Braves have second-best odds of winning World Series, according to FanGraphs

Here’s another projection model that paints a lovely picture for the Braves in 2025.

Earlier this week, Baseball Prospectus released their annual preseason PECOTA projections and their numbers painted an appealing picture for the Atlanta Braves as far as their chances go in 2025. Now, it’s FanGraphs’ turn to get in on the projection fun, as they’ve officially released their 2025 Playoff Odds.

As it turns out, the projection model for FanGraphs is feeling pretty good about Atlanta’s chances in 2025 — just like PECOTA. As of right now, FanGraphs has the Braves winning 93.5 games and losing 68.5. The Braves are also projected to have a 65.2 percent chance of winning the division, a 57.6 percent chance of getting a bye to the Divisional Series, a 27.8 percent chance of making it in as a Wild Card and a 93 percent overall chance of making the Postseason. Finally, the Braves are given a 14.9 percent shot at winning the World Series.

FanGraphs

What makes this projection interesting (at least in my opinion) is less about how it sees the Braves but more about how it views the rest of baseball. The Braves have the second-best chance of winning this season’s World Series according to FanGraphs, with the Dodgers having the best odds.

Unlike PECOTA, this model thinks that the Braves are actually pretty close to the Dodgers — FanGraphs has the Dodgers winning “only” 97.6 games, with a 98.2 percent chance of making the Postseason and a 24.3 percent shot at winning the World Series. That’s still a fantastic projection for LA, as I’d imagine anybody would gladly take nearly 1-in-4 odds of winning a title. In fact, this model is giving the Braves a 24.6 percent shot of winning the NLCS (with the Dodgers at a 36.1 percent shot), so there’s that.

This is another example of just how good of a team the Braves have — as long as things go according to plan. That plan may include things like Chris Sale continuing to be elite, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider both returning and performing as expected, Reynaldo López picking up where he left off, the bullpen performing well despite losing Joe Jiménez for a long while and Jurickson Profar’s 2024 season not being just another well-timed career year in a contract season. With that being said, none of this seems like a truly massive stretch and when you combine that with players like Austin Riley, Matt Olson, Sean Murphy and Michael Harris II performing at their usual levels, it’s understandable to imagine this team having a great season this year.

Again, this model differs from PECOTA in that it feels like the Braves are in the elite tier with the Dodgers instead of Los Angeles being in that elite tier by themselves. In fact, this model basically has it as Dodgers, Braves and then “the field,” as no other team is being projected to have even a 10 percent chance of winning it all. The Yankees have the best odds in the American League and the third-highest odds in baseball at 7.7 percent.

As we all learned in 2024 when the Braves were projected to be a juggernaut and ended up having a calamitous outlier of a season (that still resulted in a playoff berth, mind you), projections are fun and can give you an idea of what’s supposed to happen but it’s not the be-all, end-all. The games still have to be played and the human element will ensure that it’ll be a complete mystery as to who’s going to win the World Series. With that being said, this is just another reminder that the Braves have some lofty expectations and the standard for success will be very high here in 2025.