Once they’re fully healthy, this could be one of the best outfields in baseball. Are you excited yet?
When the 2024 season started, the Atlanta Braves figured that they didn’t have much to worry about with their outfield. Then the injuries and underperformance that plagued the entire club eventually hit the Braves and once the season was over, Atlanta’s outfield was a patchwork situation where they were simply doing the best with the players they had.
Hopefully things will go according to plan here in 2025, because if they do, this could be a very good group of players. With new signing Jurickson Profar coming in to anchor one of the corners, Michael Harris II looking to return to the form that he’s used to and, of course, the eventual return of superstar Ronald Acuña Jr., the Braves appear set up to have some primetime players roaming the outfield for them this season.
Jurickson Profar
Let’s start with the new guy because, why not? Profar was the crown jewel of Atlanta’s offseason business, as they signed him to a three-year, $42 million deal. Profar picked a fantastic time to have a career year, as he hit .280/.380/.459 with a .365 wOBA, 139 wRC+ and 24 homers for the Padres last season. This came after he had what was easily the worst season of his career in 2023, where he barely looked like a major league-quality player at times, and got released by the Rockies.
One of the things that fueled his turnaround was that he worked on his swing with both Fernando Tatis Jr. and Sr. The leg kick resulted in a huge bounce-back that, once again, was extremely well-timed. The Braves and Profar seemed like a perfect fit in the offseason and they eventually found each other, as Alex Anthopoulos has publicly stated that he thinks very highly of the 32-year-old outfielder and also believes that this new version of Profar is the one that we’re going to see going forward.
When it comes to his role on the Braves, it’s apparent from the lineups that they’ve used so far in spring training that he’s being positioned to serve as the leadoff man until Ronald Acuña Jr. comes back from injury. While Profar isn’t exactly a speedster like Acuña, his wOBA of .365 in 2024 would’ve been the third-best number on the Braves last season, only behind Jorge Soler (.366) and Marcell Ozuna (.395). What sets Profar apart from those two is he can still run and play juuuuust enough defense to where it’ll be fine to have him out there as the everyday starter in one of the corners. (To be clear, Profar is by no means good defensively. But he’s not quite so bad that everyone has acted like he’s a DH from here on out, which is a little different than the Soler and Ozuna situations.)
Still, the reason why Profar is here is because of his bat and I’d imagine that if/when this lineup is firing on all cylinders and fully healthy, Profar will be one of the reasons why things will be clicking. There’s a decent amount of excitement surrounding Profar joining the Braves and it seems like he’s fit right in with the clubhouse so far in spring training. Expectations are high and it’s time to see if the new guy will live up to them. The downside risk is that his 2024 could’ve been a good blip the way his 2023 was an exceedingly bad one; if Profar’s hitting backslides to some extent, he becomes more of an average-y regular than the world-beater he was last year, because other than his bat, he has little to fall back on.
Ronald Acuña Jr.
Now, let’s talk about the big dog around here. Last season was a major bummer as Acuña suffered a torn ACL in his left knee, just three years after he had the same injury occur in his right knee. With that being said, the Braves appear determined to make sure that his eventual return goes more smoothly than his comeback in 2023 and as such, we’re probably not going to see Acuña playing in games until May, at least.
Once he returns, I’d imagine that we’re probably not going to see him stealing bases at a rate that led to his historic 40-70 season in 2023. It sure would be great to see that happen, but part of easing him back into things would naturally include making sure that a guy with two surgically-repaired knees isn’t putting any extra strain on those knees as he makes his return. I’m not saying that he’s going to be immobile out there, but I’m also not expecting to be counting down the throws to first base and waiting for the eventual stolen base like we all did in 2023.
With that being said, let’s not get too pessimistic here — this is one of the best baseball players in the world and the Braves will be much better off with him in the lineup once he makes his eventual return. He’s been a limited-but-active participant in Spring Training so far and all signs point towards the power in his bat not going anywhere.
There may be questions about the defense and his baserunning ability going forward, but I fully expect Acuña to continue being one of the most dangerous hitters in all of baseball once he eventually returns to the top of Atlanta’s lineup. It’ll take a while for him to get back but once he does, the Braves appear very confident that they’re going to be getting their superstar back — I agree, and I’m excited to see it.
There’s downside risk for Acuña, too, but his ceiling is so high that any mental calibration has to bump up what exactly another bad season looks like. The obvious worst-case scenario is that he gets injured again, but there’s also a chance that he just looks off (a la 2024 before his injury), or plays more like he did in 2022, coming off his first ACL problem. Of course, the kicker in both cases is that he’s so good that even an un-Acuña-esque performance from him is still a pretty great performance for most other MLB players, but we can’t pretend like his two modes are simply “playing and elite” and “injured and not playing,” either.
Michael Harris II
A handful of Braves players had down years in 2024 and Michael Harris II qualifies in that department. If you look across the board, all of his production took a dip when compared to his brilliant first two seasons. Some of that was due to injury, as he played a career-low 110 games but he also still scuffled a bit at the plate when he was healthy. The defense was still very much there which is why he continued to stay out there in center field but at the same time, 99 wRC+ from a hitter of Harris’ ability isn’t what you want to see at all.
With that being said, if anybody appears primed for a bounce back, it’s Money Mike. While he had his worst offensive outputs of his three seasons so far in 2024, his xwOBA in 2024 (.344) was actually right in the middle of his xwOBAs from seasons past, and much higher than his wOBA. That’s one of the reasons why the projections certainly believe in him, and ZiPS in particular figures that he’ll look like something in-between his rookie and sophomore season rather than the version of him that was going out there in 2024. However, he has all the tools the potential to be more than just a very good center fielder. He’s got all the tools to be a great center fielder and if he does indeed take the leap from “very good” to “great” then this lineup has a shot to return to juggernaut status. A breakout would be great but we’d also be fine with him simply returning to his normal level of production this season.
Marcell Ozuna
I’m including him here because technically Marcell Ozuna is still an outfielder, but we all know that his fielding days are behind him at this point and we have the National League adopting the DH to thank for him being able to do that while still with the Braves. He’s still very much in the midst of his hitting days, though, and last season was a doozy as he ended up having one of the best seasons of his career. It was to the point where he was going stride-for-stride with Shohei Ohtani for a bit, which is to say that he was hitting at an incredible level and was carrying the Braves lineup at times.
Ozuna will be coming into the 2025 season off the strength of two good seasons in a row, which came after it looked like he was going to play (and act) his way out of town after two mortifying seasons in 2021 and 2022. Since then, he’s been a clubhouse anchor, avoided making the bad kind of headlines, and, again, he was one of the only things keeping the 2024 Braves afloat at times. It would be fantastic if he keeps it up and while he’s 34-years-old and strictly a DH at this point, the obvious hope is that he’ll continue to keep up the production while Father Time stays away for as long as possible. I’m looking forward to somewhere around 30 homers from him this season and if he can continue to hit, he’ll play a big role in any success the Braves have this season. Ozuna did have a hiccup in August with a very low (for him only) xwOBA, but he rebounded a bit in September anyway, and it was probably unrealistic to assume he was going to have an xwOBA above .400 for all six months of the year anyway, so he’s probably going to be good to go for 2025.
Jarred Kelenic
In an ideal world, Jarred Kelenic would’ve platooned with Adam Duvall in 2024, and both of them would’ve taken turns giving the Braves some solid production as a unit. Instead, Kelenic ended up being thrust into everyday duty for long stretches of the season and folks, that was one of many, many signs that we do not live in an ideal world. (We’re not going to even get into the horroshow that was everything surrounding Duvall’s season last year.) While Kelenic did deliver a career-high 15 home runs last season, that was more a function of the fact that he played by far the most games he had played in any given season (131 games, while 105 was his previous high). Kelenic showed flashes of being an everyday guy, but he was unable to really sustain it and as such, it got to a point where Ramón Laureano was eventually getting the lion’s share of playing time while Kelenic played less and less as the season went on — even against right-handed pitching, where Kelenic had the platoon advantage.
Fundamentally, the issue with Kelenic was not that he took a while to find himself, but that once he did, he then un-found himself even more quickly. After being thrust into all sorts of new roles (regular, center fielder, leadoff hitter) around June, he got his butt in gear and delivered a great month, only for it to completely fall apart and throw him into another two-month is-it-really-a-slump-if-he’s-just-struggling-most-of-the-time that ultimately cost him a full-time role.
Still, the Braves are going to be counting on him here in 2025 to be productive — at least until Ronald Acuña Jr. makes his return. The outfield will likely be some combination of Kelenic and Profar in the corners with Harris in center until Acuña returns, which is when Kelenic will return to the bench and serve as the fourth outfielder. (Theoretically, Profar in right and Kelenic in left makes more sense given the dimensions of Truist Park, but the Braves weren’t giving any indications in Spring Training that they’d move Profar away from left field; he hasn’t logged more than a couple of games in right since 2021.) A lot of teams would be thrilled with Kelenic as a fourth outfielder, so not all is bad here. With all of that being said, Kelenic has also made his intentions to play every day be known, so we’ll either see him step up or it might become obvious that his future may be elsewhere. Either way, this is definitely an intriguing month or so ahead for Jarred Kelenic, and he’s got a clear set of things he needs to show to continue getting playing time.
The Rest
The Braves picked up Bryan De La Cruz on a non-guaranteed one-year deal and he’ll be an option to platoon with Jarred Kelenic until Acuña makes his return. De La Cruz has been underwater in terms of fWAR for the past couple of seasons, so expectations aren’t exactly high for him to make a turnaround. Still, if all goes will then he could be a viable platoon-mate, and he has a cannon for an arm — just good luck figuring out where it’s going. Eli White figures to be the utility guy for the Braves and should serve as a pretty solid option in terms of being able to step in if the Braves ever need him. He’s a phenomenal outfield defender, as he’s showcased in limited playing time with the Braves over the last couple of years, but hasn’t hit well enough to earn more than a fill-in role thus far.
Outlook
Once Acuña returns from injury, you’re going to be hard-pressed to find many starting outfield trios better than this one. Acuña himself is a former MVP, Michael Harris II has the ability and the potential to make the leap to that level, and Jurrickson Profar will be determined to prove that the positive swing changes he made are here to stay instead of a contract-year fluke. With solid options outside of that as well, the outfield should be a bright spot for the Braves here in 2025.
All in all, the Braves project to have a top-three outfield at this point, even accounting for a lowered playing time estimate for Acuña. (Amusingly, one of the teams ahead of them in this regard is the Padres, who don’t even have a definite left fielder, but Jackson Merrill and Tatis Jr. are so good that it more than makes up for it.)