Which aspects of Braves baseball are you looking forward to most this year?
Two things can be true at once. The Atlanta Braves had a very disappointing offseason that included a shocking and, in my opinion, egregious decision to duck under the luxury tax instead of adding around their core in the middle of a World Series window. But, despite this, the Braves are still projected to be among the best teams in baseball in 2025, and there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about their chances to reclaim the NL East division title. There are more than just five things to look forward to this year, but here’s a glance into my current daydreams as we continue to inch closer to Opening Day.
NL East competition
There’s an argument to be made that the NL East is the most compelling division in baseball this year. They don’t go five deep like the AL East, but the Braves, Mets, and Phillies are all projected for top five records in MLB. No other division has even two teams projected in the top 5.
After 2024 saw them claim their first division title since 2011, Philly looks to be a strong contender yet again. Their existing payroll was extremely high heading into the offseason, but they still found space to make a few savvy additions in OF Max Kepler, LHP Jesús Luzardo, and closer Jordan Romano. They still boast one of the best offensive trios in the sport with Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Bryce Harper at the top of their lineup. Stalwarts Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola headline the rotation, but following a monster 2024 season, Cristopher Sánchez is generating a ton of buzz in Spring Training with a couple mph of newfound velocity.
The Mets made the biggest splash of the offseason by handing out a $765M contract to star OF Juan Soto, but that was far from all they did this winter. Like Cristopher Sánchez, Clay Holmes has been one of the biggest stars this spring, showcasing a couple of new pitches with tremendous results as he looks to transition from late-inning reliever to starting pitcher. They also retained Pete Alonso and Sean Manaea (who has unfortunately injured his oblique in the early part of spring training), added Frankie Montas to their rotation (who has also already sustained an injury and won’t be available for the beginning of the season), traded for defensive standout Jose Siri, and added Braves great A.J. Minter to their bullpen. They don’t have a perfect roster by any stretch, but they have more than enough talent to contend in a loaded NL.
Then there’s the Braves, who are looking for a bounceback after their nightmarish 2024 season. Five of their starting nine from Opening Day (Harris II, Acuña Jr, Albies, Olson, and Murphy) had their worst season by fWAR per 650 PA in 2024, and five of their starting nine from Opening Day (Murphy, Harris II, Acuña Jr, Riley, and Albies) missed at least two months due to injury. All of that without even mentioning an early April season-ending injury to their Opening Day SP, Spencer Strider.
While I’m disappointed and angry that the Braves didn’t spend more in the offseason, I do think the majority of fans around the league are underestimating what a cleaner bill of health will do for this team. By May they should have 8 of the 9 members from the 2023 offensive juggernaut in the lineup, with the lone exception being a major upgrade in LF (more on that later). They lost Max Fried and Charlie Morton – which is significant – but many of the innings that were covered by those two in 2024 will be handled by Spencer Strider and Grant Holmes in 2025, both of whom arguably have a higher ceiling than Fried and Morton, respectively.
It’s likely to be a tight and competitive race in 2025, but you won’t catch me betting against the Braves. I believe they have the deepest talent pool in the division and are positioned better than all but the Dodgers to hold up a 162 game season.
Jurickson Profar
Speaking of that major upgrade in LF, Jurickson Profar has officially arrived. Since he was the only major addition this offseason, much has been written about him this winter. The TL;DR is this; he’s a former top prospect who never fully thrived in his first decade or so in the big leagues, made significant swing changes last offseason that led to a legitimate breakout at age 31 (driven by an astounding jump in average exit velocity without any sacrifice to his excellent plate discipline), and he will now be balancing out the Braves lineup with his superlative on-base and contact skills.
It’s refreshing to have an everyday player with proven upside entering 2025. Left field hasn’t exactly been an area of strength for the Braves this decade:
(If you are on a mobile device, this table is best viewed in landscape mode.)
The Braves had a scare with Profar on Saturday when he rolled over his wrist diving for a ball in the outfield, but thankfully the MRI showed just a bone bruise, and it sounds like he will be good to go by Opening Day. Atlanta seems intent on using him in the leadoff role until Acuña returns, and he should thrive there as a guy who posted a .380 OBP last year and a .343 OBP in his last 5 years combined.
The returns of Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider
Heading into 2024, the top projected position player in MLB was the reigning NL MVP, Ronald Acuña Jr. The top projected pitcher? Spencer Strider, fresh off a 281 strikeout campaign in 2023.
Baseball fans were robbed of these two players in 2024. Acuña Jr. never quite found his footing to start the year, then he lost his footing completely when he tragically tore his ACL in May. Strider made it all of two starts before going down with an elbow injury that would cost him the rest of his season.
Strider threw live batting practice this week, with Acuña being one of the hitters he faced. It sounds like the plan is for Strider to throw another live BP this upcoming week and then possibly appear in a spring game before the Braves head west for Opening Day in San Diego. If all continues to go well, we should see Strider on the bump for the Braves before the end of April.
As for Ronald, they continue to treat him with extreme caution. He took 292 days (9.5 months) to return to the big leagues after his ACL in 2021 – if he was on that same timeline this go around, he’d return to big league games this upcoming Friday, March 14th. In theory, they could give him a full 4-6 weeks of extra recovery time and still have him back before the start of May. They don’t intend to play him in any spring training games, but once he starts a rehab assignment, it shouldn’t take more than 2-3 weeks for him to don the Braves uniform once again.
If all goes well, we could see a Spencer Strider start and Ronald Acuña Jr. atop the lineup for a true heavyweight matchup when the Dodgers come to Atlanta on the first weekend in May.
Continuation of four great 2024 storylines in the rotation
Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, Spencer Schwellenbach, and Grant Holmes.
The reigning NL Cy Young will lead the Braves rotation in 2025, likely getting the nod on Opening Day in less than three weeks. There aren’t enough positive adjectives in the dictionary to describe his performance in 2024. He led all qualified starters in ERA (2.38), FIP (2.09), K% (32.1%), and K-BB% (26.5%). One more category he led all of MLB in (and an underrated part of his Cy Young campaign) – he posted an MLB best 0.46 HR/9, which was made possible by an elite 95th percentile hard-hit percentage and 84th percentile barrel rate. Above all, this was what set his 2024 apart from the scattered performance in Boston from 2019-2023 (32.1% K, 6.3% BB, 1.36 HR/9, 4.16 ERA, 3.56 FIP).
How will Sale fare in 2025? Will he be able to stay healthy and post at least 150 innings? Will we see any regression in his stuff after he threw more innings in 2024 than he had in the previous four seasons combined? Will he be available in the postseason this go-around? One way or another, he’ll be a critical factor in the end result of the Braves season.
Reynaldo López reinvigorated his baseball career by transitioning from starter to reliever back in 2021, so it was surprising to see that both he and the Braves wanted to try another turn in the rotation for 2024. It went better than anyone could have imagined – he dealt to the tune of a ridiculous 1.99 ERA across 25 starts and 135.2 IP. The different ERA estimators were a bit divided on how well he actually pitched, with all agreeing that he was fortunate to put up a sub-2.00 ERA. His FIP was 2.92, his xFIP was 3.44, his SIERA was a 3.58, and his xERA was all the way up at 3.94. He’s stated that his goal for 2025 is to throw 200 innings, but I’d say that even just 150+ IP with an ERA/FIP under 4.00 would be perfectly adequate for the Braves needs.
Spencer Schwellenbach came out of nowhere to dominate in 2024. The Braves were floundering in their final rotation spot following the loss of Strider, and Schwelly eventually became their savior. He was simply superlative, showcasing nasty stuff and a deep arsenal while relentlessly pounding the zone, all of which led to a 20.8% K-BB, 3.35 ERA, 3.29 FIP, and 3.44 xERA across 123.2 IP. There was nothing in his performance that seemed fluky, and he only seemed to get better as the season went on, but he also threw more than 100 innings more than any other season of his professional or collegiate career. How will he hold up over his first full season in the big leagues?
Then there’s Grant Holmes, one of the few feel-good stories from the Braves in 2024. After spending over a decade in the minor leagues, he finally got his shot in the major leagues, and he didn’t waste it. He put up an excellent 3.56 ERA and 3.46 xERA while splitting time between the bullpen and rotation, and he’s now earned himself a starter’s role to begin 2025. How will he fare in this role full-time? Will his superb swing-and-miss breaking balls be enough to carry him through a lineup multiple times? Or will he be able to incorporate his new kick-change effectively against left-handed hitters?
There are certainly a lot of questions about the 2025 rotation for Atlanta, but if these four are close to their 2024 levels of production, the season is likely to be a huge success.
Michael Harris II, best player on the Braves?
It might sound crazy, given the Braves other star players, but FanGraphs currently projects Harris to have the highest WAR on the team.
Harris was fantastic on defense yet again in 2024, but his offensive production both at the plate and on the bases were far below what we had seen from him before. Hopefully he’ll be more comfortable working with base coaches Tom Goodwin and Matt Tuiasosopo in their second year with the club, and that may help him to maximize his well-above average speed. At the plate, his batted ball profile suggests a good deal of bad luck (.344 xwOBA vs. .312 wOBA), and I’d expect positive regression to take him back to a wRC+ at or above 115.
The biggest challenge for Harris the past couple of years has been staying on the field. If he simply produces at his career average levels at the plate, in the field, and on the bases over 150 games or more, he’s likely to approach his lofty 4.9 fWAR projection from FanGraphs Depth Charts. He only just turned 24, though, and it’s completely possible that he takes a step beyond his career averages – particularly following his scalding finish to 2024.
The Braves are fortunate to have enough talent that one can write an article titled “5 things to get excited about for 2025” without putting any focus on either of the bonafide superstars on the corner infield, or their 3x All-Star at 2B, or their stud closer. There’s an iconic quote from Andy Bernard’s character in The Office – “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” Folks, this era of Braves baseball is the good old days. The offseason may have been a bit of a drag, but that doesn’t mean the season will be. Enjoy it.