<img alt="Wild Card Series - Atlanta Braves v San Diego Padres - Game 2" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mSae8wZ8ECMQmN988Q1oMmtDeZo=/0x0:8454x5636/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73652997/2175515864.0.jpg">
Photo by Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
The 2024 Atlanta Braves are no more. Let’s reflect on the season that was. They say, “All good things must come to an end.” They clearly weren’t talking about the 2024 Atlanta Braves. If they were, they might have said “All disappointing, crippled things must come to an end.”
The Braves came into the 2024 season with more promise than ever before. They were projected by Fangraphs to finish with 98 wins, 4 more than anyone else in MLB. They were coming off arguably the best offensive season in MLB history, tying the 2019 juiced-ball Twins for the most team home runs in a season and tying the literal 1927 Yankees as the only two teams to post a wRC+ of 125 or greater. While nobody was expecting a repeat of the best offensive season ever, there was plenty of reason to believe they would still be at the top of the league. NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. had actually underperformed his expected metrics in 2023, as had Sean Murphy, Marcell Ozuna, and Michael Harris II. The only change to their historic 2023 lineup for 2024 was replacing their weakest position – left field, which was primarily manned by Eddie Rosario in 2023 – with a platoon of the young, promising, high-potential Jarred Kelenic and a homeward-bound veteran in Adam Duvall.
Atlanta wasn’t looking quite as dynamite on the pitching side, but there was still a strong argument to be made for them having a top 5 rotation and top 3 bullpen. Fried and Strider were going to occupy the top two spots as co-aces, and a finally healthy, newly acquired Chris Sale looked to be a dangerous #3 if he could stay on the field. Behind them were ol’ reliable Charlie Morton and an intriguing experiment in Reynaldo López, whom the Braves signed in the offseason as a free agent and surprised many by announcing he would go back to being a starting pitcher – a role he hadn’t filled in the previous 2 years when he had been a dominant reliever. After struggling down the stretch in 2023, All-Star Bryce Elder was left to start Opening Day for Gwinnett.
In the bullpen, the ever-steady duo of A.J. Minter and Raisel Iglesias were poised to keep the 8th and 9th innings locked up. Beyond that, they had impressive depth, with Joe Jiménez, Pierce Johnson, Dylan Lee, and Aaron Bummer all capable of handling high-leverage innings. And, of course, they brought back the legend Jesse Chavez to handle the multi-inning mop-up role.
Six months later, we can say that the Braves turned out to be very different from what we expected.
The offense, for all its hype and potential, found a way to be fully mediocre. Injuries aren’t the whole story, but losing about two months from each of Austin Riley, Sean Murphy, Ozzie Albies, and Michael Harris II certainly didn’t help the situation, and losing more than four months of Ronald Acuña Jr. on top of that made it much worse. That volume of injuries is certainly the most memorable “what went wrong” line item from 2024. On top of that, they also had some bad fortune in terms of batted ball luck, finishing 7th in xwOBA but 12th in wOBA and 16th in wRC+.
What will stick uncomfortably in the minds of many Braves fans entering 2025, however, is the underperformance of every hitter on the Opening Day roster aside from Ozuna and d’Arnaud. That’s not an exaggeration – take a look at the preseason projected wRC+ (from Steamer) vs. the actual 2024 wRC+ for each of the players on the Opening Day roster who were slated to hold a full-time or part-time role.
(If you are on a mobile device then this table is best viewed in landscape mode.)
When you consider this underperformance, the offense scuffling in the playoffs for the third year in a row, and a stunningly horrific approach from the team in big moments (29th in wRC+ in high leverage situations, 29th in BB/K with RISP), it becomes less of a mystery as to why the Braves decided to part ways with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and assistant hitting coach Bobby Maggallanes about a week after the season ended.
On the other hand, the pitching was better than anyone could have guessed. Both the starting pitchers and bullpen ranked in the top 3 in ERA, FIP, and fWAR, and the pitching staff overall led MLB in each of those three metrics. Somehow, they managed the best fWAR for a Braves pitching staff this millennium despite Strider being lost for the season after throwing just nine innings across two games. The “somehow” in question goes by many different names - likely NL Cy Young Chris Sale, 2.00 ERA Reynaldo López, and rookie breakout Spencer Schwellenbach, just to name a few.
Getting into the postseason at all was a struggle over the final couple of months, but the team’s stellar pitching gave the fanbase some cause for optimism in October. It’s often said that you win in the regular season with your top 30-35 players, but you win in the postseason with your top 18-20 players. This is especially true on the pitching side – in the regular season, you have to use spot starters to fill innings, and your top bullpen arms are sometimes unavailable. In this regard, nobody was set up better than the Braves. Sale, Fried, López, and Schwellenbach combined for 611 IP and a ridiculous 2.74 ERA and 2.87 FIP in the regular season, while the top five arms in the bullpen (Iglesias, Jiménez, Lee, Bummer, Johnson) combined for 309.1 IP and a shimmering 2.73 ERA and 2.75 FIP.
Alas, after a season full of cruelness – the injuries, the batted ball luck, the 18-25 record in one run games, etc. – the baseball gods found three more tricks up their sleeves and used them to end the Braves season.
Trick #1 - That NL Cy Young favorite of yours, Chris Sale? He of the 6.4 fWAR, 2.38 ERA and 2.09 FIP? Let’s give him some back spasms that will not only keep him out of the rotation for the last couple of weeks of the regular season, but also force him to miss a win-or-die game 162 and the first round of the playoffs. But hey, at least he would have been available for the NLDS.
Trick #2 – That win-or-die game 162 that I mentioned? Yeah, you’re going to need to play that as part of a doubleheader on the day after the last day of the regular season. Your rock-solid bullpen blew game one of the doubleheader multiple times, so now you have to win game two. But hey, you did it! Hope you don’t mind that your ace is hurt and you just played five games in four days, which means your #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, AND #6 starting pitcher options are all unavailable for the first game of the playoffs. Again, we hope you don’t mind, but you do need to get on a plane for a four hour flight right after playing two baseball games so that you can be there for game one tomorrow. Good luck!
Trick #3 – Welp, you lost game one with a 21 year old rookie who pitched less than 5 innings in the big leagues this year on the mound. Who could blame you? Shake it off, kid – you’ve got long-time ace Max Fried on the hill for game two. What could go wrong? In two of the last three postseasons, a key pitcher was hit with a comebacker and either gave up a bunch of runs shortly after or had to be removed with injury, but SURELY that won’t happen again this year. SURELY the opposition won’t reach five times on balls that don’t leave the infield in the first twelve batters of the game…. Ah, well. There’s always next year.
All this to say, 2024 will forever be known as the year where everything went wrong. As many have stated (especially in the national media), it’s impressive that the Braves were able to get 89 wins and a playoff berth. It’s also important to remember that fans of many other teams yearn for a winning season and a chance to play in the postseason.
For some fans, though, the excuses just aren’t enough. Three straight first round exits in which the team looked largely non-competitive has left a bitter taste in the mouths of Braves country. They’ve made the playoffs in 14 seasons since 2001, and they were eliminated in the first round in 12 of those seasons. The bloodthirstiness the fanbase experienced before the 2021 title is beginning to creep back in, and if the 2025 Braves aren’t able to make a deeper run in October, they’ll risk being re-labeled “playoff chokers” by even their most loyal and optimistic fans.
<img alt="Wild Card Series - Atlanta Braves v San Diego Padres - Game 2" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mSae8wZ8ECMQmN988Q1oMmtDeZo=/0x0:8454x5636/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73652997/2175515864.0.jpg">
Photo by Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
The 2024 Atlanta Braves are no more. Let’s reflect on the season that was. They say, “All good things must come to an end.” They clearly weren’t talking about the 2024 Atlanta Braves. If they were, they might have said “All disappointing, crippled things must come to an end.”
The Braves came into the 2024 season with more promise than ever before. They were projected by Fangraphs to finish with 98 wins, 4 more than anyone else in MLB. They were coming off arguably the best offensive season in MLB history, tying the 2019 juiced-ball Twins for the most team home runs in a season and tying the literal 1927 Yankees as the only two teams to post a wRC+ of 125 or greater. While nobody was expecting a repeat of the best offensive season ever, there was plenty of reason to believe they would still be at the top of the league. NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. had actually underperformed his expected metrics in 2023, as had Sean Murphy, Marcell Ozuna, and Michael Harris II. The only change to their historic 2023 lineup for 2024 was replacing their weakest position – left field, which was primarily manned by Eddie Rosario in 2023 – with a platoon of the young, promising, high-potential Jarred Kelenic and a homeward-bound veteran in Adam Duvall.
Atlanta wasn’t looking quite as dynamite on the pitching side, but there was still a strong argument to be made for them having a top 5 rotation and top 3 bullpen. Fried and Strider were going to occupy the top two spots as co-aces, and a finally healthy, newly acquired Chris Sale looked to be a dangerous #3 if he could stay on the field. Behind them were ol’ reliable Charlie Morton and an intriguing experiment in Reynaldo López, whom the Braves signed in the offseason as a free agent and surprised many by announcing he would go back to being a starting pitcher – a role he hadn’t filled in the previous 2 years when he had been a dominant reliever. After struggling down the stretch in 2023, All-Star Bryce Elder was left to start Opening Day for Gwinnett.
In the bullpen, the ever-steady duo of A.J. Minter and Raisel Iglesias were poised to keep the 8th and 9th innings locked up. Beyond that, they had impressive depth, with Joe Jiménez, Pierce Johnson, Dylan Lee, and Aaron Bummer all capable of handling high-leverage innings. And, of course, they brought back the legend Jesse Chavez to handle the multi-inning mop-up role.
Six months later, we can say that the Braves turned out to be very different from what we expected.
The offense, for all its hype and potential, found a way to be fully mediocre. Injuries aren’t the whole story, but losing about two months from each of Austin Riley, Sean Murphy, Ozzie Albies, and Michael Harris II certainly didn’t help the situation, and losing more than four months of Ronald Acuña Jr. on top of that made it much worse. That volume of injuries is certainly the most memorable “what went wrong” line item from 2024. On top of that, they also had some bad fortune in terms of batted ball luck, finishing 7th in xwOBA but 12th in wOBA and 16th in wRC+.
What will stick uncomfortably in the minds of many Braves fans entering 2025, however, is the underperformance of every hitter on the Opening Day roster aside from Ozuna and d’Arnaud. That’s not an exaggeration – take a look at the preseason projected wRC+ (from Steamer) vs. the actual 2024 wRC+ for each of the players on the Opening Day roster who were slated to hold a full-time or part-time role.
(If you are on a mobile device then this table is best viewed in landscape mode.)
When you consider this underperformance, the offense scuffling in the playoffs for the third year in a row, and a stunningly horrific approach from the team in big moments (29th in wRC+ in high leverage situations, 29th in BB/K with RISP), it becomes less of a mystery as to why the Braves decided to part ways with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer and assistant hitting coach Bobby Maggallanes about a week after the season ended.
On the other hand, the pitching was better than anyone could have guessed. Both the starting pitchers and bullpen ranked in the top 3 in ERA, FIP, and fWAR, and the pitching staff overall led MLB in each of those three metrics. Somehow, they managed the best fWAR for a Braves pitching staff this millennium despite Strider being lost for the season after throwing just nine innings across two games. The “somehow” in question goes by many different names - likely NL Cy Young Chris Sale, 2.00 ERA Reynaldo López, and rookie breakout Spencer Schwellenbach, just to name a few.
Getting into the postseason at all was a struggle over the final couple of months, but the team’s stellar pitching gave the fanbase some cause for optimism in October. It’s often said that you win in the regular season with your top 30-35 players, but you win in the postseason with your top 18-20 players. This is especially true on the pitching side – in the regular season, you have to use spot starters to fill innings, and your top bullpen arms are sometimes unavailable. In this regard, nobody was set up better than the Braves. Sale, Fried, López, and Schwellenbach combined for 611 IP and a ridiculous 2.74 ERA and 2.87 FIP in the regular season, while the top five arms in the bullpen (Iglesias, Jiménez, Lee, Bummer, Johnson) combined for 309.1 IP and a shimmering 2.73 ERA and 2.75 FIP.
Alas, after a season full of cruelness – the injuries, the batted ball luck, the 18-25 record in one run games, etc. – the baseball gods found three more tricks up their sleeves and used them to end the Braves season.
Trick #1 - That NL Cy Young favorite of yours, Chris Sale? He of the 6.4 fWAR, 2.38 ERA and 2.09 FIP? Let’s give him some back spasms that will not only keep him out of the rotation for the last couple of weeks of the regular season, but also force him to miss a win-or-die game 162 and the first round of the playoffs. But hey, at least he would have been available for the NLDS.
Trick #2 – That win-or-die game 162 that I mentioned? Yeah, you’re going to need to play that as part of a doubleheader on the day after the last day of the regular season. Your rock-solid bullpen blew game one of the doubleheader multiple times, so now you have to win game two. But hey, you did it! Hope you don’t mind that your ace is hurt and you just played five games in four days, which means your #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, AND #6 starting pitcher options are all unavailable for the first game of the playoffs. Again, we hope you don’t mind, but you do need to get on a plane for a four hour flight right after playing two baseball games so that you can be there for game one tomorrow. Good luck!
Trick #3 – Welp, you lost game one with a 21 year old rookie who pitched less than 5 innings in the big leagues this year on the mound. Who could blame you? Shake it off, kid – you’ve got long-time ace Max Fried on the hill for game two. What could go wrong? In two of the last three postseasons, a key pitcher was hit with a comebacker and either gave up a bunch of runs shortly after or had to be removed with injury, but SURELY that won’t happen again this year. SURELY the opposition won’t reach five times on balls that don’t leave the infield in the first twelve batters of the game…. Ah, well. There’s always next year.
All this to say, 2024 will forever be known as the year where everything went wrong. As many have stated (especially in the national media), it’s impressive that the Braves were able to get 89 wins and a playoff berth. It’s also important to remember that fans of many other teams yearn for a winning season and a chance to play in the postseason.
For some fans, though, the excuses just aren’t enough. Three straight first round exits in which the team looked largely non-competitive has left a bitter taste in the mouths of Braves country. They’ve made the playoffs in 14 seasons since 2001, and they were eliminated in the first round in 12 of those seasons. The bloodthirstiness the fanbase experienced before the 2021 title is beginning to creep back in, and if the 2025 Braves aren’t able to make a deeper run in October, they’ll risk being re-labeled “playoff chokers” by even their most loyal and optimistic fans.
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