A local baseball hobbyist’s hunch on various Braves-related projections
I’m no data scientist. I don’t know how to code. There are brilliant, world-class mathematicians who have spent decades developing and honing projection systems, and those systems are well-respected by many of baseball’s brightest minds. These systems are accounting for millions upon millions data points – more than our brains can comprehend – and on a large scale, they do a pretty good job of predicting the outcomes of this very unpredictable game. It would be incredibly conceited to believe that we, as fans, could more accurately understand and interpret the data points that we have access to.
Well, reader, I’ve got good news. I’ve been that exact breed of conceited and stupid for a long time now.
The projection systems have to account for a wide range of possibilities and then choose the one that is most likely, the 50th percentile outcome, but the game is too random for them to ever come close to perfect. On a large scale, they’re coming closer than I ever could. Instead of just trusting those numbers as the best predictions available, however, I’ve decided that I should use my comparatively hyper-limited knowledge and data points to decipher which players are most likely to underperform or overperform what the computers say. This level of hubris is why I’ve manually projected over 300 players (in preparation for my fantasy baseball league) for something like the 15th year in a row.
Anyhow, enough preamble. Which projections do I think are too low or too high? We’ll be using the Depth Charts projections on FanGraphs, which take the average of the Steamer and ZiPS. We’ll take a look at 5 projections today, and since the Atlanta Braves are due some good luck after 2024, we’ll go with three overs and two unders.
MATT OLSON, 34 HR
Stop me if you’ve heard this before – 2024 was the worst full season of [insert player name]’s career as a big leaguer.
Olson was still good in 2024, but his 117 wRC+ and 2.6 WAR were the lowest marks of any season in which he played more than 60 games, and his 29 home runs were the fewest he’d hit in a non-pandemic season since 2018, when he also hit 29.
Depth Charts projects Olson to be an iron man once again in 2025, with 159 games played and 686 PA. For Olson’s career, he’s averaged 40 HR per 686 PA. During his tenure in Atlanta, Olson has averaged 38 HR per 686 PA. See where this is going?
The first few months of 2024 were very strange for Olson. In his first 100 games of the season, he mustered only 13 HR and a .389 SLG with just a 91 wRC+ in 419 PA. He’s been prone to hot-and-cold stretches in Atlanta, but this was longer and more concerning than anything we’d seen before.
In the last 62 games, however, Olson caught fire and looked like the best version of himself. He slashed .286/.383/.568 with 16 HR and a 158 wRC+ in 266 PA (a 41 HR pace over 686 PA). His .372 xwOBA during that stretch looked much more like his career .366 xwOBA.
I don’t know who that was in the first half, but the real Matt Olson showed up by the end of the year, and that guy? The one who is going to win the 2025 Home Run Derby in front of his home crowd? That guy’s pretty good, and he’s who I expect to see in 2025.
VERDICT: Over
INNINGS TOTALS FOR THE TOP 5 SP
This one is a bit of a cheat, as there will be several over/unders combined into one.
Let’s start with this – the projections have Atlanta starting pitchers racking up 907 combined innings in 2025, the 9th highest total of any team. Last year, Braves starters pitched 904.1 IP, which was the third highest total of any team.
Until Ian Anderson shows he has fully rebounded from his various injuries and found a new gear, or until one of the prospects shows that they are ready to grab a big league rotation spot, there are five starting pitchers that I see as the main core for this team in 2025; Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach, Reynaldo López, and Grant Holmes. Let’s go through each one.
Sale: 182 IP. Prediction: UNDER
The Braves had to lean on Sale more than they’d hoped in 2024 to get them to the playoffs, and that resulted in a 177 IP Cy Young season that left him unavailable for the first round of the playoffs with back spasms. This year, the offense should be able to carry more of a load, and the Braves path to making the playoffs at all should be less stressful. In my mind, 150 IP out of Sale would be a dream come true.
Strider: 119 IP. Prediction: OVER
The internal brace procedure Spencer Strider underwent to repair his elbow has a 9-12 month timeline to complete recovery. The Braves are going to be cautious with him, but it will have been 12 months since the procedure on April 12th. I imagine the Braves will delay a touch longer than that, but Strider himself has said that he will have a fairly normal spring training, and I expect him to be back on the mound for Atlanta before May. They’ll skip some starts and add spot starters in long stretches with no off-days in order to keep all their pitchers fresh, but something like 25 starts and 130-140 IP is what I’m expecting for Strider.
Schwellenbach: 165 IP. Prediction: UNDER
This is a soft under, as I expect 150-160 IP will be the goal for Schwellenbach. He threw just under 160 IP between the big leagues and the minors last season, but that was over 100 more innings than he’d thrown in any other season in his professional or collegiate career. They’ll want to protect his young arm and account for what will hopefully be several starts in October as well.
López: 172 IP. Prediction: UNDER
In ReyLó’s first full season as a starter since 2019, he logged 135.2 IP over 25 starts (and one clutch bullpen appearance on the final day of the season). A jump to 172 regular season innings before a potential playoff run wouldn’t be the best idea for a guy who dealt with a couple of arm injury scares a year ago.
Holmes: 82 IP as starter. Prediction: OVER
This prediction comes mostly from a place of optimism about Holmes’s ability to succeed as a starter. Assuming the Braves don’t add another starting pitcher (they might) – and probably even if they do add another starter – Grant Holmes will have a firm grasp on a rotation spot out of camp, at least until Strider returns. Holmes had an excellent rookie year in 2024, but there are some underlying metrics that portend the possibility for an even brighter 2025. He had a terrific 30.0% CSW and outstanding 16.4% SwStr in his 68.1 IP – the latter of which ranked best on the team behind only Dylan Lee (aka my RP muse). Here were all the K-rates for Braves pitchers with at least 50 IP in 2024 and both a 29% CSW and 14% SwStr:
- Dylan Lee, 31.7% K
- Grant Holmes, 24.8% K
- Joe Jiménez, 29.6% K
- Raisel Iglesias, 26.3% K
- Chris Sale, 32.1% K
Based on this, it would seem that there may be more strikeout potential for Holmes going forward – or at least the ability to maintain a K% around 25% while handling a larger workload as a starter.
Total Projected Innings from the Top 5 Starters, 720 IP. Verdict: UNDER
This would be an average of 144.0 IP from these five pitchers. Last year, the Braves top five starters by innings pitched accounted for 775, but their Opening Day rotation of Strider, Fried, Sale, Morton, and López combined for just 662 IP, an average of 132.4 IP per starter. Strider lasting only two starts obviously hurts there, but given the durability/longevity concerns about most of the starting staff heading into 2025, it’s probably safer to bet on some kind of injury throwing off these projections once again.
JURICKSON PROFAR, 1.7 WAR
If you’ve been following any of my writing or tweets this offseason, you know what’s coming next.
The last three seasons have seen what is likely the full range of Profar’s variability. In 2022, he was good (110 wRC+, 2.4 WAR). In 2023, he was the worst qualified position player in MLB (78 wRC+, -1.6 WAR). And in 2024, he was superlative (139 wRC+, 4.3 WAR). If you average those three seasons together, you get basically this exact projection – 112 wRC+ and 1.8 WAR per 637 PA, which is the projected PA total from Depth Charts.
Offensively, I’m all in on the swing changes that led to huge jumps in Profar’s average exit velocities and barrel rates. It’s incredible that he was able to make that adjustment while maintaining his excellent plate discipline. While there was nothing fluky about his 139 wRC+ in 2024, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect some regression. But my personal projection will have him in more of the 120-125 wRC+ range than 110-115.
Even if he does deliver a 111 wRC+ over 637 PA, however, I think he would rack up more than 1.7 WAR. The projections know that Profar is a bad defender. Depth Charts has him coming in at -12.5 Def in 147 games in 2025. Over the past three seasons, Profar has averaged -11.7 Def per 147 games. But the worst of those three seasons by far was 2023, the year he was having to cover the expansive outfield in Colorado. In his last three full seasons as a Padre, he averaged -8.9 Def. While I still think that Profar will be below average defensively, I imagine he’ll be better than the projections have him pegged.
One last note on his WAR total – I’d project a higher number of PA and games played than Depth Charts. Knowing that the Braves love to run their guys out there everyday, and knowing that Profar played 158 games last year, I’d expect Profar to be given a chance to play at least 155+ games if he’s healthy. I also am guessing he will bat leadoff or second to start the year and then (as long as he’s hitting) permanently sit in the 2-hole once Ronald Acuña Jr. reclaims his spot at the top of the order. That’s a recipe for 675+ PA in 2025, and more PA for an above average hitter = more WAR.
VERDICT: Over
RONALD ACUÑA JR, 128 Games Played
Like several other Braves position players, last year was the worst we’ve seen from Ronald Acuña Jr. as a big leaguer. He was far below his usual performance level in the 49 games that he played and then tragically suffered a second torn ACL that left him without a chance to rebound.
That said, Acuña’s floor is still very, very good. In 2022, his first season back after the original ACL injury, he wasn’t quite himself but still put up a 115 wRC+ and was on pace for around a 3 WAR season if he’d been given a full slate of games. In 2024, he had a 105 wRC+ and was on pace for around 3 WAR. In both of those seasons, he dealt with significant underperformance compared to his expected metrics. He’s a special, one-in-a-million player in his mid-twenties, and it’s hard for guys like that to actually be bad.
I’m not projecting Ronald to be MVP-caliber in his first year back from his second ACL tear, but I still expect that he will be extremely impactful on the team when he’s on the field. The question is, how often will he be out there?
Braves beat writer Mark Bowman has consistently maintained a timeline of about 6 weeks for Ronald to return from his injury. I think that’s overly cautious. If the mid-May timeline was true, it would be just under a full year of recovery for an injury that has a 7-10 month timeline to return, and an extra 9 weeks of recovery and rehab compared to his last ACL tear. I’m all for being cautious and slow-playing his return to make sure that, when he is back, he’s able to be as close to his usual self as possible. That timeline feels extreme to me, so barring any setbacks, I’m guessing we’ll see him back by the first few days of May at the latest – and I think it’s entirely possible we see him in mid-late April, if he continues to progress at the level and pace that’s been reported.
So yes, I’m much more optimistic on Acuña’s timeline than Bowman. But I also am taking the under on 128 games played.
In 2022, Acuña returned from his ACL injury on April 28th – a similar timeline that I’m expecting for 2024 – and he wound up playing 119 games, with some minor injury scares and rest sprinkled in. With how well Ozuna has hit in the DH spot over the past two years, I’d expect Ronald’s rest days to be full rest days, not DH days, and I’m expecting his games played number to fall shy of 128 like it did in 2022.
VERDICT: Under
SPENCER SCHWELLENBACH, 3.71 ERA
Let’s talk about this dude for a second, shall we?
Schwellenbach was a godsend in 2024, arriving in May to salvage the 5th spot in the rotation that had become nothing short of a barren wasteland following Strider’s season-ending elbow injury. Schwelly wound up delivering 123.2 brilliant innings of work with an above average 25.4% K, an immaculate 4.6% BB, a solid 1.02 HR/9, and a 3.35 ERA that every ERA estimator out there fully backed up as legit. Schwelly also excelled vs. the best competition, posting an absurd 1.82 ERA and 2.34 FIP vs. playoff teams.
Schwelly’s first two starts with the big club were a bit rocky, as he was tagged for a combined 9 ER in 9.2 IP vs. the Nationals and Red Sox. His third start with Atlanta was when he debuted his sinker, a pitch he developed at the major league level, and he also increased his splitter usage from that third start through the rest of the season. In that stretch of his final 19 starts, he had a 25.9% K, 4.4% BB, 0.95 HR/9, 2.92 ERA and 3.12 FIP while averaging exactly 6 full innings per start. He ranked 9th in WAR among all starters during this time, sandwiched between aces Zack Wheeler and Logan Gilbert. His plate discipline metrics actually suggest room for even more upside – over his final 19 starts, his 38.1% O-Swing, 13.7% SwStr, and 29.8% CSW all ranked in the top ten among qualified starters. Take a look at the K% of the other pitchers in that stretch to have at least a 29% CSW, 13% SwStr, and 35% O-Swing – all I see is upside.
(If you are on a mobile device, this table is best viewed in landscape mode.)
Every baseball analyst out there has been picking Schwellenbach as perhaps the most undervalued arm heading into 2025, and I’m on their side. He has everything you want in a big league pitcher – a deep repertoire with multiple swing and miss pitches, great control, and great athleticism. He was even terrific defensively, putting up +5 DRS in his time with Atlanta, which was tied for the 2nd highest total among all pitchers to throw at least 100 innings.
VERDICT: Under? Over? Whichever one means that I believe his ERA will be lower than 3.71
We’ll do five more over/unders next week, but in the meantime, let’s hear from you. Are there any Braves projections that you’re mashing the over or under on?