<img alt="Wild Card Series - Atlanta Braves v San Diego Padres - Game 2" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XrNu1tDjdr4XcQcimV4FOUDsgas=/0x0:6303x4202/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73629662/2175520199.0.jpg">
Photo by Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
Was this a disappointing season? Absolutely. Should you still be proud of this team for making it this far, regardless? Also, yes. For the third time in as many seasons, the Atlanta Braves are exiting the Postseason without clearing the first hurdle that was ahead of them. In 2022, it was a massive disappointment to lose to the Phillies after going through one of the greatest pennant races of the previous Postseason format in order to catch and pass the Mets for the 2022 NL East title. In 2023, it was starting to get annoying that this team still couldn’t break through — especially against the Phillies for a second season in a row.
After the disappointments of the previous two seasons, the Braves went into 2024 with a “World Series or bust” mentality. If you completely ignore everything that happened between late-March and early-October, then this definitely qualifies as a “bust” of a season. The Braves only won 89 games and went 0-2-and-BBQ in the NL Wild Card round. In the grand scheme of things, this definitely qualifies as a lost season and this team is going to have some hard questions to figure out about the state of this team going forward as they head into this upcoming offseason.
However, if you do consider everything that happened during this season, it becomes clear that the Braves really made chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what with this season. Winning 89 games and making the Postseason when:
Your perennial MVP candidate tore his other ACL in May
Your presumptive Cy Young candidate threw a grand total of nine innings all season
Your actual Cy Young candidate finally got injured just in time for the Postseason
Your surprise second-best starting pitcher dealt with injuries in the latter portion of the season
Your starting catcher suffered an oblique injury that essentially wrecked his season at the plate
You lost your starting second baseman for the majority of the season due to multiple injuries — one of which caused him to go from switch-hitting to batting exclusively as a right-hander once he returned
You lost your starting third baseman due to injury and he was unable to play in the Postseason
You lost your starting center fielder for a large portion of the season and he didn’t heat up until the very end
Your starting first baseman spent most of the season in the wilderness before he finally started to look like himself again
You had to rely on cast-offs and fill-ins in order to help carry you to the Postseason
It took a hurricane and another team having a mini-collapse to finally qualify for the Postseason after 162 games
All things considered, this actually wasn’t that horrible of season. Now granted, it was extremely painful and annoying to watch this team at times and it was especially annoying to watch an offense that was unstoppable back in 2023 get so inconsistent and downright anemic that they ended up going 11-59 in the regular season when the other team scored four runs or more (and for the record, they ended up going 11-60 in total after the Padres added onto that astonishingly bad record with their series-clinching win in Game 2).
Outside of April, this really did not feel like a season where the Braves were ever fully operational or firing on all cylinders. It always felt like any time this team had a huge explosion at the plate, it was immediately-or-soon followed by a game where they’d have to scratch and claw in order to get just one run on the board. The pitching staff was fantastic all season but it felt less like part of a functional team and more of a situation where it was like “Okay, we have to be great on the mound tonight because the offense is probably going to have one of those nights where you blink and there’s already two outs on the board.” This team was unable to really get fully in sync and it showed with how the season as a whole went.
Despite all the frustration and annoyance, I’m still encouraged about the future and I’m once again impressed with the resilience of this ballclub under Brian Snitker. While Snitker may not have covered himself in glory with some of his tactical decisions and the choices to save certain players/starters/relievers for hypothetical situations that were never going to come since this team just wasn’t the same as it had been in recent years, Snitker was still good at what he’s best at: Keeping the boat afloat and on an even keel. As evidenced by some of the remarks from Ramón Laureano ahead of Game 2 of the NLDS, the clubhouse appears to be in as good of shape as ever and the next time you’ll hear about discord within the Atlanta Braves while Snitker is the manager will be the first time.
Despite the major struggles and inconsistencies that this team dealt with in 2024, they were still all focused on moving in the same direction. There will certainly be some changes with the team going forward (and honestly, there need to be some changes and upgrades made in certain spots) but one thing that remains clear and obvious is that this team will be a unified one going forward as long as Brian Snitker is still around — which he plans to be for another season.
#Braves’ Brian Snitker said he absolutely plans to manage next season and that he wishes spring training began tomorrow. Said he’s exhausted, more excited about going back to camp with these guys than he’s ever been.— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) October 3, 2024
All-in-all, this was still very much a lost season that I’d imagine that everybody will want to forget as soon as they possibly can. With that being said, there’s plenty of hope that things will be okay in the future and that we’ll see this team performing at the level that we’re used to seeing from them instead of whatever this was here in 2024. While I think we all know now not to expect Ronald Acuña Jr. to hit the ground running once he returns, simply having him back will be a massive boost. The same goes for Spencer Strider and his respective recovery as well. Michael Harris II and Matt Olson started to look like their usual selves again, Ozzie Albies will surely not have another season as snakebitten as the one he just had and the same goes for Sean Murphy as well.
Obviously, you have to hope that Chris Sale can produce another healthy season at the same (or at least close to the same) level, that Spencer Schwellenbach doesn’t hit the second-year wall and that Marcell Ozuna can continue to keep up his level of performance. There will also be a major task for Alex Anthopoulos to figure out when it comes to filling potential holes in the rotation should Max Fried and Charlie Morton not return and they are also going to need to figure out what they really want to do at shortstop (since Orlando Arcia has apparently turned back into a pumpkin) and in the revolving door that is left field. This team definitely has some question marks going forward, but they’ve got a fully capable President/GM who can answer those questions and they’ll have a team of players already here who will surely be chomping at the bit to set the record straight in 2025.
So, did this season stink? Of course it did. You sat through all of those interminable shutouts, injuries and just insane amounts of horrible batted ball luck just like I did and the rest of the staff here at Battery Power did. However, we should be proud of this team for continuing to persevere and make it into the Postseason despite the very best efforts of the Baseball Gods to keep them out. This was probably a sub-10th percentile season that we just saw this team have and it was still good enough for them to play October baseball. The goal should be and obviously remains to be a World Series title for a team with this much talented but sometimes, you’ve got to just take your lumps, count your blessings, fix yourself up and move on. That’s all that the Braves can really do at this point.
<img alt="Wild Card Series - Atlanta Braves v San Diego Padres - Game 2" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XrNu1tDjdr4XcQcimV4FOUDsgas=/0x0:6303x4202/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73629662/2175520199.0.jpg">
Photo by Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
Was this a disappointing season? Absolutely. Should you still be proud of this team for making it this far, regardless? Also, yes. For the third time in as many seasons, the Atlanta Braves are exiting the Postseason without clearing the first hurdle that was ahead of them. In 2022, it was a massive disappointment to lose to the Phillies after going through one of the greatest pennant races of the previous Postseason format in order to catch and pass the Mets for the 2022 NL East title. In 2023, it was starting to get annoying that this team still couldn’t break through — especially against the Phillies for a second season in a row.
After the disappointments of the previous two seasons, the Braves went into 2024 with a “World Series or bust” mentality. If you completely ignore everything that happened between late-March and early-October, then this definitely qualifies as a “bust” of a season. The Braves only won 89 games and went 0-2-and-BBQ in the NL Wild Card round. In the grand scheme of things, this definitely qualifies as a lost season and this team is going to have some hard questions to figure out about the state of this team going forward as they head into this upcoming offseason.
However, if you do consider everything that happened during this season, it becomes clear that the Braves really made chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what with this season. Winning 89 games and making the Postseason when:
Your perennial MVP candidate tore his other ACL in May
Your presumptive Cy Young candidate threw a grand total of nine innings all season
Your actual Cy Young candidate finally got injured just in time for the Postseason
Your surprise second-best starting pitcher dealt with injuries in the latter portion of the season
Your starting catcher suffered an oblique injury that essentially wrecked his season at the plate
You lost your starting second baseman for the majority of the season due to multiple injuries — one of which caused him to go from switch-hitting to batting exclusively as a right-hander once he returned
You lost your starting third baseman due to injury and he was unable to play in the Postseason
You lost your starting center fielder for a large portion of the season and he didn’t heat up until the very end
Your starting first baseman spent most of the season in the wilderness before he finally started to look like himself again
You had to rely on cast-offs and fill-ins in order to help carry you to the Postseason
It took a hurricane and another team having a mini-collapse to finally qualify for the Postseason after 162 games
All things considered, this actually wasn’t that horrible of season. Now granted, it was extremely painful and annoying to watch this team at times and it was especially annoying to watch an offense that was unstoppable back in 2023 get so inconsistent and downright anemic that they ended up going 11-59 in the regular season when the other team scored four runs or more (and for the record, they ended up going 11-60 in total after the Padres added onto that astonishingly bad record with their series-clinching win in Game 2).
Outside of April, this really did not feel like a season where the Braves were ever fully operational or firing on all cylinders. It always felt like any time this team had a huge explosion at the plate, it was immediately-or-soon followed by a game where they’d have to scratch and claw in order to get just one run on the board. The pitching staff was fantastic all season but it felt less like part of a functional team and more of a situation where it was like “Okay, we have to be great on the mound tonight because the offense is probably going to have one of those nights where you blink and there’s already two outs on the board.” This team was unable to really get fully in sync and it showed with how the season as a whole went.
Despite all the frustration and annoyance, I’m still encouraged about the future and I’m once again impressed with the resilience of this ballclub under Brian Snitker. While Snitker may not have covered himself in glory with some of his tactical decisions and the choices to save certain players/starters/relievers for hypothetical situations that were never going to come since this team just wasn’t the same as it had been in recent years, Snitker was still good at what he’s best at: Keeping the boat afloat and on an even keel. As evidenced by some of the remarks from Ramón Laureano ahead of Game 2 of the NLDS, the clubhouse appears to be in as good of shape as ever and the next time you’ll hear about discord within the Atlanta Braves while Snitker is the manager will be the first time.
Despite the major struggles and inconsistencies that this team dealt with in 2024, they were still all focused on moving in the same direction. There will certainly be some changes with the team going forward (and honestly, there need to be some changes and upgrades made in certain spots) but one thing that remains clear and obvious is that this team will be a unified one going forward as long as Brian Snitker is still around — which he plans to be for another season.
#Braves’ Brian Snitker said he absolutely plans to manage next season and that he wishes spring training began tomorrow. Said he’s exhausted, more excited about going back to camp with these guys than he’s ever been.— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) October 3, 2024
All-in-all, this was still very much a lost season that I’d imagine that everybody will want to forget as soon as they possibly can. With that being said, there’s plenty of hope that things will be okay in the future and that we’ll see this team performing at the level that we’re used to seeing from them instead of whatever this was here in 2024. While I think we all know now not to expect Ronald Acuña Jr. to hit the ground running once he returns, simply having him back will be a massive boost. The same goes for Spencer Strider and his respective recovery as well. Michael Harris II and Matt Olson started to look like their usual selves again, Ozzie Albies will surely not have another season as snakebitten as the one he just had and the same goes for Sean Murphy as well.
Obviously, you have to hope that Chris Sale can produce another healthy season at the same (or at least close to the same) level, that Spencer Schwellenbach doesn’t hit the second-year wall and that Marcell Ozuna can continue to keep up his level of performance. There will also be a major task for Alex Anthopoulos to figure out when it comes to filling potential holes in the rotation should Max Fried and Charlie Morton not return and they are also going to need to figure out what they really want to do at shortstop (since Orlando Arcia has apparently turned back into a pumpkin) and in the revolving door that is left field. This team definitely has some question marks going forward, but they’ve got a fully capable President/GM who can answer those questions and they’ll have a team of players already here who will surely be chomping at the bit to set the record straight in 2025.
So, did this season stink? Of course it did. You sat through all of those interminable shutouts, injuries and just insane amounts of horrible batted ball luck just like I did and the rest of the staff here at Battery Power did. However, we should be proud of this team for continuing to persevere and make it into the Postseason despite the very best efforts of the Baseball Gods to keep them out. This was probably a sub-10th percentile season that we just saw this team have and it was still good enough for them to play October baseball. The goal should be and obviously remains to be a World Series title for a team with this much talented but sometimes, you’ve got to just take your lumps, count your blessings, fix yourself up and move on. That’s all that the Braves can really do at this point.
Link to original article
