the Braves would try to land a playoff caliber starting pitcher this off-season, which obviously has not happened yet. This is not to say that the front office has not tried. It is not like walking into a grocery store and you pick what you want. It takes two parties and a lot of moving parts to get a deal done. This goes with both free agents and trades.
Jonah Heim was a free agent in the first place after he got non-tendered by the Texas Rangers following two underwhelming seasons. He hit .213/.271/.332 with a .266 wOBA and 69 wRC+ last season, which would be an acceptable amount of production for a catcher if their defense was good. Unfortunately for Heim, his defense was not good in 2025 as he graded below average in plenty of defensive catching metrics in 2025.
With a couple of the safer picks rounding out the top 30, we have begun to enter the part of the list that caters to some high upside prospects. Compared to recent years there is a lot more upside, and a lot more tools that are definitely louder than years prior. There is also considerable capital associated with this particular section of the system with high international signing bonuses, as well as a pair of players drafted within the first six rounds.
Well, now we know why the Braves didn't join that pack of ballclubs when it came to making that jump. As it turns out, the Braves are reportedly about to launch their own TV network. Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal is reporting that this is the path that the Braves are going to go down. He laid it out pretty clearly in his article detailing what the Braves and the eight other clubs are planning to do with their TV coverage going forward.
You could spend hours digging deep into a player's profile and identifying reasons why they have good fortune or bad fortune, but in this article, we are going to look at a high-level view of three players. There are few areas you can look right off the bat on to help determine if a player has had bad fortune at the plate. First you can look at a player's weighted on base average (wOBA) versus their expected wOBA (xwOBA).
The portent of the 2025 Atlanta Braves season being... really dumb and no fun was Jurickson Profar eating a PED suspension after the first series of the season. By the time Profar came back, his new team was more or less dead in the water as far as playoff potential. Profar also didn't really do anything to revive them - his 1.3 fWAR in 371 PAs, which was only achieved due to a fair bit of xwOBA overperformance, was basically a bog-standard rate. It was better than Alex Verdugo, but it wasn't actually good.
Sigh, this is a depressing one of these to do. Everything about Spencer Strider was, in theory, so awesome, that it didn't seem like a little thing like a year-long layoff due to elbow troubles was going to derail his career. Surely someone so diligent in being in tune with his body and mechanics could hit the ground running, right? Well, not exactly. After an uneven 2025, Strider's outlook is uncertain, and pretty fraught.
Injuries were the primary culprit, though there were certainly some underperformances as well. Ronald Acuna Jr. and Spencer Strider both missed time, as they did in 2024, and when they played they were still working their way back into form. Getting those stars and others, such as Austin Riley and Matt Olson, back to full capacity and/or productivity is the Braves' best hope for a quick bounce-back. The projections think they have a good chance of getting that.
The 2026 Hall of Fame Class will be announced on Tuesday. Several former Braves on on the ballot for consideration, but the one name that likely is being followed the most is Andruw Jones. In his 9th and second to last year of initial eligibility, Jones is projected to have a very good shot at finally being inducted. While many in Braves Country have been known for years Jones deserves the honor, we will know if it happens in reality in less than 24 hours.
Fortunately, the outlook is pretty positive at the moment, since the Braves have been busy in a good way so far during the offseason. With pitchers and catchers set to report next month (!!!), it's safe to say that this team has been improved - on paper, at least. Sure, the games still have to be played but I'd imagine that everybody here at least feels better about the look of this squad than they did about last year's squad.
As an initial stab, you might have guessed that since adopting the power-oriented offensive approach in 2019, the Braves have not been much for accumulating stolen bases. That's fairly intuitive, but unfortunately, it gets somewhat upended by reality. The Braves finished just inside the top ten in team stolen bases in 2018, and then again in 2019. 2020 and 2021 were low-steal years,
1999- The Atlanta Braves acquire second baseman Quilvio Veras, first baseman Wally Joyner and outfielder Reggie Sanders from the Padres in exchange for first baseman Ryan Klesko, second baseman Bret Boone and pitcher Jason Shiell. 1999 - In an interview in Sports Illustrated magazine, Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker offends virtually every race and ethnic group in a hateful outburst. Community leaders, media, management, coaches, and teammates alike call for action to be taken against the lefthander who had 38 saves for Atlanta this past season.
