Doing a mailbag is an ego-centric exercise, and this was no exception; I got over 50 questions submitted, so thank you for sending those in.

(If you have one to submit, you can email me at contact@bravestoday.com.)

Clearly, getting to all 50+ today isn’t happening, but I’ve saved the ones I couldn’t get to and we’ll keep working through them on Fridays throughout the offseason. Paid subscribers get first priority, but I’ll pull questions from email and social media too.

Let’s talk about it.

Do you think the Braves are happy making the playoffs and hoping to catch lightning in a bottle similar to 2021 while maximizing their profits? It just seems to me that championships are not a priority.

David

I get this question a lot, and let’s go back to what the team has said here.

Last season, when the Braves were stuck with a million rotation injuries and ended up with a losing record, Terry McGuirk, Derek Schiller, and other business folks from Atlanta Braves Holdings got on an earnings call and admitted that attendance was down in Q3.

Team president Derek Schiller wasn’t happy about it, confessing that “there is a relationship between team performance and ticketing and attendance.” They also admitted that retail spending was down, directly correlated to the attendance drop.

Revenue was actually up, however, which I explained at the time was due to new premium seating options, existing sponsorships, etc.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I don’t think the baseball people are making decisions with the business side in mind, and that the business side wants the team to be as successful as possible, because they know it’s good for business.

But that’s not entirely what David was asking.

I also don’t think that this front office is very inclined to go “all in” at any one particular trade deadline to marginally improve their chances of winning a World Series in that particular season, either.

And honestly, that’s probably a pretty defensible position to take! Baseball’s postseason has enough of its outcome influenced by randomness that there’s no guarantee that significantly subtracting future assets (prospects) in order to improve a given season’s World Series odds will end up being the right decision.

Look at San Diego, for instance: AJ Preller is one of the league’s most aggressive traders, having moved pieces like a top shortstop prospect (Leo De Vries) last season for closer Mason Miller last year and three of their top nine prospects this season for starters Casey Mize and Robbie Ray.

They lost in the Wild Card round last year and the Divisional Series this year.

Now, could you argue that Alex Anthopoulos is too conservative at the trade deadline and should probably be more willing to part with prospects than he is? Sure, it’s a defensible position to take.

But also, was this offense one really worth investing in? From May 1st through July 30th, the Braves were 22nd in wRC+ (94) and had the single worst month of any MLB team in June, putting up an anemic 65 wRC+.

The team’s almost always a contender, except when they have the entire Opening Day rotation on the 60-day IL at the same time, and at the end of the day, I’d rather have multiple shots at a championship than a Red Sox-style three consecutive sub-.500 seasons followed by two Wild Card eliminations, as they’ve done in the last five years. Or the Cubs, who were 26 games under .500 from 2021-2024 before finally breaking through with two Wild Card berths.

On the spectrum of conservative to aggressive, Anthopoulos and Preller occupy the two extreme ends. AA should probably move a bit towards the middle, but not that far.

Tell me your thoughts on the Braves selling. There was something recently about how the Braves could be at a disadvantage when a tax change happenss soon. Also, what a sale means for minor shareholders like me. (I think I own About 170 shares so I should be consulted on any deals lol.)

Matt

Not to speak for Matt, but I’m guessing this question was prompted by a September letter from investment firm Breach Inlet Capital Management that was sent to the Board of Directors of Atlanta Braves Holdings, asking them to consider selling the team.

Breach Inlet’s shares, and likely Matt’s as well, are Class C shares, with no voting rights attached to them. The only shares that have the ability to vote on corporate resolutions are Class A (1 vote) and Class B (10 votes) shares, so they’re the only ones that matter on a decision to sell or not. Most of those shares are owned by Braves management and company insiders.

If the company were to sell, I believe Matt wouldn’t receive much more than the book value of his shares plus whatever premium was involved as part of the sale price. Same for Breach Inlet.

But the argument to sell the Braves comes down to, essentially, the rising franchise values for all sports teams, but specifically those in baseball, as evidenced by recent sales of the Orioles ($1.725B valuation), the Padres ($3.9B), and the Angels ($4B). With a lockout coming that could potentially hurt the league if games are missed next year, why not capitalize on that rising tide and cash out?

The other issue, a tax change, is one that we’ve actually written about before, although it’s due an update.

Upcoming changes to the tax code will, essentially, prevent the Braves from taking a tax deduction for the salaries of certain “highly compensated” employees, i.e. players. As the Braves are the only publicly traded team in MLB, they’re the only ones that will be negatively impacted by this; privately held teams like the Mets, Yankees, Dodgers, etc. will still be able to write off the salaries of some of their highly paid stars.

This is Section 162(m) of the tax code, and the Braves have had lobbyists working on this for a while now. They said in the last earnings call that they’re confident they’ll get it resolved before the January 1st, 2027 date for it to take effect, but we still haven’t seen either an exemption for them or a change to the proposal that would effectuate this.

When I did the math last year, my calculation was that this would amount to an extra $19M in tax payments for the Braves, which significantly dwarfs the $4.2M in federal income taxes they actually paid in 2024. And I believe it’s even higher now, as Chris Sale’s new salary would raise the figure.

I’ll dig a bit more into this and report back.

Thanks for inquiring about our thoughts. Earlier in the year I remember you going to a Steep Canyon concert. I love the Rangers also and live in the same town as half the band (Brevard, NC). My wife tought a couple of them in Sunday school.

I would like to discuss long term contracts for pitchers. So far it looks like the contract for Strider is a bust. Will that keep AA from offering other young picthers long term deals? I’m thinking yes.

Jim

On the pitcher contracts, injuries are the big issue here, but you’re right in that I don’t really see Atlanta doing any pitching extensions any time soon. If you think about it, the whole reason to extend a young player is to lock in the cost certainty and the value if you think their performance is going to go to another level. There’s just not anyone on the roster with the combination of stuff and health to envision a breakout as one of the best pitchers in baseball.

And even then, pitchers are healthy until they’re not, and it feels like a matter of time before any pitcher goes down with an injury. Even Bryce Elder, who threw 550 MLB innings over the last few seasons, finally went down with an injury this season.

If anyone gets extended, which is unlikely during the CBA negotiation process, my guess is Drake Baldwin - we wrote about that earlier this week, after AA was asked about it on Sunday in his end-of-season press conference.

Steep Canyon Rangers was a great show, and the all-female bluegrass band they had opening for them were really good, too! SCR brought them back out at the end of the show and the two groups gathered around a few mics and had an impromptu jam session, which was a ton of fun.

My summer concert attendance has tailed off a bit the last few seasons, since I’ve been doing the live postgame shows after each Braves game, but we still caught some decent shows this summer: SCR, Jason Isbell, Weird AL (one of these things is not like the other), and Chris Stapleton. I missed Jamey Johnson to work game three of the Wild Card - damn you Dylan Lee - although I’m making up for it with Clint Black (with Midland opening) tonight.

Is it worth it to sign a significant free agent like Dubon before the lockout because we won’t know what the future taxes/thresholds will look like?

What would your perfect offseason look like? Don’t worry about money but be reasonable.

What would a “successful 2027” look like?

Predict who plays the most starts at SS.

Do the Braves give Dubon or Mahle a Qualifying Offer?

Does Strider ever strikeout more than 200 again?

Doc

Doc came prepared, so let’s go rapid fire here.

• Signing a free agent before the new CBA: I think Dubón’s not a problem, because it’s doubtful his contract is the difference in being above/below any specific spending threshold (although I’m still convinced the owners won’t get a cap through this time). To me, only the giant contracts are the ones that are going to be impacted by a new deal, and when has Atlanta played in that market?

• My perfect (and realistic) offseason:

  • Position players:
    A big bat for left field, preferably Seiya Suzuki or Randy Arozarena, bringing back Dubón (shortstop), and some other infield depth that can serve as Albies/Riley insurance - JP Crawford, maybe, or a new utility bat with promise. Obviously, I’d be open to acquiring a shortstop via trade, but if we’re being honest, I’d rather have Suzuki and Dubón than something like Jeremy Peña and then the Yastrzemski/Dubón/Profar trio in LF and DH

  • Pitchers: Bring back Tyler Mahle or sign Michael Soroka as a mid-rotation arm, sign Sonny Gray/trade for Jacob deGrom as a #2 behind Sale, and add a high-octane arm for the bullpen. Maybe that’s Raisel Iglesias coming back, or maybe it’s one of San Diego’s high-octane arms (Adrian Morejon or Jason Adam), or even Evan Phillips of the Dodgers.

• What would a successful 2027 look like: winning the NL East again and having a viable shot in the postseason. I think if we were all being honest, we had very little expectation of Atlanta getting past LA, and while I don’t want to say I’d be happy with capping out at an NLDS appearance again, looking competitive and like you somewhat belong to be there would be a big deal to me.

• Who makes the most starts at SS: Give me Dubón with 130 and Jim Jarvis with 30 (and Brett Wisely with two, for giggles), but I don’t love it.

• Qualifying offer for Dubón or Mahle: I don’t think Atlanta needs to extend Dubón a qualifying offer, which would be $23.15M for next season, just to keep him; they can likely give him that much money and get two seasons out of him. Mahle isn’t eligible, given the fact that he was traded midseason.

• Strider hitting 200Ks in a season again: I honestly don’t know if Strider does it, given the fact that it’s already pretty rare in the modern MLB - only 13 starters did it this year - but I want to believe. I do think he can get back to being a top-half-of-the-rotation starter. He might not be 2023 Strider, but he’ll be a starter…the question is for how long.

1) What are the pros and cons of changing hitting coaches?

2) Who was the former coach RAJ was referring to negatively in the recent podcast?

Peck

On the hitting coaches, I think the main negative (assuming you make the right hire) is the amount of time it takes for the new guy to learn your current roster and earn their trust.

Michael Harris is a great example here — the adjustments he made at midseason to take off after the 2025 All-Star Break were being suggested by Tim Hyers since spring training, but for whatever reason, Michael either didn’t want to or wasn’t listening to Hyers. We didn’t actually see Mike adjust until Chipper, who has a more established relationship with Harris, went to Michael and said the same thing that Hyers did.

The pro is somewhat the same issue, actually — sometimes, a voice just gets stale. That was the issue with Kevin Seitzer, who told David O’Brien (then of The Athletic) back in October of 2024 that he just couldn’t get through to the guys anymore.

“It was the hardest season of my life, because guys were trying so hard and couldn’t get going, and I couldn’t get them to (not press),” Seitzer told O’Brien. “If they can find somebody to get these guys to not try so hard, that needs to be the guy they hire. You can talk about mechanics until the cows come home, but this (struggles this season) was all between the ears.”

It’d be frustrating to see the team fire Hyers after just two seasons, and Anthopoulos indicated on Sunday that there were no immediate plans to change the coaching staff, but it wouldn’t be a shock for Atlanta to move on in light of the below-average results on the field. Long-time hitting coach Kevin Long, most recently of the Phillies, was relieved of his duties earlier this week and likely wouldn’t be willing to take a demotion to assistant hitting coach. If there’s a coaching change in the cards after Atlanta finishes their post-mortem meetings on the 2026 season, that’s where I’d expect it to be.

As far as the viral Ronald Acuña Jr. podcast comments from earlier this season, which were notable for his use of a slur to refer to a past coach, initial belief was that he was referring to now-retired Brian Snitker. Acuña himself has denied that it was a reference to Snitker and speculation has instead centered on former catching coach Sal Fasano. The episode featured former Braves catcher William Contreras, who was traded to Milwaukee after Fasano and Contreras clashed amid reports of poor defense and a lack of effort behind the plate, and he was an active participant in that specific conversation.

Aloha Lindsay,

Bet you didnt know Braves country extends to the Aloha state.

My questions:

Who would win in a footrace - Matt Olson or Sid Bream?

Should the Braves consider trading Ronald? I understand they’d be selling low, but surely they can get more than the CBA pick if he were to leave right?

Thanks for the great coverage! Well worth the subscription.

Erik

Thanks for the question, Erik, and for reading all the way from Hawaii! I’ve taken a liking to musubi recently; there’s a poke place that just opened near my preferred Waffle House, so sometimes I pop in and grab one as a snack from time to time.

On the footrace question: Please, we all know Matt Olson is fast.

I understand the thought on trading Ronald, and I likely need to make this an entire newsletter/podcast segment, but I still think moving him this winter is a bad idea. For starters, you’re right in that it would be selling low. You’d get legitimate assets for him, but it wouldn’t quite be the Juan-Soto-to-the-Padres deal or probably even the Juan-Soto-to-the-Yankees deal.

If you do decide to trade him, see if he can rebuild some value next season and then make the move heading into his final year of team control…but honestly, I don’t think it’s smart. All it would do is create a hole in your outfield, a spot where you’ve been entirely unsuccessful at finding internal options outside of Michael Harris in center. And now that you have some high-ceiling prospects working their way through the farm system, your best-case scenario would be replacing Ronald with someone like Eric Hartman, whose ceiling could theoretically be…Ronald Acuña Jr.

Let’s wrap this one up with a few social media questions.

What does a Tyler Mahle extension look like? I was thinking 3 years 45 million, but seen people saying he could get 20+ million per year.

André

Mahle and Dubón are the two free agents that I think people are dramatically undershooting; I’m fully expecting each of them to get a mini-bag.

When you think about the closest comps to Tyler Mahle based on age and performance, I come up with four: Michael King and Nathan Eovaldi (both 3/$75M), Michael Wacha (3/$51M), and Eduardo Rodriguez (4/$80M). I think his performance has been close to that group, and the small statistical step back he has in a few categories over those guys is likely counterbalanced by the inflation that pops up every winter and pushes each deal a little bit higher. I’m thinking something like 3/$60M, honestly. Whether Atlanta pays that or someone else does, I find it hard to think he doesn’t come away from this winter’s class with a small bag.

Lindsay, need you to spill on the pile of baseball books TBR...

John

I have this terrible habit of grabbing books to read and they sit there until after the season ends. The baseball books in there right now (leaving off the random sci-fi; I’m a fan of hard science fiction):

“This One Will be Different” from economist J.C. Bradbury, Kennesaw State. This one’s about sports stadium funding and how they never, ever deliver a return on investment to the public entities that finance them.

“Unhittable”, from Rob Friedman, also known as Pitching Ninja. He actually sent me his home address so I could send it in to be inscribed, and I still haven’t dropped it in the mail yet. I was going to handwrite an invitation/request to come on to the podcast and slip it in the box, so I should get on that.

“You Gotta Have Wa”, by Robert Whiting. It’s from 1989, but it’s considered one of the “greatest books on baseball” by The Economist so I grabbed a discounted copy to read this winter.

"The Tao of the Backup Catcher" by Tim Brown. This was a gift from a friend.

"How We Played the Game: Baseball at Manzanar, 1942–1945" and "¡Arriba! The Heroic Life of Roberto Clemente", both from the Society for American Baseball Research. I joined SABR last year; members get free e-book copies of all books they publish, and I grabbed both of these just recently from the digital library. I plan to attend my first in-person event in the spring: the SABR Analytics Conference in Phoenix, being held at ASU next March.

Why do you refer to it as “my wife’s cat”? If the cat lives in your house, isn’t she your cat as well?

Dave

Dave makes a good point here. After both Bandit and our other elder cat, Bo, passed earlier this year, we’re down to just the 15-year-old Maggie in the house (and our actual human children, obviously). And while I call her my wife’s cat, she actually spends most of her time now in my office and sleeps on my side of the bed at night. Guess she’s actually my cat, not my wife’s.

Well, that changed pretty quickly. As some of Atlanta’s top prospects continued playing their way through the system, they inevitably found themselves in Columbus. Suddenly, a roster that didn’t initially grab my attention became one of the more interesting teams to follow.

As I’ve mentioned throughout this series, the jump from High-A to Double-A is arguably the most difficult transition a prospect will make before reaching the majors. The pitching is better, the hitters are more advanced, and the room for error gets considerably smaller.

Because of that, several players who appeared on my previous lists weren’t necessarily able to replicate their production once they reached Columbus. And that’s perfectly fine. The experience they gained against more advanced competition is invaluable, and it should put them in a better position to hit the ground running in 2027.

Still, there were a handful of players who didn’t seem particularly bothered by the jump in competition. Some were highly regarded prospects living up to expectations, while others were overlooked names who may have put themselves into legitimate big league consideration.

Let’s get into the guys who caught my attention.

The Bats That Stood Out

John Gil (2023 | IFA | DR | $110,000)

When talking about the position players who stood out in Columbus this season, I don’t think there’s a better place to start than John Gil. Even Braves fans who don’t spend their free time obsessing over prospect rankings have probably heard his name by now.

Gil was part of Atlanta’s 2023 international free agent class, a group headlined by Luis Guanipa. Despite receiving the fifth-highest signing bonus in the class, Gil signed for just $110,000. Looking back, that investment is starting to look like quite the bargain.

As a 17-year-old in the Dominican Summer League, Gil appeared in 48 games, posting a .795 OPS and 127 wRC+. He followed that up by splitting the 2024 season between the complex and Single-A Augusta, showing early signs that there might be something special developing.

In 2025, Gil spent the majority of his season back in Augusta, posting a .731 OPS, 118 wRC+, and an impressive 0.89 BB/K ratio. He also swiped 50 bases across 100 games, giving us a pretty good idea of just how much his speed can impact a game. Atlanta rewarded that performance with a brief taste of Double-A to finish the year.

Entering 2026, the Braves invited Gil to major league Spring Training, where he recorded three hits in 19 at-bats, including two home runs, four walks, and two stolen bases. He opened the regular season with High-A Rome, posting a .724 OPS, 100 wRC+, and 43 stolen bases before earning another promotion to Columbus.

And that’s where things got really interesting. Across 35 games in Double-A, Gil slashed .315/.385/.427 with an .812 OPS, 120 wRC+, and another 17 stolen bases. Remember how I said the jump to Double-A is typically the toughest in the minor leagues? Apparently, nobody told John Gil.

What impressed me even more than the improved production was what happened underneath the surface. After striking out at a 21.6% clip in Single-A, Gil lowered that number to just 16.8% in Double-A. His 85.8% zone contact rate ranked in the 85th percentile at the level, while his 24.7% chase rate landed in the 74th percentile and his 24.5% whiff rate ranked in the 73rd percentile. That’s a pretty encouraging combination for any player, let alone a 20-year-old facing competition roughly four years older than him.

The one area where I’d still like to see Gil take another step is his power. To his credit, he’s made progress every season, and he’s clearly been working to add good weight and strength to his frame. That showed up in a career-high 14 home runs this year. Still, I think there’s more in the tank.

Ideally, I’d love to see Gil become more of a consistent gap-to-gap threat in 2027. Something in the neighborhood of 15 home runs and 25 doubles would be a fantastic next step. Combine that with his plus-plus speed, which essentially allows him to turn any walk or single into a double, and we’re talking about a player who could start getting serious national attention.

I’d expect Gil to open next season back in Columbus for his age 21 campaign, potentially rotating around the infield with Tate Southisene and Alex Lodise. Atlanta’s long-term future at shortstop remains uncertain, but having those three competing for the opportunity is a pretty good problem to have.

David McCabe (2022 | R4 P125 | UNC Charlotte | $476,400)

When talking about the Atlanta Braves and talent pipelines, most fans immediately think of Curaçao. And for good reason. Andruw Jones, Jair Jurrjens, Ozzie Albies, and Kenley Jansen are just a few of the names who have represented the organization over the years.

(LC: I’m shocked/dismayed you didn’t include Andrelton Simmons in this list.)

But recently, Atlanta has quietly been building another pipeline a little farther north. Canada.

David McCabe is just one of several examples of the Braves finding intriguing talent north of the border. A native of Oshawa, Ontario, McCabe attended UNC Charlotte, where he was named a Freshman All-American during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. By 2022, he had developed into one of the better hitters in Conference USA, posting a ridiculous 1.297 OPS and 201 wRC+ while earning Third Team All-American and First Team All-Conference USA honors.

Atlanta selected him in the fourth round of the 2022 MLB Draft, and he’s been working his way through the system ever since. McCabe posted a .697 OPS in 26 games with Single-A Augusta following the draft before breaking out in 2023, when he combined for an .835 OPS and 17 home runs between Single-A and High-A. He struggled after making the initial jump to Double-A in 2024, but bounced back last season with an .813 OPS across 105 games before earning his first promotion to Triple-A.

This year, McCabe spent 53 of his 78 games back in Columbus, and frankly, he looked like a player who didn’t have much left to prove at the level. He slashed .282/.382/.580 with a .962 OPS, 149 wRC+, and 16 home runs. He eventually returned to Triple-A Gwinnett, where he continued hitting, posting a .319 batting average and .867 OPS.

Across both levels, McCabe finished with 20 home runs and 13 doubles, showing exactly why his bat has always been the most intriguing part of his profile.

And that’s important, because McCabe doesn’t have much defensive flexibility to fall back on. He’s essentially limited to the corner infield positions or designated hitter, meaning his bat is going to have to carry most of his value. Fortunately, it can be a pretty dangerous one.

McCabe posted a solid 13.2% walk rate this season, but the 24.5% strikeout rate and 28.8% whiff rate were a little higher than I’d like from someone who needs to produce offensively to remain valuable. As a switch hitter, he also showed considerably better results from the left side of the plate than the right. Neither issue is necessarily a deal breaker, but both are worth monitoring as he gets more exposure to Triple-A pitching.

The bigger question might be whether there’s actually a spot for him in Atlanta. With Matt Olson and Austin Riley firmly established at the corners, McCabe doesn’t have an obvious path to everyday playing time. The Braves have also expressed interest in moving away from having a permanent designated hitter, which could complicate matters further.

Still, I wouldn’t completely dismiss the possibility of McCabe forcing his way into the conversation. For a team that could use a little more consistency and power throughout the lineup, having a switch hitter with legitimate pop waiting in Triple-A isn’t the worst insurance policy.

If McCabe continues mashing, Atlanta may eventually have to find a way to get his bat into the lineup. At the very least, I think he’s an underrated internal option worth keeping an eye on in 2027.

Lizandro Espinoza (2019 | IFA | VEN| N/A)

Not every player on this list followed the traditional path through Atlanta’s farm system. In fact, Lizandro Espinoza’s journey to Columbus looks quite a bit different from most of the names we’ve discussed throughout this series.

Espinoza originally signed with the St. Louis Cardinals during the 2019 international signing period for a small, undisclosed bonus. Because of the pandemic, he didn’t make his professional debut until 2021, when he appeared in the Dominican Summer League as an 18-year-old. The Cardinals brought him stateside to the complex in 2022 before he spent the following two seasons at their Single-A affiliate.

Near the end of the 2024 Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 Draft, Atlanta decided to take a few chances on players from other organizations. Espinoza was one of them.

At the time, he was a relatively light-hitting infielder without much prospect buzz. The Braves assigned him to High-A Rome in 2025, where he struggled to a .201 batting average and 87 wRC+. However, there was one notable development.

For the first time in his professional career, Espinoza started showing some legitimate power, recording 15 doubles, three triples, and 10 home runs. He received a 12-game look at Double-A to finish the season, adding another four doubles and two home runs.

That improvement carried over into 2026. Espinoza opened the year with Columbus and put together the best offensive stretch of his professional career, slashing .278/.404/.500 with a .904 OPS across 37 games. Atlanta rewarded him with a promotion to Triple-A, although the success didn’t immediately follow him. He struggled to a .206 batting average and 75 wRC+ at the highest minor league level.

Still, I found his Double-A performance particularly interesting because of the improvements in his approach. His strikeout rate remained somewhat elevated at 24.4%, but he also posted a career-best 14.1% walk rate. Espinoza continued to deal with some swing-and-miss, although he was clearly making an effort to generate more damage when he connected.

His 17.8% pull air rate was a particularly encouraging development. Getting more baseballs into the air to the pull side is one of the most effective ways for hitters to unlock additional power, and Espinoza seemed to be finding some success doing exactly that.

Since acquiring him for virtually nothing, Atlanta has experimented with Espinoza at second base, shortstop, and even center field. That versatility may ultimately be just as important as the offensive improvements.

He’ll be entering his age 24 season in 2027, so he’s still relatively young despite already having several years of professional experience. My biggest hope is that he can find his footing in Triple-A, continue building on the additional power, and make some improvements to his bat-to-ball skills.

I don’t necessarily envision Espinoza developing into an everyday starter in Atlanta. However, there’s absolutely value in a player who can move between the infield and outfield while providing some offensive upside off the bench. The Braves have historically valued that type of versatility, and I think a utility role is a realistic outcome if Espinoza continues developing. For the price Atlanta paid to acquire him, that would be a pretty nice return.

Adam Zebrowski (2021 | R13 P397 | St John Fisher College | $125,000)

One of the biggest power breakouts in Atlanta’s minor league system this season came from a name that probably isn’t familiar to most Braves fans: Adam Zebrowski.

The Braves selected Zebrowski in the 13th round of the 2021 MLB Draft out of St. John Fisher College, a small school in Rochester, New York. And when I say he dominated the competition there, I mean he dominated. Across 38 games in his final college season, Zebrowski slashed an absurd .500/.594/.993 with a 1.587 OPS. Yes, you read that correctly.

Naturally, those numbers earned him an opportunity in professional baseball, although the transition wasn’t quite as smooth.

Zebrowski posted a .597 OPS in 17 games between the complex and Single-A after being drafted. He improved to a .747 OPS between Single-A and High-A the following season, but failed to reach a .700 OPS in either of the next two years while bouncing between High-A and Double-A.

At that point, there wasn’t much reason to believe a significant offensive breakout was around the corner. Then 2026 happened. Zebrowski spent 62 of his 83 games with Columbus and finally put everything together at the plate, slashing .271/.343/.589 with a .932 OPS, 138 wRC+, and a career-high 19 home runs. Atlanta also gave him some time in Triple-A during the middle of the season, although he struggled to a .200 average and .717 OPS.

There’s no denying the power was impressive. What makes Zebrowski’s season particularly interesting, however, is that he managed to produce those numbers despite some pretty significant swing-and-miss concerns.

He’s an aggressive hitter, posting a 51.6% swing rate, which contributed to a 32.1% chase rate and a concerning 38.6% whiff rate. His 32.2% strikeout rate with Columbus was also the highest of his professional career.

That’s a lot of empty swings. And yet, when Zebrowski did make contact, he made it count.

This is where evaluating his season gets a little tricky. On one hand, a catcher capable of hitting nearly 20 home runs in fewer than 100 games is intriguing. On the other, striking out nearly a third of the time against Double-A pitching doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the production will translate against better competition.

He will also be entering his age 27 season in 2027, meaning he’s not a young prospect with several years to iron out those issues. However, I don’t think we should completely overlook what he accomplished.

I’d like to see Atlanta give Zebrowski an extended opportunity between Double-A and Triple-A next season to determine whether this power breakout is sustainable. The swing and miss may simply be part of who he is as a hitter, but even modest improvements could make a meaningful difference.

If he can trim the strikeouts while maintaining this level of impact when he connects, there’s value in having a power-hitting catcher available as organizational depth. You can never have too many of those in your back pocket.

Jordan Groshans (2018| R1 P12 | Magnolia | $3,400,000)

I’m not sure there’s a player on this list who did more to change the narrative surrounding his career than Jordan Groshans. And considering where his career was just a year ago, that’s saying something.

The Toronto Blue Jays selected Groshans with the 12th overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft, immediately making him one of the organization’s most highly regarded young players. For a while, he looked every bit the part. Groshans posted at least a 124 wRC+ in each of his first three seasons in Toronto’s organization, including stops at Single-A and Double-A. However, he struggled after reaching Triple-A in 2022 and was eventually traded to the Miami Marlins at the deadline.

Things never really came together in Miami, either. He was designated for assignment before the 2024 season and subsequently bounced through the Athletics, Yankees, and Royals organizations as he tried to work his way back to the major leagues.

By the time Atlanta signed him to a minor league contract in January 2026, Groshans was a former top prospect looking for another opportunity. The Braves assigned him to Double-A Columbus, and suddenly, something clicked.

Groshans slashed .282/.344/.588 with a .932 OPS, 138 wRC+, and a ridiculous 30 home runs. To put that into perspective, he had hit just 31 home runs across his entire professional career entering the season. In other words, Groshans nearly doubled his career home run total in a single year. That’s a pretty remarkable turnaround.

What makes the breakout even more interesting is that it wasn’t simply a case of a hitter selling out for power and hoping for the best. Yes, Groshans walked at just an 8.3% clip, but his underlying contact numbers were legitimately encouraging. He posted a 29.0% chase rate, 23.9% whiff rate, and 84.3% zone contact rate.

He wasn’t constantly chasing pitches outside the strike zone, and he was making consistent contact with pitches inside it. The biggest difference was what happened when he connected. Groshans was suddenly doing considerably more damage, turning a profile that had previously lacked impact into one of the more productive power bats in the organization.

Now, we have to acknowledge that he was an experienced player facing Double-A competition. That context matters, and it’s part of why I wouldn’t immediately assume this breakout means he’s going to become a major league regular. But I also don’t think you can simply brush aside 30 home runs, especially when the underlying contact numbers provide some support for the improvement.

Groshans eventually earned another opportunity at Triple-A, where he posted a respectable .796 OPS and 104 wRC+.

I’d love to see Atlanta bring him back next season and give him an extended opportunity in Gwinnett. If he can carry even a portion of this power into Triple-A, he could put himself right back into the conversation for a major league bench job.

Of course, after a resurgence like this, he may have earned an opportunity with another organization. Either way, it’s been pretty cool watching a former top prospect rediscover some of the potential that made him such a highly regarded player in the first place.

The Arms That Caught My Attention

Cam Caminiti (2024 | R1 P24 | Saguaro | $3,553,800)

There weren’t many pitchers in Atlanta’s farm system entering 2026 with more excitement surrounding them than Cam Caminiti. And somehow, he managed to exceed those expectations.

Widely considered one of the top three prospects in the organization, Caminiti has been on an accelerated development path almost from the moment the Braves selected him with the 24th overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft.

Originally regarded as one of the premier prep arms in his class, Caminiti reclassified to enter the draft at just 17 years old. Fortunately for Atlanta, that decision helped him fall right into their lap.

The Braves wasted little time getting him into professional baseball, giving him one start with Single-A Augusta after the draft. He pitched three innings, allowing three hits, one earned run, and no walks while striking out four. A small sample, sure, but it was an encouraging first impression.

Caminiti returned to Augusta in 2025 and immediately looked like one of the more advanced young pitchers in the system. Across 13 starts, he posted a 2.08 ERA, 2.74 FIP, and 31.9% strikeout rate. Oh, and he was just 18 years old.

Atlanta has never been particularly shy about aggressively promoting its pitching prospects, and Caminiti quickly showed why the organization felt comfortable pushing him.

He opened the 2026 season with High-A Rome for his age 19 campaign, making 17 starts and posting a 3.89 ERA, 3.67 FIP, 1.21 WHIP, and 26.1% strikeout rate. Those numbers might not immediately jump off the page compared to his dominant 2025 performance, but the context is important. Caminiti was facing considerably more advanced competition while continuing to miss bats at an impressive rate.

Eventually, Atlanta decided he had shown enough and promoted him to Double-A Columbus. And once again, Caminiti didn’t look particularly intimidated.

Across six starts, the young lefty allowed just eight hits and seven runs, finishing with an impressive 2.01 ERA. His walk rate did climb to 12.5%, but he maintained a 25.0% strikeout rate despite facing some of the best competition he’d seen in his professional career.

For me, the most encouraging part of Caminiti’s brief Double-A stint was his continued ability to generate swings and misses. He posted a 34.5% chase rate, ranking in the 94th percentile at the level, while his 29.5% whiff rate landed in the 60th percentile. I know I keep bringing up his age, but I think it’s impossible to properly evaluate Caminiti without emphasizing just how young he is relative to the competition.

We’re talking about a teenager who has already demonstrated the ability to miss bats against Double-A hitters. That’s not something you see every day. Of course, there are still areas where I’d like to see improvement.

Caminiti’s command took a bit of a step back after the promotion, particularly when it came to consistently finding the strike zone. The increased walk rate is something Atlanta will need to address as he continues moving toward the majors. When he’s attacking hitters and getting ahead in counts, Caminiti has the arsenal to be a legitimate strikeout artist. The next step is learning how to consistently put himself in those favorable situations rather than relying on his stuff to work around unnecessary baserunners.

He’ll still be just 20 years old for the majority of the 2027 season, and I’d expect him to open the year back in Columbus. From there, things could get interesting pretty quickly. If Caminiti can regain the command he displayed at High-A while maintaining his ability to miss bats, I wouldn’t completely rule out a major league debut at some point in 2027.

Would that be aggressive? Absolutely.

But we’ve seen Atlanta reward young pitchers who force the organization’s hand before, with Didier Fuentes and AJ Smith-Shawver serving as recent examples. A 2028 debut might be the more realistic expectation, but Caminiti has already shown an ability to move through the system faster than most. At this point, I wouldn’t put much past him.

Drue Hackenberg (2023 | R2 P59 | Virginia Tech | $1,997,500)

I’ll be the first to admit that Drue Hackenberg was a draft selection I wasn’t particularly fond of when Atlanta made it. And I know I wasn’t alone.

After two seasons at Virginia Tech, including a final campaign in which he posted a 5.70 ERA, the Braves selected Hackenberg in the second round of the 2023 MLB Draft. For me, the profile simply didn’t warrant that level of investment at the time. There were legitimate questions surrounding his command and overall effectiveness, and I wasn’t convinced the Braves were getting the type of pitcher who could justify such a high selection.

A few years later, there have certainly been some ups and downs, but I’m beginning to understand what Atlanta saw in him.

The organization gave Hackenberg brief looks at Single-A and Double-A following the draft, but his first full professional season in 2024 was when things started getting interesting. He opened the year at High-A, posting a 3.64 ERA across 12 starts, before improving to a 3.13 ERA in nine Double-A starts. Atlanta then promoted him to Triple-A, where he finished the season with a 1.52 ERA across four starts.

It was an encouraging progression, and one that gave plenty of people reason to believe the Braves might have found something.

Unfortunately, 2025 didn’t exactly go according to plan. Hackenberg returned to Double-A Columbus for 18 starts and saw his ERA balloon to 6.99. His walk rate climbed to 16.1%, while his strikeout rate dropped to just 17.3%.

That’s a pretty concerning combination for any pitcher, particularly one who had shown so much promise the year before. To his credit, Hackenberg responded with some encouraging performances in 2026. He spent time at the complex, Double-A, and Triple-A, but it was his five starts with Columbus that really caught my attention.

Across those outings, Hackenberg allowed just 14 hits and three earned runs while walking five and striking out 26. He allowed no more than four hits or one run in any of those five starts, showing the type of consistency that had been missing the previous season.

Even more encouraging was how he accomplished it. Hackenberg posted a 51.2% zone rate and generated ground balls at a 57.1% clip. For a pitcher whose biggest struggles have often revolved around throwing strikes, seeing him consistently attack the zone was a welcome development. And the ground ball production is an added bonus.

Of course, we can’t ignore that Hackenberg struggled again during his time in Triple-A. Much of that came down to the same problem we’ve seen throughout his professional career: an inability to consistently throw strikes.

That’s what makes him such an interesting, and at times frustrating, pitcher to evaluate. The stuff is there. His curveball and cutter give him legitimate weapons to generate chase and swing-and-miss, and we’ve seen stretches where he looks like the pitcher Atlanta envisioned when selecting him in the second round. The challenge has been putting it all together consistently.

I’d expect Hackenberg to spend time between Double-A and Triple-A again next season, with the primary focus being on improving his command. If he can carry over the strike-throwing ability he displayed in Columbus this year, there’s still a pathway for him to develop into a useful major league arm.

I’m not completely sold on the profile just yet, but I’m certainly more interested than I was when Atlanta originally drafted him. And after watching his progress this season, I’m willing to give him some more time to prove me wrong.

Herick Hernandez (2024 | R4 P129 | Miami (FL) | $472,500)

One of Atlanta’s more intriguing young lefties was quickly working his way up the organizational ladder before running into some familiar developmental issues. Herick Hernandez has the type of swing-and-miss ability that immediately catches my attention. The question now is whether he can consistently throw enough strikes to make the most of it.

Atlanta selected Hernandez in the fourth round of the 2024 MLB Draft out of Miami, giving him one start at both Single-A and High-A before the season ended.

His first extended opportunity came in 2025, when he made 22 appearances, including 21 starts, at High-A Rome. Hernandez posted a respectable 3.57 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and an impressive 28.7% strikeout rate. The stuff was clearly there, but so were some significant command issues, as evidenced by his 15.3% walk rate.

That was the tradeoff. He could miss bats with the best of them, but he also had a frustrating tendency to put hitters on base without making them earn it.

Unfortunately, that trend continued in 2026. Hernandez made at least one start at Single-A, Double-A, and Triple-A, with 11 of his 18 starts coming in Columbus. During that Double-A stint, he posted an impressive 2.80 ERA and 32.5% strikeout rate. And if you thought those numbers were encouraging, the underlying data was arguably even better.

Hernandez generated a ridiculous 37.5% whiff rate, ranking in the 92nd percentile at the level. His 16.2% swinging strike rate and 31.3% called-strike-plus-whiff rate (CSW) also ranked at least in the 78th percentile. In other words, hitters had a difficult time making contact with his pitches.

The problem was getting those pitches into the strike zone in the first place. Hernandez walked 15.7% of the batters he faced in Double-A, and that number increased to 17.1% after reaching Triple-A. His 42.6% zone rate was another indication of just how much work remains in that area. Even with his impressive strikeout numbers, that’s simply not a sustainable formula as he moves closer to the major leagues.

The frustrating part is that his arsenal is legitimately exciting. Hernandez features a low- to mid-90s four-seam fastball and a slider that generated a 40.6% chase rate and 48.4% whiff rate. He also throws a curveball that produced a remarkable 69.2% whiff rate, along with a sinker that generated a respectable 31.3% whiff rate of its own.

There’s no shortage of pitches capable of getting hitters out. However, his four-seam fastball was arguably his biggest problem this season, as he managed to throw it in the strike zone just 38.1% of the time. And for me, that’s where the focus needs to be moving forward.

I’d expect Hernandez to open 2027 back in Triple-A, where Atlanta can continue working with him on his command, particularly with the fastball. There’s also a legitimate argument that his long-term future might be in the bullpen rather than the starting rotation. I tend to agree with that possibility.

With the type of swing-and-miss he generates, Hernandez could eventually become a pretty dangerous left-handed reliever, especially if Atlanta allows him to lean more heavily on his best secondary offerings in shorter appearances. And considering the Braves’ continued need for reliable bullpen options, there’s certainly an opportunity for someone with his profile.

But whether he’s starting games or coming out of the bullpen, the same issue remains. The walks have to come down. If Hernandez can figure that part out, I think there’s a legitimate major league arm here.

Tyler LaPorte (2025 | MiLB FA | Independent | N/A)

Every once in a while, you come across a prospect whose journey to professional baseball is so unusual that you can’t help but root for him. For the Braves, that seems to happen every other year. This time, it’s Tyler LaPorte. And when you look at the path he took to reach Double-A Columbus, it’s pretty remarkable that he’s even in this position.

LaPorte spent four years playing baseball at Southern University, although pitching wasn’t exactly his primary responsibility. He actually appeared in more games at shortstop (41) and third base (55) than he did as a pitcher (4).

After going undrafted, LaPorte continued pursuing professional baseball through the independent leagues, playing with the Lancaster Barnstormers of the Atlantic League while also joining the MLB Draft League in 2021, where he began transitioning into a pitcher.

He returned to Lancaster in 2022, but appeared in just 4.1 innings. In 2023, LaPorte made 18 appearances for the Barnstormers, posting a 7.36 ERA. He also joined the Windy City ThunderBolts of the Frontier League, where he found considerably more success, posting a 0.84 ERA across nine appearances.

That improvement carried over into 2024. LaPorte returned to Windy City and put together an impressive season, posting a 3.03 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, and 13.1 K/9 across 39 appearances.

Apparently, someone in Atlanta was paying attention. The Braves brought LaPorte into the organization for the 2025 season, initially assigning him to High-A Rome. He made an immediate impression.

Across 24 innings out of the bullpen, LaPorte allowed just four earned runs and seven walks while striking out 21. Atlanta rewarded him with a promotion to Double-A, although he struggled to maintain that same level of success across his final 21 appearances.

Then came 2026. LaPorte spent the entire season in the Columbus bullpen, making 43 appearances and posting a phenomenal 1.84 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, .140 batting average against, and 36.3% strikeout rate. Those are some pretty ridiculous numbers. And somehow, the underlying data might be even more impressive.

LaPorte posted a 30.1% chase rate, 33.8% whiff rate, and allowed opposing hitters to make contact with just 72.8% of pitches they swung at in the zone.

But here’s my favorite part. On the occasions hitters actually managed to put the ball in play, LaPorte generated ground balls at an absurd 70.4% clip. That ranked in the 100th percentile at the Double-A level.

Think about that for a second. Not only was LaPorte striking out more than a third of the hitters he faced, but when opponents managed to make contact, they were overwhelmingly putting the ball on the ground. That’s about as encouraging a combination as you can ask for from a relief pitcher.

His arsenal is pretty intriguing, too. LaPorte features a fastball that sits between 94 and 97 mph, a slider that approaches 3,000 rpm, and a sinker that operates in the mid-90s. He’s also shown some feel for a changeup, curveball, and sweeper. That’s a pretty interesting collection of pitches for someone who was primarily a position player in college.

Now, there is one obvious thing working against LaPorte. He’ll be entering his age 30 season in 2027. Nobody is going to mistake him for a young, emerging pitching prospect with years of development still ahead of him.

But here’s the thing: I’m not sure that matters all that much.

If LaPorte can continue generating this level of swing and miss while keeping the ball on the ground, there’s absolutely a role for him in professional baseball. And we’ve already seen Atlanta get meaningful major league contributions from pitchers who took unconventional paths to get there.

Tyler Matzek, Grant Holmes, and Ray Kerr are all examples of pitchers who found success after their careers took unexpected turns with the Atlanta organization. I’m not saying LaPorte is guaranteed to follow in their footsteps, but I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

For someone who spent years grinding through independent baseball just to earn an opportunity, the fact that we’re even discussing a potential major league future is pretty impressive. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on him in 2027.

Luis Vargas (2018 | IFA | DR | N/A)

The final name on this list is a pitcher who has been in the Braves organization since before the pandemic, but somehow is still just 24 years old: Luis Vargas.

Atlanta signed Vargas out of the Dominican Republic during the 2018 international signing period for a small, undisclosed bonus. It was during the organization’s international free agent restrictions, with Rolddy Muñoz being another notable name from that class.

Vargas spent the early portion of his professional career working through the lower levels of the system, not pitching above Single-A until 2023. That season, he made 14 appearances, posting a 4.37 ERA and 22.2% strikeout rate.

He followed it up with a solid 2024 campaign, recording a 3.87 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, and 25.8% strikeout rate across 23 appearances split between Single-A and Double-A. Nothing particularly eye-popping, but enough to show there was still something worth developing.

Then, in 2025, things started to change. Vargas opened the season with five appearances at High-A Rome, allowing just four hits, two earned runs, and two walks while striking out 13. That performance earned him a promotion to Double-A, where he experienced some growing pains. However, even as the overall results fluctuated, one thing became increasingly clear. Vargas was developing into a legitimate swing-and-miss pitcher.

The transition into a full-time relief role appeared to be helping him maximize his stuff, and that progress became even more evident in 2026. Vargas made 44 of his 49 appearances out of Columbus’ bullpen this season, posting a 3.23 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, and an outstanding 37.8% strikeout rate. And much like Tyler LaPorte, the underlying numbers tell an even more encouraging story.

Vargas generated a 33.17% chase rate and an impressive 40.3% whiff rate, while opposing hitters managed just a 77.4% zone contact rate. Those were some of the better swing-and-miss numbers at the Double-A level this season.

What makes Vargas particularly interesting is that he doesn’t necessarily need an extensive arsenal to generate those results. He’s primarily a two-pitch pitcher, featuring a mid-to-upper-90s fastball and a slider that produced a 38.9% whiff rate this year. It’s a relatively straightforward combination, but one that has become increasingly effective as he’s settled into the bullpen.

I wouldn’t necessarily describe Vargas as having an elite arsenal, especially compared to some of the other arms we’ve discussed throughout this series. But at some point, the production has to speak for itself.

Over the past two seasons, Vargas has shown significant improvements in his ability to miss bats, and he’s now generating strikeouts at a rate that makes him difficult to ignore.

He’ll be entering his age 25 season in 2027, and I think there’s a legitimate opportunity for him to work his way into Atlanta’s bullpen conversation. The Braves have made it pretty clear that finding dependable internal relief options remains important, particularly given how quickly bullpen depth can disappear over the course of a season.

That doesn’t mean Vargas is going to arrive in Atlanta and immediately become a reliable late-inning weapon. However, a pitcher who can consistently miss bats with a decent-velocity fastball and an effective slider is exactly the type of arm worth giving an opportunity.

I’d expect him to see time in Triple-A next season, and if the strikeout numbers continue looking anything like they did in Columbus, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get a shot in Atlanta at some point.

For a pitcher who entered the organization eight years ago without much fanfare, that would be a pretty impressive accomplishment.

First comes the young player Atlanta identifies as part of its core. Then comes the silence. No rumors, no public bargaining and rarely even an acknowledgment that negotiations have begun. Finally, the “blue box” press release appears, announcing a long-term agreement almost nobody knew was being discussed.

So when BravesVision’s Paul Byrd asked Anthopoulos about the possibility of signing Drake Baldwin to an extension on sunday, the Braves’ president of baseball operations did not make another contract appear. He did, however, show his hand.

“We clearly love Drake,” Anthopoulos said. “I’ve said no to including him in trades a ton in the past.”

Anthopoulos declined to discuss the “when, if, how” of any potential negotiations, reminding reporters that secrecy is intentional. Nobody had “any even a sense we were having conversations” before the Braves’ previous extensions were announced.

Then he provided what sounded suspiciously like Atlanta’s entire checklist.

“Someone that qualifies early in his service, All-Star, premium position, all that kind of stuff, just great human being—he checks all the boxes of someone you’d want to have conversations with.”

None of that confirms that negotiations have begun. With Anthopoulos, confirmation probably will not arrive until a contract does.

But Atlanta has already answered the easiest question: The Braves consider Baldwin a core player whom they want to keep long term. The more interesting question is how much it would cost to make that happen, given that there’s remarkably little precedent for Baldwin’s potential extension.

Let’s talk about it.

“He checks all the boxes”

Baldwin fulfills Anthopoulos’ criteria almost literally.

Baldwin’s still early in his career, young enough that there’s both some continued projection and development remaining, while also not yet burdened by the wear and tear of years of catching. He’s reached the All-Star Game in just in his second majr league season, and excelled at a premium position where merely competent offense is a differentiator. As evidenced by how often Atlanta chose to use him at designated hitter just to keep his bat in the lineup, he’s a core member of the roster and offense, one who bats in the top half of the order on a nightly basis.

Oh, and he’s an asset in the clubhouse, with ace Chris Sale taking every opportunity to praise Baldwin’s composure and maturity at just 25.

Atlanta evidently had some idea this was possible, with Anthopoulos refusing to include him in trade talks going all the way back to the pursuit of then-White-Sox lefty Garrett Crochet. The flamethrower was traded to the Red Sox the winter before Baldwin debuted in the majors, with the package including an arm (Wikelman González) and three high-ceiling position players, including outfielder Braden Montgomery and, yes, a catcher: Kyle Teel, Boston’s first-round pick in 2023.

But the hard part of the proposed deal is this: The Braves do not need an extension to keep Baldwin. An extension would be Atlanta placing a bet on what he becomes before the remainder of the league-controlled process establishes his full price.

Why the timing matters

Baldwin’s played the first two seasons of his career making the league minimum, although his Rookie of the Year win in 2025 netted him a $750,000 bonus from the league’s pre-arbitration bonus pool plus an additional $425,583 in WAR-based compensation.

His minimum salaries were just $760,000 last year and $800,000 this year. Including his $633,300 draft bonus, two major-league salaries and pre-arbitration bonus-pool payouts, Baldwin has earned just shy of $3.4 million in his career.

He’ll be on a league-minimum salary in 2027, as well, although that exact figure won’t be known until the new CBA is agreed to sometime next spring.

After that, his three years of arbitration have some useful comps, and both of them should be familiar to Braves fans: Shea Langeliers and William Contreras.

Langeliers just settled with the Athletics for a $5.25M salary in his first of three arbitration years, while Contreras has gotten paid $6.1M and $9.4M in his first two arbitration salaries. Assuming a slight bump for inflation, that’s probably about $30M in arbitration over Baldwin’s three arb years.

What the catcher market says

This is where it gets tricky: There are very few extension comps that make sense, as most extensions for similar catchers have come either much earlier in team control or after significantly different circumstances.

The only two catchers in the last decade that signed with two years of service time or less are Keibert Ruiz (Washington) and Samuel Basallo (Baltimore). Ruiz got $50M over eight years when signing on a similar timeframe to Baldwin, but he also had a career line of .255/.315/.373 and just 11 home runs in 143 games at the time of the deal.

The Basallo deal, 8/$67M, came just days after his debut at the age of 21. Even less helpful when trying to price a Baldwin extension.

If you expand up to other catchers with more service time, Cal Raleigh’s March 2025 extension may provide the most help here. Signed with three years of service time, it overrode his $5.6M salary in the first of three arbitration years, guaranteeing him $105M over six years with an additional vesting option. (He also got a $10M signing bonus, but since the Braves don’t do that, we’re ignoring it other than noting its impact on his total guarantee.)

The pricing valued his three arbitration years at $29M and bought out three free-agent years at $24.67M each, sending him back to free agency at 34 if the option doesn’t vest.

Baldwin has accomplished far more than Ruiz or Basallo had when they signed, but he remains one year behind where Raleigh was in the service-time process. That places his likely guarantee somewhere between those contracts, which is how we arrive at the $75 million-to-$85 million range.

The hard part here is that most early-career extensions go to shortstops and centerfielders, not catchers. There’s just not a lot of data points here to go off of, and every negotiation builds on prior precedent.

What a Baldwin deal could look like

That’s not going to stop me from trying, though.

Assuming the current arbitration and free-agent structure remains intact under a new CBA, an extension would cover one pre-arbitration season, three arbitration seasons, and however many free-agent years Atlanta can convince Baldwin to surrender.

Michael Harris II’s eight-year, $72M deal he signed in his first year bought out three free-agent years, while Spencer Strider’s 6/$75M deal bought out just one. Let’s split the difference and assume that it’s two years of free agency that Atlanta’s buying out here, which would take Baldwin through age 31.

I’m going with six years and $75M on the deal, with the following structure:

2027 (pre-arb): $2M
2028 (ARB 1): $6M
2029 (ARB 2): $10M
2030 (ARB 3): $14M
2031 (FA 1): $21M
2032 (FA 2): $22M

I’d also attach a club option on the back end, something that’s worth Baldwin’s while and also has a buyout that’s large enough to show the player (and agent) that Atlanta’s incentivized to pick it up. Strider’s is $22M with a $5M buyout, while Harris has two options of $15M and $20M, each holding a $5M buyout.

Let’s do a $22M club option with a $7M buyout for 2033, Baldwin’s age-32 season, bringing it to $82M in total guarantees if the option’s declined and $97M if it’s picked up.

The Sean Murphy question

The problem here is that Atlanta’s already carrying a large dollar contract at catcher, with Sean Murphy two-thirds of the way through a $73M extension he signed after being traded to Atlanta in December of 2022.

My proposed structure works out in Atlanta’s favor, though - Murphy is making $15M in each of the next two seasons, while Baldwin would be making $2M and $6M. A total investment of $17M and $21M to cover catcher and potentially a lot of the designated hitter at-bats isn’t an onerous amount to carry on the books, and Baldwin’s salary doesn’t meaningfully escalate until Murphy’s $15M is cleared from the roster. Even if Murphy does rebound enough to warrant picking up his $15M club option for 2029, his age-34 season, that’s still just $25M total committed to the position and if Murphy’s hitting well enough to be back on the roster under the option, the Braves will be using him and Baldwin together at catcher and DH on most days.

Obviously, the Braves could always decide to clear Murphy’s money via trade and use some of it to sign a pure backup for Baldwin, although Murphy likely needs to rebound a bit at the plate for that to happen without the Braves attaching a positive asset to clear his remaining $30M.

Why Baldwin might sign, and why he might wait

Whenever the question of why a young player would want to sign an early-career extension, which almost always requires forgoing the potential of more money in free agency, is asked, the immediate answer has to discuss the generational security.

MLB contracts are fully guaranteed, and that’s not something likely to change in the upcoming CBA. Barring some sort of suspension, Baldwin would lock in $75M in future earnings while preserving the ability to go to free agency in his early 30s and cash in again.

(Or, if he finds a club as desperate as Philadelphia was with J.T. Realmuto, maybe he could cash in two or three more times.)

That guarantee is particularly important at the defensive position with the most wear-and-tear; catching is a physically demanding position, with several prominent players choosing to either walk away early (Buster Posey) or change positions (Joe Mauer) due to the physical strain of catching five games a week.

While it’s a minor factor in relation to the other two, an extension would also eliminate the inherent year-to-year uncertainty of the arbitration process, which can often become adversarial between the teams and the players.

At the same time, it’s not a slam dunk for Baldwin to sign an extension this winter. Prior to his May oblique injury, Baldwin was raking: a .303/.389/.543 line with 13 homers in just 48 games. He was on a 162-game pace for a 44-homer, 128 RBI campaign.

Think about the Cal Raleigh example from earlier - he signed his extension before his 60-homer, 125 RBI season that saw him finish as the runner-up for AL MVP. Imagine how much more he would have gotten last winter had he waited one more season to sign his extension with Seattle?

And if Baldwin were to surpass my arbitration projections, perhaps clearing $35M or $40M during those three seasons, his performance would likely warrant a massive deal in free agency. J.T. Realmuto reached free agency at the age of 30, coming off three straight seasons with an OPS in the low-800s, and got $115.5M over five years with Philly ($23.1M AAV)…and that was five years ago. Similar production for Baldwin - he had a .932 OPS prior to the injury this year - would likely allow Baldwin to establish a new AAV record for a catcher.

Why Atlanta should act now

At the end of the day, Atlanta’s spent two seasons in the last five going through the catcher wilderness - they used seven catchers in 2021, followed by eight this season. Just finding competent catchers can be a challenge for teams at times, nevermind a premium offensive one.

Atlanta already knows the player and the person, and he’s worthy of the investment from a clubhouse perspective. They clearly agree on his fit with the club, because they repeatedly refused to include him in potential trades, dating back to before he debuted with Atlanta.

And it’s true that there’s a bit of unknown and risk here, but there always will be. Waiting for absolute certainty on who the player is and where his ceiling ends up defeats the purpose of doing the extension early - you’ll end up paying market prices.

It’s abundantly clear that not only is Drake Baldwin one of the team’s best hitters already, he’s potentially one of the best in all of baseball. And Atlanta should purchase that peak before the rest of the league gets a chance to bid on how high it might end up.

Anthopoulos will not tell us whether the Braves are negotiating with Baldwin, but his answer explained why they should be.

If the next update arrives as a blue box, it will only be surprising in the way Anthopoulos prefers: Nobody saw the negotiations, but he showed everyone exactly why the deal made sense.

There was just one problem: These awful green Formica countertops in the kitchen and both bathrooms.

I know, we could have just had them replaced, but this was a starter house, and we were already at the max of our budget. I was starting grad school at Auburn, and my wife had just gotten her master’s degree from UGA and was starting at the bottom in her (underpaid) teaching job.

If we bought the house, we’d be stuck with those. I knew it.

So we passed. We found a townhouse that was under our max budget, so we had the funds to do some small work on it, and it all worked out in the end.

The Braves have been stuck with the green Formica countertops at shortstop for a few years now. This winter, they need to replace them, but the free-agent market doesn’t offer much they’d want to install.

Let’s talk about it.

This has been a problem for four seasons

In retrospect, maybe the Atlanta Braves should have met the asking price for Dansby Swanson.

In a fleece right up there with getting Chris Sale (and his 2024 salary) for Vaughn Grissom, the Braves acquired Swanson, the summer’s #1 overall pick, along with outfielder Ender Inciarte and starter Aaron Blair for starter Shelby Miller and reliever Gabe Speier back in 2015.

Miller’s ERA in Arizona was 5.44 across the three seasons and 28 starts he made for the Diamondbacks, while Inciarte won three Gold Gloves and had a 200-hit season for the Braves.

Oh, and Swanson turned out okay, missing only two games across his final three seasons for the Braves, twice getting down-ballot MVP votes, and winning his first career Gold Glove in his walk year.

But Atlanta was hesitant to meet the Cubs’ offer of seven years and $177M in free agency after the 2022 season, holding firm on the “Atlanta Max” of $22M AAV across six years. Swanson departed to Chicago, joining wife Mallory, a soccer player for the local Stars, on the Northside.

Eleven different players have received meaningful time at shortstop for Atlanta since Swanson left:

Orlando Arcia: 304G, 84 wRC+
Nick Allen: 127G, 52 wRC+
Ha-Seong Kim: 68G, 41 wRC+
Mauricio Dubón: 61G, 115 wRC+
Jorge Mateo: 40G, 71 wRC+
Jim Jarvis: 38G, 58 wRC+
Vaughn Grissom: 18G, 71 wRC+
Luke Williams: 15G, 4 wRC+
Vidal Bruján: 10G, 36 wRC+
Zack Short: 7G, 31 wRC+
Nicky Lopez: 5G, 168 wRC+

That’s a 73 wRC+, coming from a .231/.287/.338 line.

In that same time span, by the way, Dansby Swanson has a 100 wRC+ for Chicago while making $96M.

So what can Atlanta actually do this winter?

The good news is that Atlanta may not need to solve shortstop for the next seven years. John Gil, Alex Lodise and Tate Southisene all give the organization legitimate long-term possibilities. None of them, however, should be expected to open 2027 in the majors.

What the Braves really need is a bridge: someone good enough to stabilize the position for a year or two without blocking the prospects when one of them proves ready.

It’s slim pickings in free agency

As we discussed on Friday, it’s a small list of available options, headlined by current Braves Dubón and Kim, joined by former Seattle Mariners infielder J.P. Crawford and a lot of veterans and/or utility-types.

And in a sign of how desperate the Braves have been for a shortstop in recent seasons, five of these players have spent time in Atlanta already.

Let’s break down the possible routes here:

Re-sign Dubón to a multi-year deal

This is the path that makes the most sense - we’ve seen him hold down the position both offensively (115 wRC+) and defensively (+1 DRS, +3 FRV). Alex Anthopoulos was asked about the possibility on Sunday, admitting that he’s “comfortable” with Dubón at shortstop and praising his “really good year” for Atlanta.

On his side, Dubón’s previously said he’d be open to returning to Atlanta, telling Friend of the Show™ Gabe Burns of the AJC back in June that he’s open to an extension that would keep him in Atlanta.

“I waited six years for this (opportunity with the Braves),” he said. “If they come and offer something, and it makes sense for me and my family, we’re open to hear it. […] I’d love to stay here, man.”

Anthopoulos said that the team plans to use the exclusive negotiating window they’re currently in, which lasts until five days after the World Series, to work on their own free agents and have the conversations about those players returning.

(If they can’t reach a free agent deal, Atlanta could always issue a Qualifying Offer to Dubón, which would pay him $23.15M for 2027 if he accepted. Were he to leave in free agency, Atlanta would receive draft pick compensation.)

I personally think Dubón’s free agency is going to be the one that surprises us, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see the 32-year-old sign for $10M or more a year on a multi-year deal. Given that he made $6.1M this year, his final of arbitration eligibility, my guess would be something around three years and $32M, although 2/$25M with a $10M club option as a third year might get it done, as well.

The irony is that making Dubón the everyday shortstop might take away the very thing that maximizes Dubón’s usefulness.

Does locking Dubón into the everyday shortstop job hamper manager Walt Weiss's ability to make pinch-hit decisions without having to consider the defensive fit? His usual go-to was to deploy the best pinch-hitter, knowing that Dubón could cover any position but catcher at the drop of a hat (and swap of a glove). As Anthopoulos explained on Sunday, “As a manager, knowing you could plug him anywhere you want? How many times in the middle of a game did Walt shift him from outfield to infield, infield to outfield? We haven’t had that here in a long time.”

There may be a solution there, however:

Re-sign Dubón and Kim

Kim’s had a terrible run of injury luck in recent seasons, and it’s prevented him from getting the long-term deal at shortstop1 that the Scott Boras client has been looking for since the end of 2024.

His recovery from a 2024 shoulder injury, plus back and hamstring issues that popped up during his rehab, didn’t allow Kim to debut with the Tampa Bay Rays until July of 2025. He got in just 24 games over two months with Tampa before being waived, joining the Braves for the final month of a lost 2025 season. His performance picked up somewhat after joining Atlanta, with Kim hitting .253/.316/.368 over the final month of the season before declining his player option and entering free agency.

But Kim then tore a finger ligament in an accident back home in Korea last January, which delayed his 2026 debut until mid-May. And he was clearly not fully healthy when he did return, hitting just .068/.171/.068 across his first 82 PAs before the Braves put him back on the injured list for the finger. He performed more respectably when he returned to the majors in August, but .179/.281/.232 was still well below both his and the team’s expectations when they committed $20M to him for 2026.

Could the Braves bring Kim back on a relatively small deal? He’s likely going to be offered guaranteed money by someone, so a minor league deal with a non-roster invite to spring training likely won’t get it done, but a commitment of a few million could allow the player to rebuild some value while also giving the Braves much-needed roster insurance for 2027.

And depending on the size of the guarantee, moving on from Kim if he’s still not producing like he did when healthy (.250/.336/.385 from 2022-2024, stealing 72 bags with an 11% walk rate and a 106 wRC+), they could always either eat the money or make a minor trade to unload him to another team.

At the right guarantee, Kim becomes a lottery ticket Atlanta can afford to lose.

But if they decide not to bring back a struggling shortstop in Kim, they can instead choose to rehabilitate a struggling shortstop from the AL West:

Sign J.P. Crawford to a short-term deal

Former Seattle Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford was moved off the position mid-season for top prospect Colt Emerson, but regained his job after Emerson went down with a wrist injury in August.

There is a laundry list of pros and cons here, so let’s discuss it.

Pro: He’s got the on-base ability Alex Anthopoulos is looking for.

Crawford has a career walk rate of 11.5% and a strikeout rate under 20%, thanks to his virtual refusal to chase (98th percentile mark of 19.7% this season). His 13.1% walk rate this season, a 92nd percentile mark in all of baseball, would have led the entire Braves roster, easily outpacing Ronald Acuña Jr. (11.3%) and Kim (10.9%).

Con: He struggled to pick up hits

Crawford’s .221 average was the second-lowest of his career, and it’s not like he was especially unlucky; his xBA, per Statcast, was still just .234.

A big issue there was his uncharacteristic jump in his pop-ups, reaching 9.1% after sitting at 5.3% last year and 7.9% for his career. Is this something that Atlanta feels is fixable, or is this a deterioration in bat speed or approach that comes with the aging curve?

Pro: He’s reportedly fantastic in the clubhouse

Crawford was a leader in Seattle, being described as the “heart and soul” of the team. He joined the Mariners via trade from Philadelphia in 2018, as Seattle was tearing it down, and became the franchise leader in starts at shortstop…until he voluntarily offered to move to third base mid-season to clear a spot for Emerson.

The move by the team’s de facto captain was well-received in the clubhouse, as were some of the little things he’s done over the years: taking young players out to dinner, or buying them their first suits, or being the first player to speak up in the clubhouse to address issues.

For a Braves team that’s doubled down on the chemistry in recent years, there’s not much clubhouse downside to adding Crawford to the group that Atlanta’s assembled.

Con: He’s been dreadful defensively

A cynical observer could claim that it’s not hard to give up playing shortstop when you’re not good at it, but trying to give the organization an out from needing to bench you.

No matter which defensive metric you choose to believe in, it wasn’t kind to John Paul.

Crawford put up -13 Outs Above Average, -10 Fielding Run Value, and -12 Defensive Runs Saved at shortstop for Seattle this year. Only two shortstops had a lower FRV than Crawford, and both of them had 300-400 more innings at short than Crawford’s 720.

The problem appears to be his range, which was a 1st-percentile mark this season, combined with well-below-average arm strength (20th percentile at 80.2 mph) that doesn’t give him a way to make up for being late to the ball.

Is it possible that playing next to a sound defensive third baseman in Austin Riley (82nd percentile in range) could allow him to mitigate his range issues enough to cover the position for a year? Of course, but the Braves have always prioritized defense up the middle at catcher, shortstop, and centerfield.

You’d need either a strong defender to swap in for Crawford late in games (maybe bumping Crawford over to second base for Ozzie?) or to see some offseason improvements in Crawford’s glovework to see this happening, but everything else lines up outside of that (admittedly big) aspect.

And if none of those bridge options are appealing enough, then Anthopoulos has to decide whether shortstop is worth spending real prospect capital to solve.

Make some sort of trade

Without knowing who is available via trade this winter, which Anthopoulos told us over the winter he was working on ahead of the GM Meetings, it’s hard to know where the Braves would find a shortstop.

But the deal would likely take one of two forms: Taking on additional money, or a team trading a young player ahead of free agency. Let’s look at each option and speculate on who would make sense in that scenario.

A high-priced vet: The first name that comes to mind here is Corey Seager, who Atlanta reportedly called Texas on last winter. He’s close to average defensively at this point in his career, but is clearly there as an offensive option. There’s injury concerns to deal with - he’s currently rehabbing from postseason elbow surgery - and he’s incredibly expensive, being owed $31.5M for each of the next five seasons, but Atlanta could give him time at designated hitter and move him in to second (or out to third base, if Austin Riley can’t rebound) once the prospects are ready for shortstop.

(It’s worth pointing out that the Braves had a deal in place with Texas for Jacob deGrom at the deadline before the pitcher nixed the deal by exercising his no-trade clause. They could always attempt to revisit that, making it a package deal.)

Other options here: Willy Adames, Trevor Story, Dansby Swanson, Ezeuqiel Tovar (who isn’t expensive yet, but will be as his long-term deal continues to age)

A young player heading to free agency: Depending on how early the team wants to sell, I’m looking at either Houston’s Jeremy Peña (one year away) or LA’s Zach Neto (three years of control) in this scenario.

Peña’s hired Scott Boras as his agent and is likely to walk in free agency, and Houston has done this before, trading away Kyle Tucker ahead of his final year of control (2025), sending him to the Cubs. Neto’s a harder trade to make, given his multiple years of control, but a new general manager coming in could face a mandate from new owner Stan Kroenke to finally execute the tear-down that the Angels have been refusing to commit to for the last decade.

Both teams have top-of-rotation arms, like LA’s Reid Detmers and Houston’s Hunter Brown, if Atlanta wanted to attempt to kill two birds with one stone on their deal. Both deal would be incredibly expensive, with both pitchers having two years of control remaining, but Atlanta could always target a higher-salaried pitcher like LA’s Yusei Kikuchi or Houston’s Tatsuya Imai or Cristian Javier instead of trying to get the ace if they wanted to mitigate the prospect cost.

The Braves don’t necessarily need to find their next Dansby Swanson this winter.

They have three young shortstops in Gil, Lodise and Southisene who might eventually provide the long-term answer. What Atlanta cannot afford is another season of waiting for that answer while getting a 73 wRC+ from one of the most important defensive positions on the field.

Maybe the bridge is Dubón. Maybe it’s Dubón and Kim. Maybe Crawford’s on-base skills are tempting enough to live with the glove for a year, or Anthopoulos decides this is finally the position worth spending serious prospect capital to solve.

But the Braves have spent four years finding different ways to live with the same problem.

At some point, you have to replace the green Formica countertops.

But the path towards replacing the playoff-caliber production of Mahle, Schwellenbach, and Strider might start with Didier Fuentes, even if expecting 30 starts or 150 innings isn’t a good idea.

The 21-year-old was electric as a reliever for the Braves this season, putting up a 2.05 ERA as a reliever across 70.1 innings and then adding another seven innings of postseason work.

Anthopoulos and the Braves view him as a starter long-term, and don’t have any choice but to bring him to camp as one next spring. Let’s talk about it.

Fuentes is still viewed as a starter

As Atlanta has maintained nearly every time it’s come up this season, the organization’s long-term view of Fuentes is as a starting pitcher. He entered camp this year as one, and he will next year, too.

Yes, even though he didn’t finish the year as a starter.

The reason for this is that the starter-to-reliever move is mostly a one-way decision, as Anthopoulos explained, telling us, “It's always easy to shorten a guy up.” And they believe there’s still a lot of untapped potential there, health permitting.

“We think there's obviously tremendous upside in terms of starting. […] the upside's certainly there. I mean, so much so that I've even talked to some of our players about it, our vets.”

Anthopoulos referenced his improved fastball command, as well as the development of his seldom-used secondary pitches throughout the season. The slider’s a bit inconsistent, but the potential of the pitch is there. And as far as his offspeed is concerned, it’s not a splitter; it’s a changeup, per AA.

“I know everyone calls it a splitter. I asked him, “Why does everybody call it a splitter when it’s a changeup? Is it a splitter or a change?” He said it’s 100% a changeup.”

Anthopoulos observed that there are still some questions to be answered, however, both in workload over an outing and over a season.

The problem is volume, not ability

The issue for the youngster has been volume, not the quality of his relief work. He’s been excellent when he’s taken the ball, but maintaining that quality over an extended outing or the course of a full season is the concern with trying to stretch him back out.

Anthopoulos noted that he’s not landing his pitches the same as the outing progresses into a second trip through the lineup, something to work on through building stamina. “The command of the fastball - There were times where he had two innings, 40-pitch outings (due to) foul balls. He’d miss armside to left-handed hitters.”

And even if the consistency of the slider improves and he can maintain his delivery and locations throughout an outing, there are questions about exactly how often he can get the ball over the course of a season out of the rotation.

“What you don’t know is the workload, right? Can you handle 25-plus starts, 150 to 180 innings? We’ll have to have those conversations. And then can you do that in 2027? Are you gonna go from 70-plus innings and you’re gonna jump to whatever it is?”

And what Anthopoulos is missing in his comment is that Fuentes actually had a higher workload this season. When you combine his Gwinnett usage (16⅔ innings), MLB regular season (73⅓), and seven postseason innings, 97 competitive innings begins to paint a different picture of what might be possible.

The Braves have not subscribed to strict innings limits under Anthopoulos, preferring to take each pitcher on a case-by-case basis based on how the ball’s coming out. The general rule of thumb in MLB, however, is that a 70-inning reliever is looking at around 130-ish effective innings the next season once he moves to the rotation.

But if you’re basing the projection off of his 97-inning total, the possibilities start to grow:

• 130 innings would be a 34% increase.

• 150 would be a 55% increase.

• 180 would be an 86% increase.

But even without a predetermined cap, there is a meaningful difference between preparing Fuentes to start and expecting him to supply 30 starts.

And even if 150 innings were possible, can Atlanta afford to count Fuentes as one of their five dependable rotation options entering the offseason, especially with Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach also carrying their own workload uncertainty? I don’t think they can.

At the end of the day, Fuentes may be capable of starting major-league games in 2027 without being capable of supplying a full starter’s workload. And understanding that distinction is critical for both Anthopoulos and Atlanta’s chances in 2027.

Why spring training matters

The advantage of spring training is that the coaching staff gets an opportunity to see Fuentes in action and evaluate his offseason work, likely their first opportunity to see him owing to the pending lockout that the owners will institute in December.

By then, the Braves will hope Fuentes has refined his pre-start routine and built the endurance required to turn over a lineup multiple times over a winter of preparation for a starting role.

And for Anthopoulos, there’s a pivot point they can make if they’re not convinced his offseason prep has him in a place to start games for Atlanta in 2027. “Depending on how the off-season goes, how he looks, how it goes, we can always say, ‘All right, we're gonna shorten you up. You're gonna go one or two innings,’ and so on.”

And even if he is ready, if either the rotation is already full of established veterans or the bullpen needs him, the pivot is easy.

This is the way it has to be done, because reversing this order makes things much harder. The Braves can cut down a starter’s workload and use them in relief. It’s a lot longer ordeal to manufacture a prepared starter in June.

What his 2027 role could look like

There are a few different ways this could play out, depending on rotation need, Fuentes’ offseason preparation, and the status of the bullpen entering 2027.

The best and highest use is as a starter in the majors. Counting on Fuentes to be in the top of the rotation would be a mistake, but him competing for the #5 spot in camp is a low-risk way to reintroduce him to the starting rotation for next season.

If he doesn’t win that starting role and they want him to stay stretched out, using his final remaining minor league option to send him to Gwinnett would absolutely be a possibility. The upside of that decision is he can have his workload managed by starting just once a week in the minors, who have almost every Monday off and typically can afford to back off of someone’s workload.

The downside of sending him to Gwinnett is that he would be firing some of his limited bullets in the minors instead of helping Atlanta.

The potential compromise would be keeping him partially stretched out as a multi-inning reliever or bulk pitcher, doing two-to-four-inning appearances and occasional piggyback work. It would not leave him ready to throw six innings on demand, but it would shorten the buildup required if Atlanta eventually needed him in the rotation.

Or, obviously, they can move him straight back into a high-leverage role in the bullpen and use the offseason prep to start as confidence that his stuff can stand up when they need him for the occasional multiple-inning outing.

The important thing here isn’t where he ends up, honestly; it’s how the decision gets made. Anthopoulos and Atlanta need to add enough rotation depth this offseason so that this Fuentes decision can be made based on his development, not desperation created by another rotation injury.

The Braves can always ask Didier Fuentes to pitch fewer innings. Their responsibility this offseason is to make the additions necessary to preserve the possibility that he eventually gives them more.

And he spent a lot of that time cautioning against overreaction.

The Braves won the National League East, eliminated the Philadelphia Phillies in the Wild Card round for their first postseason series victory since 2021, and remained competitive with the Los Angeles Dodgers until the final innings of every game in the NL Division Series. One disappointing series, he argued, should not invalidate six months of success.

But near the end of the press conference, while discussing another injury-riddled season for Atlanta’s pitching staff, Anthopoulos asked the question that should define the Braves’ offseason:

“Are we creating too much risk in our rotation, in our relievers, in our position players?”

Atlanta does not believe it has a broken roster. Anthopoulos defended the offense, praised the pitching staff, and expressed confidence in the organization’s resources.

But he also tacitly acknowledged that the Braves can no longer construct their plans around Ronald Acuña Jr. staying healthy, Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach supplying full seasons, Austin Riley rediscovering his old production, and every high-upside pitching gamble remaining upright.

Let’s talk about it.

Anthopoulos will not let one series define the roster

There’s been this lingering feeling among parts of Braves Country that multiple offensive failures against the Los Angeles Dodgers, most notably from the quartet of Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin, and Austin Riley, means that this roster is structurally defective and Atlanta should blow it up and start over.

Anthopoulos made it clear that drawing that sort of conclusion is going a bit too far, saying, “I think you have to be careful overall to take small samples and overreact one way or the other. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to get better, we don’t want to tweak, we’re not going to self-evaluate.”

And in that self-evaluation of the Division Series, Anthopoulos noted several things: The quality of LA’s pitching, which he repeatedly credited, and the fact that Atlanta had opportunities to turn almost all of those games late and just couldn’t follow through.

But he did admit two significant weaknesses as it pertains to the offense.

The first is consistency, with Anthopoulos explaining, “We had a good year offensively, just streaky, right? Very, very streaky across the board.”

On the whole this season, Atlanta’s offense was either good or average, depending on how you’re measuring - by home runs (7th) and total runs scored (8th), they were good. By rate-based measures such as wRC+ and wOBA, both of which ranked 20th, they were slightly below average. Obviously, to win baseball games, you need to score runs and prevent runs against you, so a top-ten mark in runs scored will have us conceding the “good” framing to Anthopoulos here.

But what they weren’t was dependable.

The Braves produced a 116 wRC+ in April and a 111 mark in July. They were approximately average in May, below average in August and September, and catastrophically bad during a June in which their wRC+ fell to 65.

That volatility followed them into October, where Atlanta hit .203/.264/.391 against Los Angeles.

And the other admission from Anthopoulos was the team’s on-base ability. It didn’t help them in the NLDS, where they picked up 13 walks and didn’t cash any of those in, but it was a weakness of the team this season.

 “We're top 10 in the majors in runs, top 10 in the majors in average, top 10 in the majors in slug. I think we're 11th in strikeout rate in the major leagues. Our on-base was not good […] so you'd like to get that better.”

That sounded more like an argument for continuity than a prelude to dismissing hitting coach Tim Hyers.

 “Second half of last year, I think we were top five in on-base, so we showed the ability to do that. And then in the playoffs, we had more walks than any playoff team. We had 30 walks in the playoffs. We were second in on-base in the playoffs.”

Anthopoulos later praised the staff and discussed the benefit of continuity, so it shouldn’t be treated as a given that they’ll move on from Hyers this winter.

The Braves know they cannot pencil Strider and Schwellenbach into 180 innings

Anthopoulos is never overt with his comments in these meetings, but the closest he came to admitting that they had a specific need was his comments on the injured duo of Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach.

Strider finished the year throwing bullpens at the team’s facility in Florida, but was well short of being ready for minor league rehabilitation games. Spencer Schwellenbach is currently recovering from surgery related to the elbow he fractured in 2025.

Anthopoulos admitted that they will not construct the rotation as though either pitcher is guaranteed to supply a full workload. “I don’t think it’d be responsible to sit there and say, ‘Okay, those guys are going to start 30 games, throw 180 innings.’ […] I don’t think you’re going to see us come in and say we expect those guys to be locks in the rotation with Sale.”

Anthopoulos paired that caution with an emphatic reminder of why Atlanta has not abandoned Strider’s upside.

“The start against LA was old Strider. That was a flash of, ‘It’s still in there.’ […] His stuff was that good, his command was that good, his delivery was in a great place.”

Strider struck out eight with two walks and one hit across six scoreless innings, repeatedly touching 97 mph on his fastball and picking up 15 whiffs with a 36% CSW.

Instead, Anthopoulos said they’d treat those two similarly to how they handled Grant Holmes last winter: as unknowns, based on how they look as they complete their rehabs. But they won’t be counting on either pitcher.

When MLB.com’s Mark Bowman suggested to Anthopoulos that the Braves needed two starters and a left fielder, Anthopoulos called it “really fair commentary” while declining to confirm an exact shopping list, saying “some of it’s really obvious that we’re going to need to do stuff.”

Durability is becoming a roster-building requirement

Someone once said “the best ability is availability”, and it sounds as if Anthopoulos is starting to swing that way.

He discussed learning as a young general manager that paying attention to the “games played” column is just as important as evaluating talent alone, and admitted to having strayed away from that in recent seasons. Anthopoulos recalled acquiring starter Mark Buehrle after the left-hander had completed 12 consecutive 200-inning seasons without ever landing on the injured list.

For a roster that has Acuña, Strider, and Schwellenbach, that anecdote leads you to believe that durability’s going to be more heavily considered going forward.

So does Anthopoulos’ discussion of Acuña’s knee, which was “barking” during the postseason, when he discussed accounting for potential absences. “You go into the offseason and you have to prepare for that, right? You have to prepare for games missed.”

And that, more so than anything else said in the nearly one hour of conversation, makes me think that the free agency of Mauricio Dubón is especially consequential. Anthopoulos had nothing but praise for the veteran utilityman, saying he “had a really good year for us” and that they were “very comfortable” if he returned to be the full-time shortstop.

Pressed on re-signing some of their own free agents, including Dubón, deadline trade acquisition Tyler Mahle, and closer Raisel Iglesias, Anthopoulos was (as always) non-committal but said players sometimes want to explore the market first, using last winter’s negotiations with Iglesias to illustrate that point. Atlanta tried before Iglesias reached the market, then completed the deal shortly after he became free to negotiate elsewhere.

“Sometimes you end up calling and they say, “Look, you’re my first choice, but I’m this close to free agency. I just want to hear what everyone else has to say. I just want to get a better read of the market,” and so on. […] More often than not we’ll take advantage of the window to have conversations. That does not mean that you’re guaranteed to get it done in that period, but that also doesn’t mean that you’re gonna lose the player (if they don’t sign before the official start of free agency).”

The internal improvements are not guaranteed

This goes hand-in-hand with the injured starter question, but Anthopoulos was asked about Austin Riley, and his answer was the bluntest example of the team needing to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

Anthopoulos praised his defense, work ethic and health, but admitted the Braves do not possess a simple diagnosis. “I wish honestly I had an answer for you that it was one tweak away.”

Then came the day’s sharpest quote:

“We haven’t been able to solve it, and he hasn’t been able to solve it.”

It didn’t sound to me like it’s an executive who is preparing to move on from a player already - as we’ve discussed, the core muscle injury has introduced a lot of unknowns into Riley’s future, as he works to adjust who he is physically to accommodate the changes to his body.

But it also didn’t sound to me like an executive who is entering the offseason expecting to get MVP-finisher Riley of 2021-2023 back, either.

My honest belief here is that Atlanta will continue to try and recover the offensive upside of Riley, getting him access to whatever resources he needs to do so, but while understanding that its roster must become less vulnerable if that recovery does not manifest in his 2027 numbers.

Don’t expect a fire sale

Anthopoulos would not name untouchable players, saying, “I’ve always said everyone has a price.”

“Everyone has a price” was an explanation of why Anthopoulos refuses to declare players untouchable, but is not evidence that Riley, Strider or another core player is being actively shopped.

But he clarified that he wouldn’t name untouchable players to the media even if he had them, because that does nothing but cause headaches.

“You gotta remember, our players are gonna see that stuff. “Hey, he only mentioned these one or two guys. Why didn’t he include me?” Now I have an agent calling me, now I have a player calling me. I have all that kind of stuff, right? You understand from my standpoint there’s zero upside to that.”

But he’s excited to connect with opposing general managers in the coming days to get an idea of what the landscape looks like for both free agents and trades. “Leading up to the GM meetings, we’ll have an idea of what’s out there. We know the list of free agents, or the ones we expect to be free agents, unless they sign in the next two or three weeks. But you really don’t know until you start contacting the other 29 clubs who could be available.”

And those conversations are important, as team opinions on players change - Anthopoulos has spoken in the past about how they had repeatedly called on both ace Chris Sale and Dubón and they were consistently not available…until suddenly they were. Alex reiterated that thought today.

“Each year there’s always a surprise or two of, “Hey, quietly we might talk about so and so,” and things like that. And then you never know where that leads. […] We will go into the off-season open-minded about all kinds of stuff. And that’s how you have discussions. That’s how you get creative.”

The Braves need a wider margin for error

Anthopoulos did not spend Sunday promising sweeping changes. He defended the offense’s full-season performance, praised the pitching staff and said the organization remains positioned to contend.

He also remained proud of the way the 2026 clubhouse came together after concluding that he had drifted too far toward collecting talent the previous year.

“I probably started focusing a little bit too much on talent and less on how the pieces would fit. […] We really got back to focusing on makeup, character and team fit with everybody that we brought in.”

That philosophy will factor into the decision awaiting Atlanta on Jurickson Profar, who remains under contract for 2027 following his second PED suspension. Anthopoulos said the Braves have not decided whether Profar will return, only that the time has arrived to begin those internal discussions.

But Atlanta’s next correction must extend beyond clubhouse fit.

The Braves still believe in Strider’s upside. They will continue working to recover Riley’s offense. They expect Acuña to remain an impact player, and they know what Schwellenbach can provide when healthy. None of those beliefs is unreasonable.

What would be unreasonable is building another roster that requires every one of them to be right.

Atlanta needs enough dependable innings that Strider and Schwellenbach can be treated as upside rather than necessities. It needs enough position-player depth to survive Acuña missing time. And it needs enough offensive production elsewhere that Riley’s recovery does not determine the lineup’s ceiling.

Anthopoulos is not preparing to abandon the players who helped create this contention window. He appears to be recognizing that believing in them and protecting the Braves against their uncertainty are not mutually exclusive.

The Braves do not need to stop betting on upside. They need to stop building a roster that requires every one of those bets to hit.

But first, let’s look at all of the logistics: who are free agents, who are arbitration-eligible (with their salary projections), Atlanta’s option decisions to be made, etc.

Free agents and contract decisions

Free agents (and their salaries):

SS Ha-Seong Kim - $20M
RP Raisel Iglesias - $16M
SP Tyler Mahle - $10M (Braves paid $2,096,257 of this)
RP Joe Jiménez - $9M
UTIL Mauricio Dubón - $6.1M
OF Lane Thomas - $5.25M
SP Martín Pérez - $3.369M
RP Brent Suter - $1.25M (Braves paid $367,647)
DH Dominic Smith - $1.25M
DH Kyle Farmer - $915,000

Using Atlanta’s actual 2026 obligations - including only the Braves-paid portions of Mahle and Suter’s salaries - these free agents account for roughly $64.35 million coming off the books. That doesn’t mean the 2027 Braves have freed up that much salary, however, because some guaranteed contracts change next year, with most of them going up.

| Player           | 2026 | 2027 | Change |
|------------------|------|------|--------|
| Jurickson Profar | $0   | $15M | +$15M  |
| Chris Sale       | $18M | $27M | +$9M   |
| Robert Suarez    | $13M | $16M | +$3M   |
| Spencer Strider  | $20M | $22M | +$2M   |
| Mike Yastrzemski | $9M  | $10M | +$1M   |
| Michael Harris II| $8M  | $9M  | +$1M   |
| Reynaldo López   | $14M | $8M  | −$6M   |

The net here is $39.35M for the Braves after the increases, although that jumps to roughly $54M if the Braves can find a way to get out from under Jurickson Profar’s $15M salary (and obviously, this is also prior to arbitration raises, picking up club options, etc.)

And while the Profar decision is worth a longer discussion than we have room for here, it’s hard to fathom the clubhouse welcoming him back after they watched him come back from his first positive test just for him to…violate their trust by doing it again. The fact that he never even texted Ronald Acuña Jr. back after the second test doesn’t bode well for his stature in the clubhouse. As I said at the time, he needs to not play another inning for Atlanta, even if it means completely eating the $15M, but it’s never that simple.

We’ll see if Atlanta explores a bad-contract swap this winter, either taking back a struggling player it believes it can rehabilitate or simply exchanging unwanted money with another club.

Club options:

RF Ronald Acuña Jr. ($17M, w/ $10M buyout = $7M incremental cost to keep him)
2B Ozzie Albies ($7M, w/ $4M buyout = $3M incremental cost to keep him)

Both of these seem like no-brainers - the $3M difference for Ozzie Albies is one low-leverage reliever in free agency, although there’s an outside chance they dangle him in trade talks. Ronald’s getting both this and the next club option picked up, although we’ll dive more into his future a bit later next week, once Anthopoulos weighs in on the roster.

Outside of guaranteed contracts and club options, the Braves also need to decide on several arbitration-eligible players: do they extend them one-year contracts for 2027, work out long-term deals, or non-tender them and let them head to free agency.

Decisions to make:

Arbitration decisions (via MLBTR; service time in parentheses):

Dylan Lee (4.150): $4.2MM
James Karinchak (4.130): $1.1MM
Joey Wentz (3.166): $900K
Michael Grove (3.122): $1MM
Luke Williams (3.070): $900K
Bryce Elder (3.069): $4MM
Total: $12.1M

The no-brainers here are Lee, Wentz, and Elder. I’m really curious to know more about how the Braves view Karinchak; they were entirely uninterested in using him down the stretch, despite his 2.45 ERA in 7⅓ August innings for the Stripers. Stylistically, he doesn’t really fit with what pitching coach Jeremy Hefner has traditionally preferred from his relievers, as he throws just a four-seamer and a curveball and is mostly a single-inning reliever with a notable platoon split.

Michael Grove’s price is also reasonable for a once-heralded starting pitching prospect that might be able to help you next season as a spot starter or long-man out of the pen.

Luke Williams was designated for assignment on Friday, but could still be retained on a minor league deal as an emergency depth piece.

There are also several first-time Rule 5-eligible prospects Atlanta may need to consider protecting, although it’s currently unknown whether the league will hold a Rule 5 draft this winter. In the last CBA negotiation, the Rule 5 draft (which typically takes place on the final day of the Winter Meetings) was canceled; Evan Drellich of The Athletic reports that the league advised clubs this week that the status of this year’s Rule 5 draft is to be determined during CBA negotiations. The Players Association has already proposed that any Rule 5 draft that takes place in the final year of a collective bargaining agreement be moved up to November, although that clearly doesn’t resolve this year’s situation.

Rule 5 eligibles:

Cedric De Grandpre
Davis Polo
Drue Hackenberg
Landon Harper
Ian Mejia
Cade Kuehler

We’ll dive into these players and Atlanta’s decisions here a little bit later in the offseason.

When everything needs to be done

While we don’t have exact dates for some of this, as it’s contingent on the final date of the World Series (which could end anywhere from Tuesday, October 27th if it’s a sweep to October 31st if it goes the distance), here’s what we do know about Atlanta’s key decisions and when they need to be made:

The first full day after the World Series: Players become free agents, although they may negotiate only with their previous club during the exclusive negotiating period. Trades may resume.

The fifth full day after the World Series: Free agents may begin negotiating and signing with all clubs at 5 p.m. ET. Club-option decisions and Qualifying Offers ($23.15M this year) are also due to the league office.

November 1st-11th: The end-of-year awards are being announced on the following schedule:

• Nov 1st: Gold Gloves (best at each position, plus a utility and team award)

• Nov 6th: Platinum Glove (individual best defensive player in each league); Heart & Hustle Award

• Nov 9th: BBWAA Rookie of the Year

• Nov 10th: BBWAA Manager of the Year

• Nov 11th: NNWAA Cy Young

November 5th-7th: The general manager meetings are being held in San Antonio, Texas

Mid-November: Player deadline to accept or decline Qualifying Offers & Rule 5 protection deadline. Another floating date, due to not knowing when the World Series will end.

December 1st: The official end of the league year. An owner-initiated lockout would begin the next day, December 2nd. All contact between players and teams must cease, while agents are able to contact teams about their minor leaguers but are prohibited from discussing anyone on a 40-man roster. No transactions can happen after this date, with any trades or signings not already submitted to the league office on hold until the resumption of business after the lockout.

January 15th (tentative): The usual start of the international signing period, although it’s unknown whether this one will begin on time due to the lockout. (The last CBA negotiation did not have minor leaguers as a separate bargaining unit, so it’s unknown if the existence of a minor league CBA would allow this to go on as planned)

Mid-February (tentative): Pitchers and catchers to report for spring training

March 24th (tentative): MLB’s Opening Night game on Netflix

March 25th (tentative): Opening Day

On the one hand, they rebounded from all of the injuries (and the loss of Jurickson Profar) to win over 90 games and the NL East, and then got the “Phillies in the playoffs” monkey off their backs.

But on the other, they laid an egg in the NL Division Series against what felt like a beatable Dodgers team, scoring only two runs across the two home games, failing to cash in even a single one of their 18 walks, and went 1-for-23 with runners in scoring position while leaving 28 runners on base across the four games.

And now, Atlanta’s front office needs to figure out who they are. Before we step back and look at the individual transactions, dates, etc of the offseason, let’s introduce the four most pressing questions facing this front office, with the answers dictating which direction they’ll go this winter.

In no particular order, let’s talk about it.

What’s up with this offense?

At one point this season, I found myself saying the true Atlanta offense probably wasn’t the world-beating juggernaut of early April (118 wRC+ through April 15th), but also wasn’t the worst-in-baseball 65 wRC+ disaster of June.

The true talent level, I believed at the time, was somewhere in the middle.

It turns out that assertion was more true than we’d care to admit. Atlanta finished the 2026 season 20th in offense, with a wRC+ of 97, and they did that despite finishing 7th in home runs with 204.

Part of the reason that Atlanta graded out so poorly offensively is that they were unsustainably dependent on the home run, with 42.2% of their total runs coming via long ball, the 10th-highest mark in baseball.

They weren’t supplementing the power with many of the traditional small-ball avenues, either: Their 7.7% walk rate was 28th in baseball, ahead of only sub-.500 teams in Toronto and San Francisco. When those runners did get on, Atlanta wasn’t particularly adept at moving them over, finishing 24th in stolen bases with 83 and 27th in sacrifice bunt attempts with 18.1

Just playing a contact-oriented style of baseball was also largely out - Atlanta’s strikeout rate of 21.6% was 11th in baseball, but a lot of their contact was suboptimal. Using wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average, which weights offensive outcomes based on their run value), Atlanta’s .314 ranked 20th in baseball.

No, this team lived and died via the long ball. Most of the roster features swings and approaches optimized for producing barrels. The problem is, their top-five barrel rate of 8.6% and their top-ten hard-hit rate of 39.8% produced, as we already mentioned above, a lot of solo home runs.

And it feels like the talents of these players is somewhat incompatible with hitting coach Tim Hyers. Hired two years ago away from Texas to replace homer-enthusiast Kevin Seitzer, Hyers is an advocate for working counts until you get a strike in the part of the zone that you’re skilled at covering.

And to his credit, the Braves were 2nd-best in MLB at not taking hittable pitches, believe it or not, sitting at just 14.5% called strikes against their offense.

But as we discussed last month, just because they were taking pitches doesn’t mean they were drawing walks, and it’s because of when they took those strikes. Half of those called strikes were to open an at-bat, while 21.2% of their strikeouts came on a called third strike.

If you want raw numbers: 3,421 called strikes, with 1,693 of them opening an at-bat and 281 ending it.

This is an offense built to slug, and several members of this offense just aren’t equipped to work counts and draw walks. Stop asking them to change their approach; supplement the roster with additions who are good at doing that stuff, and let your lineup construction balance out the offense.

The new hitting coach, if the team does indeed make a change there, needs to understand the offense’s limitations and stop asking them to be something they’re not equipped to be. The Braves don’t need to make their existing hitters become patient contact hitters; they need to add hitters whose existing skills diversify the offense.

Is Austin Riley fixable?

There may not be a more frustrating hitter on this Braves team than third baseman Austin Riley, who finished the regular season with an 81 wRC+. Among Atlanta position players with 100 or more plate appearances this season, only Jim Jarvis (57), Sean Murphy (55), and Ha-Seong Kim (8!) had worse production, with Riley coming in 12th on the roster.

And that’d be bad enough if he were a journeyman third baseman, holding down the hot corner for a top prospect that’s almost in Atlanta. But from the player with the largest contract in team history, a 10-year, $212M deal that runs through 2032, it’s untenable.

Atlanta needs to figure out what to do here.

Apple TV’s Heidi Watney came on Braves Today earlier this season and discussed how significant abdominal injuries/surgeries, like the core muscle repair that Riley dealt with last year, can have lingering effects long after the player’s returned to the lineup.

"I’ve talked to so many players who had that core muscle surgery, that sports hernia, they say it takes two years to come back from that. That the first year, you just don’t feel right at the plate because you use so much of your hips and your torque for your swing. And it takes a solid full year . […] There's one period of time where you can be back on the field, and then there's another period of time where your body feels right again.”

To her point, Riley himself has discussed needing to adjust his swing for the new body he’s working with, saying that he was going to work on his swing plane over the offseason. There was a lot of (digital) ink spilled this season about the changes and tweaks that were made to his swing, including a dipping front shoulder in May, issues with his stride in July, and getting more into his back hip in August.

And figuring out which version of Austin Riley they’ll have going forward - the MVP-caliber hitter of 2021-2023, the slightly above-average version of 2024 & 2025, or the bottom-of-the-order 2026 version - is instrumental to determining the ceiling of the offense as well as where the team needs to focus their additions.

It feels incredibly unlikely that they consider moving on from him already - a generous view of his struggles can tie each of the previous three seasons to injuries and their downstream effects, and this team tends to give the benefit of the doubt to their veterans, sometimes for too long.

I’m inclined to believe 2027 will be a defining year from Riley, one way or the other; either he’ll be closer to the “aircraft carrier” of old, or he’ll continue to be subpar and the Braves will reach the point where they’re willing to look for an exit strategy.

Who plays shortstop?

Ever since the Atlanta Braves saw Dansby Swanson depart in free agency after the 2022 season, it’s been a revolving door at the infield’s most demanding defensive position. Orlando Arcia. Vaughn Grissom. Braden Shewmake. Nick Allen. And this year, the trio of Mauricio Dubón, Ha-Seong Kim, and Jim Jarvis.

The problem is, both Dubón and Kim are free agents.

Sure, the Braves have shortstop prospects in the system, but not only did none of them make it past Double-A, they combined for just 265 plate appearances at the level this season. As excited as I am about the trio of John Gil (161 PAs), Alex Lodise (102), and Tate Southisene (2 PAs, as he broke his hand on a HBP in his first game after the promotion to Columbus), counting on one of them as the starting shortstop to open 2027 is not something a team with World Series aspirations should do.

And so the depth chart is Jim Jarvis…and that’s it.

And free agency isn’t exactly overflowing with robust options, either, as 31-year-old J.P. Crawford was moved off the position by the Mariners (and hit .221/.335/.352) and the other options are…Kim and Dubón.

Someone needs to play shortstop, and it shouldn’t be a position change for Austin Riley or entrusting the job to Jim Jarvis.

Atlanta needs to figure out if they can get one (or both) of their internal options back on a new deal, or if swinging a trade for a shortstop makes more sense. We’ll spend a lot of time breaking this down after Alex Anthopoulos addresses it at his upcoming end-of-season press availability.

How to reinforce the rotation

By the time Atlanta got to the postseason, they were channeling the 1948 Boston Braves.

That team gamely won the NL pennant behind the two-man rotation of Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain, prompting the now-familiar refrain of “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.”2

By October, it was “Mahle and Sale and pray for hail”. Atlanta played seven postseason games across their two series, with the first two and last two started by the Sale/Mahle combo and the trio in the middle all being bullpen games.

When you back up to the regular season, Atlanta’s #4 in innings was veteran lefty Martín Pérez, with 142 across 30 appearances (26 starts).

Both Mahle and Pérez are free agents this winter, meaning the Braves are already set to lose one of their two postseason starters and one of their top four pitchers by regular-season innings unless somebody re-signs.

Some reinforcements could be walking through the door, if everything goes according to plan. Bryce Elder, who went down in September for a knee scope, is expected to be fine by spring training. Spencer Schwellenbach, a playoff-caliber starter who last pitched in June of 2025, finally had a surgical repair of his broken elbow from last summer. Joey Wentz, expected to be lefty swingman for the team this year, went down in spring training with a torn ACL but is expected to make a full recovery before next season.

But there are also unknowns. Spencer Strider hasn’t returned to the field after going down with elbow inflammation in June, the third different injury (hamstring, oblique) he’s suffered since returning from 2024’s internal brace surgery. Reynaldo López, in the midst of yet another injured list stint for his balky right shoulder, could potentially need yet another arthroscopic procedure on the joint. And splitter maven Hurston Waldrep is having elbow reconstruction surgery and is expected to miss all of 2027 while he rehabs.

All of that leaves a depth chart at the moment with a lot of question marks:

Chris Sale
Spencer Schwellenbach
Spencer Strider
Grant Holmes
Bryce Elder
Reynaldo López

Every single one of those players has spent time on the injured list in the last two seasons, and all but Elder were on the 60-day version of it.

More rotation additions are needed.

Is it possible Anthopoulos revisits the Jacob deGrom trade that was nixed by the player at this year’s trade deadline? Does he finally wade into the free agency waters and grab a starter or two? Is Mahle destined to come back on a multi-year deal, which he explicitly said on Wednesday night he’d do if the opportunity presented itself?

Anthopoulos has set a high bar in the past, insisting that any addition needed to be an “impact starter” because they were holding space for some of the options they have.

That ship has sailed. I’d argue that at least two additions are needed, and depending on the offseason health reports on Schwellenbach, Strider, and López, maybe even three.

The Braves don’t have to answer all four questions immediately. But until they know what they believe about the offense, Riley, shortstop and the rotation, every offseason move is going to be solving a problem they haven’t fully defined yet.

We’ll spend plenty of time over the next week trying to define them.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

As usual, it was two back-to-back half-innings.

Atlanta had a great chance to score in the bottom of the sixth, afater Ozzie Albies got a leadoff double off of lefty Alex Vesia.

(Also, in a very Atlanta Braves twist, it was a home run in 29 of 30 parks, with only Truist Park being the one park that would hold it, naturally.)

But not only would the Braves not get Ozzie in to score, they couldn’t even advance him to third base. Drake Baldwin lined out to left, a soft sinking liner that Teoscar Hernández charged in to catch. Lane Thomas, pinch-hitting for Mike Yastrzemski with a lefty on the mound, grounded out to third before Mauricio Dubón lined out to right to end the inning.

The Braves finished this game 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, stranding seven.

LA, meanwhile, entered the top of the seventh and chased Tyler Mahle from the game with a 110.6 mph one-out single by Teoscar. Didier Fuentes came on, looking to preserve Mahle line of just one unearned run.

He was not able to.

Fuentes clearly didn’t have it after Sunday’s extended bullpen outing, throwing noticeably softer than normal and missing the command of his pitches - he landed just 4 of his 14 pitches in the strike zone. The end result was the bases loading after pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and right fielder Kyle Tucker both walked. With Robert Suarez coming on to replace Fuentes, #9 Andy Pages laced a single back through the middle, scoring two runs and putting this one out of reach.

Said Weiss after the game, when asked why he pulled Mahle at just 84 pitches for Fuentes: “When he got to the seventh, I was thinking hitter to hitter at that point. I felt like he (Mahle) was getting toward the end of the line. We had all our best relievers lined up ready to go. And that’s been the strength of our club all year.

You got Fuentes sitting there. He was one of the best relievers in the game. Same with Suarez. Felt like going there at that point in the game. Didi didn’t look quite the same; the ball wasn’t coming out quite the same. So made a quick move there to Suarez.

And you tip your cap to Pages, man. He hit a 100-mile-an-hour heater back through the middle. But, yeah, we’ve been riding our relievers all year. It’s been the foundation of our success. But Mahle was outstanding.”

Today’s Player of the Game

Mahle was outstanding enough that we’re naming him the player of the game. He went 6.1 innings today, allowing two runs (one earned) on just three hits, walking one and striking out four.

He was able to get strikeouts through both whiffs (four on the splitter, three on the four-seamer) and through his locations, with the four-seamer getting ten called strikes and finishing with a 26% CSW on the game. He held the same Dodgers lineup that blasted Chris Sale yesterday to an average exit velocity of 88.4 mph and picked up seven groundouts tonight.

He finishes the year with a 1.99 Braves ERA in nine regular season starts, covering 54.1 innings, and adds a 1.35 over two postseason starts and 13.1 innings.

Mahle will head to free agency at the age of 32, having rebuilt a lot of value after a disastrous start to his season in San Francisco, where he put up a 5.13 ERA in 18 starts. Now that he’s gotten a taste of what it’s like to be in the Braves clubhouse, though, getting a “blue box” for Mahle needs to be one of the team’s first offseason priorities.

More on free agency and the offseason in the coming days, hopefully before the team schedules our yearly debrief with Walt Weiss and Alex Anthopoulos.

What You’ll Be Talking About

Sadly, almost everyone watching knew the game was over after LA took their 3-1 lead, and that’s because of the offense being so anemic this entire postseason.

Quick, if you’re a Braves lineup regular who didn’t completely embarass themselves this postseason, please stand up.

Oh, just Michael Harris (.407 avg, 1.115 OPS) and Ozzie Albies (1.067 OPS) are on their feet? Yep, it’s hard to win like that.

The highest OPS of anyone who played in all seven games, outside of those two, was Austin Riley’s .513, and the only other regular to have an OPS that starts with a “5” was Mauricio Dubón and his .504. The “aircraft carriers” of Matt Olson (.459), Ronald Acuña Jr. (.425), and Drake Baldwin (.358) were downright pitiful and embarrassing this postseason.

And they knew it, too.

Said Acuña, through team interpreter Franco Garcia postgame: “To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. I'm particularly frustrated with myself. I feel like I did nothing to help the team this series. I'm supposed to be a spark plug for my team out there, and I never lit that fire.”

Said Matt Olson: “You know, personally, I had some spots that I could have come through in and didn't. Those things are always going to stick with you.”

But figuring out what to do with an offense that was down to two productive hitters this postseason will be a large lift, and we’ll break down all the possible scenarios as the offseason progresses. I imagine there’s no way they bring hitting coach Tim Hyers, but that alone isn’t enough.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The offseason. We’ll be back tomorrow to break down the series and where Atlanta goes from here.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 6:00 PM ET

• Location: Truist Park, Atlanta GA

• TV: Fox/Fox One

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan

• Weather: 76° and mostly sunny, with wind NE at 4 mph.

Atlanta Braves Lineup

CF Michael Harris II
RF Ronald Acuña Jr
1B Matt Olson
2B Ozzie Albies
DH Drake Baldwin
LF Mike Yastrzemski
SS Mauricio Dubón
3B Austin Riley
C Sean Murphy

Quick thoughts:

• Murphy gets back behind the plate to catch Mahle, while Acuña returns to right field after a one-game stop at designated hitter because of his balky left knee.

Bench breakdown:

• Atlanta’s bench today will have:

  • Lefty 1B/DH bat: Rowdy Tellez

  • Platoon outfielder: Lane Thomas

  • 4th outfielder: Brewer Hicklen

  • Backup shortstop: Ha-Seong Kim

Los Angeles Dodgers Lineup

SS Mookie Betts
1B Freddie Freeman
C Will Smith
DH Shohei Ohtani
LF Teoscar Hernández
3B Max Muncy
2B Enrique Hernández
RF Kyle Tucker
CF Andy Pages

Quick thoughts:

• Dodgers are sticking with mostly the same guys (Muncy at third for Rojás at second is the only change), but in a different order: Shohei moves up to #4 and Kiké moves to the #7 spot, while Tucker and Pages move down to #8 and #9, respectively.

Bench breakdown:

• Backup catcher: Hunter Feduccia.

• Backup infielder/pinch-runner: Hyeseong Kim

• Backup outfielder: Josue De Paula

• Utilityman: Tommy Edman

• Platoon corner infielder: Miguel Rojás, who left yesterday’s game with a mild injury.

Pitching Matchup

Braves Starter: RHP Tyler Mahle (7-10, 3.99)

Quick snapshot

• 3.99 ERA / 3.95 xERA, 22.3% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate for the full regular season.

• 1.99 ERA in nine starts with Atlanta. His Braves approach features considerably more splitters and fewer cutters than his earlier Giants approach.

What to watch

• The splitter is the first pitch to evaluate. Mahle raised its usage from roughly a quarter of his pitches with San Francisco to nearly 39% with Atlanta, while cutting his cutter usage below 10%. That is a meaningful change in how he attacks hitters, even if nine starts are too few to treat a 1.99 ERA as his new baseline. Watch whether the splitter finishes below the zone after looking like his roughly 93 mph four-seamer.

• His season split makes the Dodgers’ righties a serious test. Across both clubs, left-handed hitters batted .221/.272/.373 against Mahle; righties hit .288/.361/.442. The splitter gives him an answer for Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker and Max Muncy, but Mookie Betts, Will Smith and Teoscar Hernández cannot be treated as easier outs between them. Those splits do include his less effective Giants starts, so they are a warning rather than a precise forecast for tonight’s pitch mix.

• The Dodgers have seen Mahle once, but they have not seen this Mahle. Pitching for San Francisco on April 22, he threw seven scoreless innings against Los Angeles. He has since altered his arsenal substantially. The earlier outing establishes that he can handle this lineup; its pitch patterns offer the Dodgers an incomplete guide to his Atlanta version.

• His last start answered a workload question. Mahle worked seven innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts against Philadelphia in the Wild Card round, despite suffering an abdominal pull during warmups, according to Walt Weiss. The thing to monitor is whether his delivery and splitter command look normal, without assuming that last week’s issue still limits him.

Opposing Starter: RHP Tyler Glasnow (5-2, 3.53 ERA)

Quick snapshot

• 3.53 ERA / 2.88 xERA in 13 starts and 73 innings

• 34.0% strikeout rate / 8.7% walk rate

• 34.7% four-seamer, 26.3% curveballs (including the knuckle curve), 21.3% sinker and 17.7% slider. His four-seamer averages 95.5 mph and his curveball group roughly 81 mph.

  • (Savant displays the knuckle curve and conventional curve separately in one arsenal view, then combines them in its pitch-result table.)

Atlanta’s path against Glasnow

• Do not help the curveball. It generated a 53.2% whiff rate and held hitters to a .119 average and .238 slugging percentage. His slider also missed bats at a 39.6% rate. Atlanta’s best chance is to identify the breaking ball early enough to leave it below the zone, even when Glasnow gets ahead.

• The four-seamer is the better target for damage. Opponents hit .244 and slugged .453 against it, with a 17.7% whiff rate—quite different from the curve. It still arrives at 95–96 mph, so this calls for a ready swing on a fastball in the zone, not an indiscriminate fastball hunt that makes the curve easier to finish with.

• Left-handed bats have reached base slightly more often, but neither side has solved him. Lefties posted a .565 OPS in 177 plate appearances and righties a .528 OPS in 111. Baldwin, Olson and Harris belong in the plan because they are among Atlanta’s best hitters, not because Glasnow has a pronounced left-handed vulnerability.

• Atlanta scored early against him in August, then watched him adjust. In his first start back from a lengthy absence with back spasms, Glasnow allowed three first-inning runs at Truist Park. He then struck out the side in the second and finished with seven strikeouts over five innings. The Braves’ six hits and three runs in that start show an opening, but he was making his first major-league appearance in more than three months; his recent back-to-back double-digit-strikeout starts are stronger evidence of his present form.

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: Glasnow’s building the plane around getting to his curveballs, as he throws both a standard and a harder ‘knuckle’ version when ahead in the count and with two strikes. The four-seamer and sinker see more use when he’s behind in the count, while the slider is a pretty consistent 1-in-10 pitch across the entire at-bat.

vs RHH: The slider’s a much bigger part of the overall attack here, although more of an establishing pitch than for whiffs with two outs. The four-seamer’s a pretty consistent 3-in-10 no matter the state of the at-bat, although the sinker’s much more prevalent when behind than when ahead. Both curveballs are really only thrown in pitcher’s counts.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Are you ready for retirement? Ford Stokes and Zac Blackerby are Braves fans who want to help you make sure you have income for life. Email Zac (zac@activewealth.com) or Ford (ford@activewealth.com) for your free Social Security roadmap today.

Atlanta’s Bullpen Status

(Reminder: these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Possible limitations:

• Just based on pitch counts, there shouldn’t be anyone explicitly down today.

Takeaway: It doesn’t feel like anyone’s off the table in a potential elimination game for Atlanta.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Possible limitations:

• I don’t see anyone from this group being down for LA today, just based on pitch counts.

Takeaway: Atlanta has gotten second looks at everyone in the leverage group but Sasaki, so if the Braves need a late rally, they may have some familiarity with the opposing reliever.

Umpire information

Behind the plate: Tripp Gibson. UmpScorecards has him at 94.15% accuracy and 94.00% expected accuracy. His accuracy is 21st out of 91 umpires this season, and his .1% above expected is 19th out of 91 umpires.

On ABS challenges, he has 61 overturns in 121 challenges, so close to 50%.

The consequential calls to watch are the bottom edge on Mahle’s splitter and Glasnow’s curve; both offenses may need an ABS challenge when a two-strike pitch there determines an at-bat.

Final Thought

The Braves are +128 on the moneyline to LA’s -152, and FanDuel has set the over/under at 7.5 runs. The hinge point is Can Atlanta do its damage before Glasnow earns a curveball count?

The Braves scored three first-inning runs against him in August, but Glasnow quickly found his breaking ball. Mahle’s task is to make his splitter look like a strike long enough to keep Los Angeles’ power from sitting on the four-seamer. Atlanta’s is to attack a hittable fastball early, keep the curve below the zone, and give its rested late-inning arms a lead worth protecting.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this afternoon, after lineups were announced.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the 5th inning.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto was cruising in this one, but the Braves had him somewhat on the ropes in the fifth. Mauricio Dubón and Lane Thomas both singled off of the righty, giving the Braves their best opportunity respond to LA’s three-run fourth.

After an Austin Riley pop-out and pinch-hitter Rowdy Tellez drew a four-pitch walk to load the bases, the lineup turned over. Primed to put a few runs on the board and make it a game, right?

About that.

Drake Baldwin swung at the first pitch, a splitter on the outer third, and weakly grounded out to first. Had LA been playing the infield in, it’s likely an inning-ending double play, but they were content to trade one run for an out. Ronald Acuña Jr. then battled to a 3-1 advantage, taking several fastballs up and in, before scrolling over a splitter down and away and weakly grounding out to second base to end the threat with just one total run scoring.

More on the top of the order in a minute.

Today’s Player of the Game

Mauricio Dubón.

The utilityman got the start in left field, and his defense was needed early. After Mookie Betts led off the 3rd inning with a single, Freddie Freeman (who was boo’d in Truist Park for the first time in his career) absolutely launched a center-cut fastball towards the Los Angeles bullpen. 101.3 mph off the bat and 346 feet.

It needed to be 347.

Dubón was tracking the ball the entire way, timing his leap to go up and over the wall to bring back the would-be home run for a routine flyout.

Dubón later shifted in to shortstop after Tellez pinch-hit for Ha-Seong Kim, who committed a defensive error in the first inning. Dubí finished with a single and a run scored, showing his value to this roster and making the case that Atlanta needs to bring him back for 2027.

What You’ll Be Talking About, Part 1

The complete obliteration of Chris Sale.

Let’s clear up what this was - he was charged for three runs in five innings, which is hardly a blow-up outing on its face.

But the way it happened was complete domination by Los Angeles.

Sale started off hot, getting six strikeouts the first time through the order, but LA was merely calibrating their looks at the lefty. The next time through, LA teed off - five hits, including two homers, on their way to a three-run lead.

And again, while the results weren’t good, the process was even worse.

LA finished Sale’s five innings with sixteen balls in play off of the lefty. Ten of them were hard-hit, with Sale’s average exit velocity allowed being an absurd 97.9 mph.

Reminder: 95 mph is a hard-hit ball. LA averaged 95 or harder against each pitch type vs Sale.

Sale credited Los Angeles after the game for adjusting after the first time through, saying that he’d really only take back one pitch, the doubled-up changeup to Kiké Hernández that resulted in a two-run homer to open the LA scoring.

"Really only one pitch I'd take back from that whole entire outing. This is a game of adjustments. They seemed like they made the adjustment. They were battling, but again, really just one swing changed the whole trajectory of that game."

And you could tell that LA put in the work against Sale, as after he left the game, the bullpen quartet of Dylan Dodd, Dylan Lee, Brent Suter, and Raisel Iglesias held the Dodgers to just a single and two walks across four innings, striking out five and giving the offense a chance to battle back and make it a game.

It’s domination of Sale to an extent I’ve never seen during his time in Atlanta. He’s an ace, and he found a way to survive his five innings without the Braves being completely out of the game, but it was hardly enough to cash in Sunday’s gamble.

What You’ll Be Talking About, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

About that.

The trio of Drake Baldwin, Ronald Acuña Jr. (who is nursing a sore knee) and Matt Olson continue to let the team down this October, with postseason OPS of .405, .451, and .535, respectively.

A charitable Braves fan could point out that Acuña hasn’t been the same since fouling a batted ball off his shin in the final week of the season, going just 5-33 since then, but there aren’t many who are feeling very charitable about the performance of the trio at the moment.

If it helps, neither is Baldwin. Talking to the media after the game, he expressed frustration both with their performance in general and the team’s persistent inability to give Chris Sale any meaningful run support this season.

“I think we hold ourselves to a high standard, and we couldn’t get some runs across. We’re not really too happy about it. Whenever Sale goes out there, we want to give him run support. And only giving him one run, we wish we could have given him more runs.”

But as I said on the postcast, this offense can weather one of these guys underperforming. It can’t handle all three. This team will go as far as the offense takes them, and those three are the straws that stir the drink. The trio has combined for two extra-base hits this postseason, with one being the “double” by Baldwin to Philly’s Bryce Harper.

It’s not good enough, and the Braves are one loss from elimination because of it.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta’s facing their second elimination game of the postseason tomorrow evening, with Tyler Mahle (7-10, 3.99) taking on Tyler Glasnow (5-2, 3.53) at 6PM ET.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 6:00 PM ET

• Location: Truist Park, Atlanta GA

• TV: Fox/Fox One

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan

• Weather: 76° and mostly sunny, with wind ESE at 8 mph.

Atlanta Braves Lineup

C Drake Baldwin
RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
1B Matt Olson
2B Ozzie Albies
CF Michael Harris II
LF Mauricio Dubón
DH Sean Murphy
3B Austin Riley
SS Ha-Seong Kim

Quick thoughts:

• Murphy continues to be the designated hitter; Weiss says that it gives them flexibility to pinch-hit for him while ensuring continuity behind the plate.

  • Murphy’s 1-4 with a double against Yamamoto, while Kim is 3-7 with a homer.

Bench breakdown:

• Atlanta’s bench today will have:

  • Lefty 1B/DH bat: Rowdy Tellez

  • Platoon outfielders: Mike Yastrzemski & Lane Thomas

  • 4th outfielder: Brewer Hicklen

Los Angeles Dodgers Lineup

SS Mookie Betts
1B Freddie Freeman
LF Teoscar Hernández
C Will Smith
DH Shohei Ohtani
2B Miguel Rojas
CF Andy Pages
RF Kyle Tucker
2B Kiké Hernández

Quick thoughts:

• Dodgers are shaking things up a bit, with Shohei Ohtani dropping to the #5 spot in the order (last time he’s hit this low since 2020 with the Angels) and sticking both Rojas and Hernández into the lineup.

Bench breakdown:

• Backup catcher: Hunter Feduccia.

• Backup infielder/pinch-runner: Hyeseong Kim

• Backup outfielder: Josue De Paula

• Utilityman: Tommy Edman

• Platoon corner infielder Max Muncy

Pitching Matchup

Braves Opener: LHP Chris Sale (14-9, 2.16)

Quick snapshot

• 2.16 ERA / approximately 2.96 xERA in 162⅔ regular-season innings

• 200 strikeouts; 30.9% strikeout rate / 4.8% walk rate

• 41.4% four-seamer, 39.9% slider, 10.3% changeup, 8.4% sinker. The four-seamer averaged 96.1 mph, the slider 79.7.

What to watch

• The Dodgers have seen Sale at his best twice this year. He allowed two earned runs over 16 innings against them, culminating in that August shutout with 11 strikeouts and no walks. That is a substantial recent matchup result, though Los Angeles can change its lineup and approach rather than simply replay the August game.

• His slider remains the defining pitch. Hitters batted .186 and slugged .247 against it, with a 38.2% whiff rate. Sale throws it roughly as often as his fastball despite a velocity gap of more than 16 mph. The key for Los Angeles is recognizing the slider before committing to the 96 mph fastball; the key for Sale is getting ahead so the slider can finish below or off the plate.

• A right-handed lineup does not erase his advantage. Righties had a .570 OPS against Sale across 486 plate appearances; lefties had a .595 OPS across 162. The Dodgers may put more right-handed bats near the top and could sit Max Muncy again, but Sale’s 2026 results offer little evidence of a matchup they can solve merely by stacking righties.

• The extra rest is part of the plan. Sale last started a week ago, when he threw 95 pitches over 6⅓ innings against Philadelphia. He also threw 21 pitches to get the final four outs of Thursday’s Wild Card clincher. Atlanta made 25 of his 27 regular-season starts with at least one extra day of rest, then won Game 2 while holding him for tonight. Watch his fastball velocity and slider command early as we’re looking to see if there’s any ill effects from the Thursday relief outing.

Opposing Starter: RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (14-9, 2.53 ERA)

Quick snapshot

• 2.53 ERA / 2.94 xERA across 185 innings; 0.87 WHIP

• 25.7% strikeout rate / 5.9% walk rate

• 26.6% splitter, 26.2% four-seamer, 14.9% cutter, 13.2% curveball, 13.1% sinker, 6.1% slider. The four-seamer averaged 96.1 mph; the splitter, 91.5.

Atlanta’s path against Yamamoto

• The splitter is still the pitch that decides at-bats. Hitters batted .158 and slugged .271 against it, and it generated a 33.8% whiff rate. Its whiff rate was down from 42.1% in 2025, but a 91.5 mph splitter paired with a 96 mph fastball remains difficult to distinguish in time. Atlanta has to resist the one that finishes below the zone.

• His arsenal is broader than a fastball–splitter pairing. Yamamoto used his sinker and cutter more this year, giving hitters pitches that move in opposite directions at roughly 95.5 and 91.6 mph. His four-seamer generated a 29.1% whiff rate, but its .465 expected slugging percentage was higher than the actual .355 slugging he allowed. An elevated fastball that catches too much plate is a better target than the splitter tumbling beneath it.

• The platoon split does not give Atlanta’s lefties an obvious break. Left-handed hitters managed a .511 OPS against Yamamoto in 378 plate appearances; righties posted a .586 OPS in 330. Baldwin, Olson and Harris are starting for their offensive value, but they should not expect an easier version of Yamamoto just because they bat left-handed.

• Baldwin supplied the winning formula once—and Yamamoto adjusted. Baldwin homered on an elevated, first-pitch splitter on August 27. Yamamoto then held Atlanta scoreless for the rest of his 6⅓ innings, striking out eight and walking one. The takeaway is to punish the rare splitter or fastball that stays up immediately; waiting for him to repeat that mistake may mean waiting all night.

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: Yoshi’s a three-fastball guy, and his four-seamer is the primary one to lefties. It’s attempting to set up the splitter, which is the primary ahead/two-strike pitch, while both the cutter and curveball are early strike-stealers and catch-up pitches rather than putaway offerings.

vs RHH: The splitter’s still the primary whiff pitch, but all three fastballs carry the fastball load - four-seamer more in pitcher’s counts, sinker and cutter more in hitter’s counts. The slider gets used as a secondary whiff offering, while the curveball’s more of an early strike-stealer and catch-up pitch.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Are you ready for retirement? Ford Stokes and Zac Blackerby are Braves fans who want to help you make sure you have income for life. Email Zac (zac@activewealth.com) or Ford (ford@activewealth.com) for your free Social Security roadmap today.

Atlanta’s Bullpen Status

(Reminder: these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Possible limitations:

• Walt Weiss told us that Robert Suarez was unavailable on Saturday after he pitched on Thursday. Does that mean that he’s down today after pitching on Sunday?

• I can’t imagine Didier Fuentes is available after throwing 47 pitches on Sunday.

  • Ray Kerr, obviously, is not part of the standard relief corps at this point, but he may be available for a single inning tomorrow before getting the opener assignment again in a possible game five.

Takeaway: The Braves feel like they’re fine here, but they need length from Sale - Fuentes likely doesn’t get used today and I’d like to avoid a situation where they need Dylan Lee to take leverage innings.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Possible limitations:

• As a converted starter, I’d imagine Roki Sasaki’s probably not going today after his 36-pitch effort in Sunday’s game two.

Takeaway: Outside of Sasaki, LA’s probably in a good spot today…although any extended outings from Edgardo Henriquez or lefty Kris Bubic probably rule them out of game four.

Umpire information

Behind the plate: James Hoye. UmpScorecards has him at 93.6% accuracy and 94.04% expected accuracy. His accuracy is 42nd out of 91 umpires this season, and his .44% below expected is tied for 44th out of 91 umpires.

The practical early read is whether he gives Sale’s sweeping slider or Yamamoto’s falling splitter a strike at the bottom edge—and how the clubs use ABS challenges on those calls.

Final Thought

The Braves are -106 on the moneyline to LA’s -110, and FanDuel has set the over/under at 6.5 runs. The hinge point is Which ace gets hitters to chase beneath the zone first?

Sale’s slider and Yamamoto’s splitter both become more dangerous after strike one. In August, Baldwin attacked Yamamoto’s elevated splitter before that plan could take hold, and Sale kept Los Angeles scoreless all night. Atlanta’s route tonight is early damage on a pitch left up, discipline on the splitter below the zone, and enough length from Sale to hand a close game directly to its rested late-inning relievers.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this afternoon, after lineups were announced.

He told the Braves he was available. He believed he could perform at a high level. He repeatedly made his case to start Game 2, and even volunteered for Game 1, although he acknowledged that was probably unrealistic.

Walt Weiss still said no.

Not because Sale declared himself hurt. Not because Atlanta doubted his competitiveness. Weiss believed using Sale on Sunday would leave the Braves with a diminished version of their ace twice. He preferred one full-strength start in Game 3, with the possibility of another relief appearance later in the series.

The bullpen’s 3–2 victory gave Atlanta exactly what Weiss wanted, thanks to the heroics of Ray Kerr, Didier Fuentes, and Michael Harris II. But understanding the decision requires separating its successful result from the gamble the Braves actually made.

Let’s talk about it.

Sale believed he was ready

Sale’s confidence wasn’t empty bravado. As The AJC’s Chad Bishop detailed in September, Sale overhauled his offseason training after joining Atlanta and now throws and lifts more than he once did during the season. He also credits Atlanta’s training and strength staffs for helping keep him healthy and effective.

The results include a 2.36 ERA across three seasons with the Braves, the 2024 NL Cy Young Award and three consecutive All-Star selections.

That preparation had Sale convinced he could start Game 2, as he explained to Braves Today via conference call on Monday afternoon.

“I told (Weiss) I was available. … I really felt confident in my ability to go out there and be able to perform at a high level. I really felt confident in myself in starting Game 2.”

There were multiple discussions over the weekend about his potential game two start, with Sale declining to discuss specifics other than making the point that he made sure the point was known that he could take the ball on Sunday. “I reiterated that plenty of times to them.”

This was not a veteran pitcher asking for additional rest, despite throwing a high-intensity relief outing on Thursday night in Atlanta’s Wild Card-clinching win over Philadelphia.

In fact, he was willing to pitch on short rest, if the team would let him. “I told him I was available, even if they needed me for game one, which I knew was probably a stretch.”

The aggressive approach from Chris Sale comes because he understands the different mindset required from October baseball. “You get to this time of year and it’s all hands on deck. It’s everybody doing anything they can to get one out, to get a run, to get a base runner. And I think that that’s who our team is and that’s what everybody in here is willing to do.”

Sale said he learned that “all hands on deck” mentality in Boston, where then-manager Alex Cora used him in relief to close out the 2018 World Series. He said today he sees parallels between that championship club and these Braves.

But being available is Chris Sale’s job - he’s previously said that he’ll take the ball whenever they give it to him and throw until they take it away. It’s the organization’s job to decide when to use him.

Sale was insistent that he could pitch. Weiss needed to decide whether he should.

Atlanta feared a diminished Sale twice

The standard in MLB has been that starting pitchers get the ball every five days, which is defined as “regular rest” for a rotation.

That’s not what they’ve done with Sale.

In 2026, only two of his 27 starts have come on regular rest, and both of them were in the season’s first month. One of them was his worst outing of the year, too, allowing six runs on five hits and two walks in just four innings versus the Angels in Los Angeles.

And starting on Sunday would have been regular rest for MLB, which isn’t regular rest for Sale. And even before discussing the additional stress his Thursday relief outing put on him over a normal bullpen, Weiss didn’t think Sale would be the same effective version of himself on what would essentially be short rest.

“If you have Sale in Game 2 and Game 5, as people were screaming about, we saw it as you’re getting a diminished Chris Sale twice at that point.”

And so Weiss landed on an alternative, one that wouldn’t let Sale start twice in the series but would still keep him involved. “We wanted to get a full-strength Chris Sale, and that’s Game 3—and then possibly impacting the game in Game 5, like we saw in the Philly series.”

Two atypically short turnarounds for Sale in Games 2 and 5, versus a full-strength start in Game 3 and a possible Game 5 relief appearance.

In essence, Weiss was choosing the quality of Sale’s appearances over maximizing the number of appearances.

There’s a very simple decision tree that Weiss navigated on this one:

Start Sale in Game 2: Your best pitcher gives Atlanta its best chance to avoid a 2–0 deficit, but the Braves risk a diminished Sale in both Games 2 and 5.

OR

Hold Sale for Game 3: Atlanta gets a full-strength start at home and retains the possibility of using Sale in relief in Game 5, but the bullpen must win Game 2 to avoid sending Sale into an elimination game.

But holding Sale wasn’t without risk. Weiss was willing to accept greater risk Sunday in exchange for what he believed would be a better version of Sale later.

The bullpen created the best-case scenario

Here’s Weiss from Monday, explaining how this worked out for Atlanta:

“We won the bullpen game, and now we have a fresh Chris Sale ready to go.”

But here’s the risk part: he didn’t know it was going to work. And even during the game, he was trying to figure out how to piece it together from the pieces he had.

Weiss had a deliberate overall strategy, not a predetermined route through 27 outs. Some players outperformed expectations - Ray Kerr opening with 2.2 scoreless, Suarez escaping the game’s highest-leverage situation, and Fuentes giving 3.2 with just one run allowed. Some players were disappointing, like Grant Holmes and Dylan Lee combining for just four outs.

But Weiss trusted the bullpen and they improvised their way through 27 outs.

Weiss expected approximately two innings from Fuentes and two from Iglesias. Instead, Fuentes pitched so well that he forced the plan to change.

“I just assumed it’d probably be two and two. But Didi was throwing the ball so well, I didn’t want to mess with that.”

Weiss constructed the gamble. The bullpen made it look brilliant.

Good outcome or good decision?

Something that we’ve talked about a lot on Braves Today is the idea of the decision being a good or bad one at the time you made it, not after it’s resolved and you can answer with the benefit of hindsight.

Because there was a lot of risk for Atlanta here — drop the bullpen game on Sunday, and you return home down 0-2, and LA has three opportunities to win just one game to end your season. And if you lost on Tuesday in game three, the season ends with you taking the ball out of the hands of Tyler Mahle, who was your second-best starter down the stretch and who would likely have started game three had Sale gotten the ball on Sunday.

Weiss didn’t know the Dodgers would go 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position on Sunday, or that Atlanta would knock Blake Snell out of the game in the 4th at 90 pitches, or that Fuentes would go 3.2 innings.

But he did know a few things going into that decision:

The bullpen has been Atlanta’s strength this season, with Sale explaining on Monday that “We’re not here without our bullpen. Anybody that’s watched the Atlanta Braves play at all this year knows our bullpen has stepped up massively.”

Fuentes wasn’t used in game one, and neither was Suarez. That bullpen was not only the team’s strength, but it would be as close to full strength as it could be.

And Weiss also knew more about Sale’s recovery than the rest of us did - while Sale’s confidence in his ability to perform was relevant, it wasn’t going to decide what they did here. The team knows better than anyone the caliber of his “stuff” on normal rest versus an extra day or two, and that played into the decision by Weiss.

“We know our club pretty well, I would think better than most. […] We wanted to get a full-strength Chris Sale, and that’s game three. We didn’t wanna have a diminished Chris Sale twice; it just didn’t make sense to us.”

Now the gamble’s gotta pay off

Chris Sale now gets the start that the team gambled on - he’s at extra rest for game three, at home, in a tied series.

But the fact that he outdueled Tuesday’s opposing starter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, in a complete-game shutout last month means absolutely nothing to Sale. “What you did yesterday means nothing in this game for today or tomorrow.”

“I’m just preparing for another grind. I’m preparing for another battle.”

And this series is now, essentially, a best-of-three, with Atlanta holding de facto home-field advantage by virtue of the next two games being in Truist Park. They have a chance to shock the world, and have narrowed the odds somewhat since last Saturday.

Per MLB’s Sarah Langs, teams that go home in the 2-2-1 Division Series format with a road split have gone on to win the series 30 of 49 times.

Atlanta’s odds of beating LA aren’t 61%. It does show that the Braves earned precisely what every road team wants: a split followed by two opportunities to finish the series at home.

The bullpen proved Atlanta could win without Chris Sale. Now Sale has to prove waiting for him was worth it.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

The bottom of the fifth inning.

Atlanta had just gotten their 2nd run of the game, responding to a Dodgers solo shot in the bottom of the 4th that got them on the board. They almost lost the lead, though - Mookie Betts walked and Shohei Ohtani singled to put two runners on with no outs against Dylan Lee.

Atlanta went to Robert Suarez, taking the first half’s best reliever with rediscovering that form in just his fourth appearance off the injured list. And he did.

Suarez ramped up the velo to 100-101, inducing flyouts of both Will Smith and Freddie Freeman before striking out Teoscar Hernández to retire the side and strand both runners. It was exactly the type of clutch performance that he provided so often in the first half before going down with his elbow problem, and preventing the Dodgers from answering back kept the momentum with the Braves.

Today’s Player of the Game

In a close vote on the Postcast, Michael Harris II won POTG over Didier Fuentes, but we’ll talk about both.

Harris was almost the goat here, spoiling a great scoring opportunity in the first inning. After Atlanta loaded the bases on a Ronald Acuña Jr. single and two walks, Harris had a chance to drive in some runs.

And just like the last time he had an at-bat after two consecutive walks created a scoring opportunity, he swung at the first pitch, which was again off the plate inside, and had an unproductive out - this time it was a routine pop out.

But Harris redeemed himself in this game, finishing a homer shy of the cycle and directly contributing to two of the three runs scored by the Braves tonight. He singled in the third, tripled in the fifth (scoring on a wild pitch), and picking up an RBI double in the 7th inning. He’s had two bad games in this postseason, going 1-9 with two GIDP. The other three games? Six hits, including a homer, four runs, and four RBI.

And Didier Fuentes was the other hero here, being called on to pitch the sixth while it was 2-1. He mowed down Kyle Tucker, Andy Pages, and Max Muncy.

So they asked him to pitch the seventh. He mowed down Tommy Edwan before the lineup turned over and he handled Betts and Ohtani.

So he came back out for the 8th and, once again, handled it. He struck out both Will Smith and Freddie Freeman (credit to Drake Baldwin for a great ABS challenge here) before getting Teoscar Hernández to fly out again.

So guess what? He came back out for the 9th. He almost finished this one off, too, getting quick outs of Tucker and Pages before throwing Max Muncy a 3-2 fastball in the zone instead of going to spin or offspeed. Muncy put it in the seats, narrowing the lead to 3-2, before Raisel Iglesias came in for the two-pitch save to end it.

It was 47 pitches for Fuentes through 3.2 innings, striking out three and getting four groundouts. He mixed all three pitches more than usual, barely breaking 50% fastballs, and allowed only two hard-hit balls in the nine that were put into play. It’s why, as good as he’s been out of the bullpen this season, the team has been insistent that his future is in the rotation.

What You’ll Be Talking About, Part 1: Not Starting Sale

Walt Weiss and his decision to push Chris Sale to Tuesday.

Weiss first hinted that Sale might not start on Friday afternoon, telling reporters (including Braves Today) via conference call that they hadn’t officially decided on Sale as the Sunday starter and it depended on how he felt. Weiss reiterated that after Saturday’s game, and then the team announced on Sunday morning that Ray Kerr would be the opener for a bullpen game. Weiss confirmed that Sale was not overly sore or injured from his relief outing on Thursday, but that they were pushing him to Tuesday for extra rest.

And suffice to say, it was not a popular decision. The general consensus was that it was a mistake, and that even six innings of Sale would go better than a bullpen game possibly could.

About that. The Braves knocked out opposing starter Blake Snell early, with the two-time Cy Young winner allowing one run on three hits and five walks in just 3.2 innings. The main reason he left was pitch count; he was at an incredibly inefficient 90 pitches (just 47 strikes), making this a battle of the bullpens.

And Atlanta’s pen was more up to the task than LA’s.

The Braves used six arms tonight, with Kerr opening (2.2) and Fuentes being pushed for length (3.2) after the duo of Grant Holmes and Dylan Lee faced a combined nine batters and allowed a run on three hits and two walks, recording only four outs.

LA, meanwhile, threw seven different bullpen arms and had closer Tanner Scott up and ready for the 9th, in case they tied it up late. While the individual reliever usage isn’t overly prohibitive for LA’s pitching plan on Tuesday, it does give Braves hitters either a first or second look (Evan Phillips, Brock Stewart) at the relievers they’ll face somewhere in the next two games. That exposure and familiarity matters, and helps to somewhat even things with Atlanta’s bullpen exposure from the first two games of the series.

And so now, the Braves are heading home with the ability to throw both Sale and Mahle in games three and four, somewhat minimizing LA’s starting pitcher advantage with Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow. It’s a recipe for an upset, as long as the offense can carry their weight on the run-scoring front.

What You’ll Be Talking About, Part 2: The Offense

But for the offense to carry their weight, some of the stars need to do more.

I’ve been particularly disappointed in Ronald Acuña Jr. this postseason, and that continued tonight. While he did have one of Atlanta’s six hits, a single in the first inning, he’s consistently had opportunities to score in this postseason and hasn’t done anything with them.

The egregious one tonight was in the eighth inning. With command-deficient flamethrower Roki Sasaki coming in the game for LA, Rowdy Tellez worked a leadoff walk and Austin Riley was hit by a pitch.

Atlanta then made a terrible strategic decision, gifting a struggling pitcher an out by having Yastrzemski bunt them pinch-runner Brewer Hicklen and Riley to 2nd and 3rd.

And as bad as that was, Ronald’s following at-bat was even worse, especially given the fact that once Sasaki got behind to Drake Baldwin, they intentionally walked him to get to Acuña.

Ronald fouled off an in-zone fastball and took a splitter in before a mistake pitch, an in-zone splitter knee-high and on the inner third. But instead of launching it into orbit, a la Jorge Soler, he beat it into the ground in what became an inning-ending double play. It was hard-hit, sure - 106.8 mph off the bat - but when it hits the ground 8 feet in front of the plate, it becomes a routine ground ball for a professional second baseman like Tommy Edman.

This postseason, Ronald’s 3-for-18 with three walks, three strikeouts, and no extra-base hits. He’s scored runs in four of the team’s five games, sure, often stealing bases (three on the postseason) to put himself into position, but it’s not the performance this team either needs or expects from one of their most talented and gifted players.

He’s not the only struggling ‘aircraft carrier’, mind you - Matt Olson’s 3-19 with seven strikeouts and Drake Baldwin’s 3-19 with 4 punchies - but it’s the most glaring because he’s the player most capable of taking over a series, and he’s done anything but that through the first five games.

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta’s heading back home, where they’ll throw Chris Sale (14-9, 2.16 ERA) against Yoshinobu Yamamoto (14-9, 2.53 ERA) on Tuesday at 6 PM ET.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 8:00 PM ET

• Location: UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles CA

• TV: Fox/Fox One

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan

• Weather: LA is currently in an extreme heat warning, with temperatures at first pitch expected to be 90°. Obviously, the 31% humidity won’t be as bad as in Atlanta, but this is weather that the Braves are accustomed to and the Dodgers are not. Said Walt Weiss before Saturday’s game, “You’ve got to remember - we’re from Atlanta.”

Atlanta Braves Lineup

C Drake Baldwin
RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
1B Matt Olson
2B Ozzie Albies
CF Michael Harris II
SS Mauricio Dubón
DH Sean Murphy
3B Austin Riley
LF Lane Thomas

Quick thoughts:

• Lane Thomas (oblique) returns to the lineup after pinch-hitting in game one, while they flop Baldwin and Murphy. Some of this might be Baldwin being behind the plate for Kerr’s game on Thursday, but a bigger part might be the ability to use a pinch hitter for Murphy and not lose the DH spot by flexing Baldwin out of it to go man the plate.

Bench breakdown:

• Atlanta’s bench today will have:

  • Lefty 1B/DH bat: Rowdy Tellez

  • Platoon outfielder: Mike Yastrzemski

  • 4th outfielder: Brewer Hicklen

  • Backup shortstop: Ha-Seong Kim

Los Angeles Dodgers Lineup

SS Mookie Betts
DH Shohei Ohtani
C Will Smith
1B Freddie Freeman
LF Teoscar Hernández
RF Kyle Tucker
CF Andy Pages
3B Miguel Rojas
2B Tommy Edman

Quick thoughts:

• With a second lefty opener, I was curious how aggressively manager Dave Roberts would adjust his lineup to match. The answer is that unlike yesterday, he did make a change this time - Miguel Rojas is in at third base for Max Muncy, batting 8th.

Bench breakdown:

• Backup catcher: Hunter Feduccia.

• Backup infielder/pinch-runner: Hyeseong Kim

• Backup outfielder: Josue De Paula

• Utilityman/October hero: Kiké Hernandez

• Platooned corner infielder Max Muncy

Pitching Matchup

Braves Opener: LHP Ray Kerr (4-1, 2.54)

Quick snapshot

• Quick snapshot

  • 1.47 ERA / 3.30 xERA across 18 regular-season innings; 16.7% strikeout rate / 3.0% walk rate

  • 37.7% curveball, 35.8% four-seamer, 22.6% sinker, with a handful of cutters. The two fastballs average about 95 mph; the curve averages 81.

What to watch

• Kerr has already handled a bigger October assignment than a one-inning opener. He allowed one hit over 3⅓ scoreless innings against Philadelphia on Thursday, getting through the top of its order twice. That followed a three-scoreless-inning audition as an opener in his final regular-season appearance. Whether Atlanta asks for another extended outing after only two days off is the immediate workload question.

• The curveball is essential, but it has not been untouchable. It generated a 33.3% whiff rate in the regular season; opponents also slugged .450 against it in 22 plate appearances ending on the pitch. His four-seamer held hitters to a .130 average and produced a 27.0% whiff rate. Watch whether he establishes that fastball well enough to make the curve a chase pitch, especially against the top of the Dodgers’ order. (These pitch results come from an 18-inning season sample)

• The handedness split offers little reason to pull him automatically when righties arrive. Left-handed hitters had a .457 OPS against Kerr in 26 plate appearances; righties had a .472 OPS in 40. Saturday’s order placed Mookie Betts, Will Smith and Teoscar Hernández around Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman. If Los Angeles uses a similar order, Kerr will have to retire good right-handed hitters to reach the lefties Atlanta may particularly want him to face.

The bullpen handoff

Atlanta has more late-inning choices than it did Saturday.

AJ Smith-Shawver threw 53 pitches and Brent Suter 33 in Game 1, but Didier Fuentes, Robert Suárez, Dylan Lee and Raisel Iglesias did not pitch. Walt Weiss indicated Fuentes and Suárez should be available after sitting out Saturday. Grant Holmes threw 28 pitches on Thursday; Atlanta has not committed publicly to a bulk arm behind Kerr. I would assume either Holmes or JR Ritchie could serve as a bulk arm if Weiss wants to go that route rather than a true bullpen game, and the route they take likely depends on the score - do they push the chips in if Atlanta’s trailing?

Are you ready for retirement? Ford Stokes and Zac Blackerby are Braves fans who want to help you make sure you have income for life. Email Zac (zac@activewealth.com) or Ford (ford@activewealth.com) for your free Social Security roadmap today.

Opposing Starter: LHP Blake Snell (4-1, 1.90 ERA)

Quick snapshot

• 1.90 ERA / 2.17 xERA in nine starts and 42⅔ innings

• 31.8% strikeout rate / 9.2% walk rate

• 49.5% four-seamer, 21.9% curveball, 17.8% changeup, 10.8% slider. The fastball averaged 96 mph, the curve 79.9, the changeup 84.8 and the slider 88.8.

Atlanta’s path against Snell

• The fastball–curveball combination is the principal obstacle. Hitters batted .179 and slugged .224 against his four-seamer. The curveball was even harder to square up: .111 average, .139 slugging and a 43.1% whiff rate. Simply deciding to sit on the fastball leaves Atlanta vulnerable to a breaking ball with substantial glove-side movement.

• The changeup has offered the best contact opportunity, though it still misses bats. Opponents hit .333 and slugged .424 against it, versus a 44.7% whiff rate. Those figures come from just 35 plate appearances ending on a changeup. Atlanta should look to punish one that stays up, without treating every changeup as a pitch to chase below the zone.

• A right-handed lineup is not an automatic solution. Righties managed a .503 OPS against Snell in 120 plate appearances; lefties posted a .583 OPS in 53. The smaller left-handed sample included eight walks. Baldwin, Olson and Harris have a difficult matchup, but Snell’s 2026 results do not support removing a productive lefty simply to gain the platoon advantage.

• Atlanta has seen both versions of Snell this year. In his May 9 season debut against the Braves, he gave up five runs, four earned, on six hits and two walks in three innings. He also struck out five and generated 16 swings and misses; it was hardly a case of Atlanta seeing no stuff. After the All-Star break, he posted a 1.13 ERA in eight starts, with 50 strikeouts in 39⅔ innings. The May result shows Atlanta can capitalize when he fails to finish at-bats, but it should not be assumed as his current form.

• Make him work without surrendering the hittable strike. Snell’s 9.2% walk rate creates more chances for free baserunners than Skubal’s did. Atlanta scored only once against Skubal in six innings Saturday, then made its late push against the bullpen. A walk and one well-timed swing against Snell would change the shape of this game; prolonged takes at 96 mph could just put Braves hitters into curveball counts.

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: Snell runs with a four-seamer as his only fastball, while he varies which breaking ball he’s featuring next to it - early and when behind, it’s the slider, while he swaps it out for a lot of curveballs when ahead. The changeup almost never gets thrown except as a tendency breaker in pitcher’s counts.

vs RHH: Snell’s changeup replaces the slider’s usage to righties, with the curveball continuing to predominantly be thrown in advantage counts. The slider is a threat throughout the at-bat, but it's never used heavily.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Not a lot of usage for LA so far, just single-inning stints.

As a reminder, here’s the roles for everyone:

• Closer: Tanner Scott (lefty)

• Setup: Edwin Díaz, Evan Phillips

  • Scott worked in the closer role while Díaz was out with injury this season and even after he returned, it was mostly lower-leverage situations.

• Middle relief: Alex Vesia (L), Roki Sasaki, Brock Stewart, Kris Bubic (L), Edgardo Henriquez

  • Henriquez is the big addition here - he’s been on the IL with a back issue, but made this roster and is their best flamethrowing righty in the pen. For a Braves team that’s struggled with velo at times this year, he might play a big role.

  • Vesia’s their Dylan Lee - a modest 4S/slider guy that’s trusted to handle the toughest lefties, while Bubic’s more of a Brent Suter analog - multiple pitches and can go multiple innings, with uninspiring FB velocity (91.9 mph)

  • Sasaki worked as the closer last postseason, and has both great stuff and little idea where it’s going. His splitter and forkball are two of the toughest pitches to hit on this roster, when he can manage to both throw a strike to set them up and to throw them remotely close to the zone.

Umpire information

Behind the plate: Chris Guccione. UmpScorecards lists 93.46% accuracy across 28 games in its indexed 2026 data, with his accuracy coming in -0.6% below expected and his consistency towards the bottom of the range at 93.6%. His accuracy is 50th out of 91 home plate umpires in MLB this year, with his consistency score of 93.61% being 67th out of 91.

His ABS overturn rate of 54% is tied for 44th in baseball; of 130 challenges against him, 70 have been successful.

For this matchup, pay attention to how the bottom edge is called on Kerr’s curve and Snell’s curve and changeup—and to whether hitters use an ABS challenge on a consequential borderline pitch.

Final Thought

The Braves are +194 on the moneyline to LA’s -235, and FanDuel has set the over/under at 7.5 runs. The hinge point is Can Kerr buy Atlanta enough outs to choose its next pitcher, rather than have the Dodgers choose for it?

Dodd accomplished that first task Saturday, only for the next two Atlanta arms to surrender the decisive homers. Kerr has shown he can turn over a strong lineup, and Atlanta’s rested leverage relievers give Weiss more ways to finish a close game. The Braves’ offense has a narrower assignment against Snell: get a runner on, attack a changeup left in the zone or a mistake fastball, and make Los Angeles call for its bullpen with the game still within reach.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this afternoon, after lineups were announced.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

Today’s sixth inning.

Atlanta entered the frame down 2-0, after a two-run Teoscar Hernández homer in the bottom of the 4th inning. And with Tarik Skubal cruising, having retired 15 hitters in a row after a leadoff single, things weren’t looking good for Atlanta.

Nobody told Sean Murphy.

The veteran backstop continued his domination of Skubal, quickly getting down 0-2 but battling back. On the fifth pitch of the at-bat, Skubal left a sinker at the top of the zone and Murphy didn’t miss, popping the ball 421 feet out to center field at 104.8 mph off the bat.

That was his third career homer off of Skubal and sixth hit in just 17 at-bats off of the lefty. Ha-Seong Kim followed Murphy by drawing a six-pitch walk, with Ozzie Albies working his own two-out walk a few batters later, but the Braves couldn’t finish the rally. Matt Olson flew out to left to end the inning, but Atlanta was finally on the board.

But as close as this game was, it wasn’t close for long.

With AJ Smith-Shawver coming back out for a third inning of work, he gave up a single to Teoscar and a two-run shot to Kyle Tucker. The Braves left him in the game, however, and after a strikeout of Andy Pages, he gave up yet another homer, this one a solo shot to Max Muncy. After a mound visit, he walked Tommy Edman but rebounded with a lineout of Mookie Betts to end the threat and the inning.

More on them sticking with Smith-Shawver in a minute.

Today’s Player of the Game

The combo of Dylan Dodd and Sean Murphy.

Dodd, making his first start since 2023, was masterful. He navigated his way through three scoreless innings with just two hits allowed, one being a flared single to right that everyone lost in the sun. He struck out four, including the side in the 2nd inning.

Dodd got it done today with some extra velocity, averaging 95.2 on his ‘sinker’ and touching 96.2 mph, as well as some fantastic locations of his cutter on the corners of the zone. While he had only three whiffs, he picked up ten additional called strikes and allowed just one hard-hit ball in the seven batted balls off of him.

Murphy gets credit for both navigating the bullpen game as well as the homer. Braves pitching did not get beat by LA’s stars today, with the trio of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman combining for just three singles and a strikeout.

What You’ll Be Talking About

The bullpen decisions for Atlanta, because several of them didn’t make much sense from the normally aggressive Walt Weiss.

Dodd did everything you could ask for and more, getting through three scoreless innings. But the first man out of the pen behind him was Victor Mederos, not a more traditional leverage reliever, and he wasn’t up to the task. Mederos faced four batters but recorded just one out, being charged with both runs on Teoscar’s home run and then leaving AJ Smith-Shawver with a runner on first.

For Atlanta having ridden their top leverage arms so hard in the best-of-three Wild Card series, it’s odd to see them be conservative here when they know there’s an off day coming on Monday.

And then the conservative approach continued.

After Murphy’s home run narrowed the LA lead to just one, Smith-Shawver was sent back out for another inning, the one where he coughed up the two homers that took the game out of reach. The first two batted balls should have been red flags for Atlanta’s coaching staff, too, with both being hard-hit balls off of poorly located fastballs.

But despite the warning signs, Weiss stuck with AJSS even though Dylan Lee was hot and ready to go. I know Lee’s had his own struggles recently, but he also has very good performance against both Muncy and Tucker and if you’re going to trust him against Schwarber and Harper, why not here?

Very conservative approach with the pitching today, and unless he knew that some of those leverage relievers were explicitly down for today’s opener, it’s odd.

UPDATE: Weiss did. He said after the game that Robert Suarez wasn’t an option for today no matter what, owing to how recently he returned from his elbow injury, while Fuentes was only going to be used today if they were leading.

From the transcript, here is Weiss responding to a question about navigating a series of bullpen games:

“WALT WEISS: It’s a challenge. Even today was going to be tough for us to chase from behind because of how we emptied the tank on Thursday night.

We weren’t going to pitch Fuentes from behind. It would have been 4 out of 5. Then he’s at risk tomorrow in a game that we’re up. Suarez was down because of the elbow, missing three months. We weren’t going to use him at all.

So it was going to be really tough to chase from behind today. But you know what? I’d sign up for that every time to win the previous series.”

What You’ll Be Talking About, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

The offense didn’t exactly help by refusing to capitalize on their run-scoring chance against Skubal there in the 6th, although it’s hard to fault them for not hanging a crooked number on checks notes Tarik Skubal.

But I think the overall story of the way the runs were scored today is worth discussing.

Every run in this game came courtesy of the home run, and the difference for both teams felt like it was taking advantage of mistakes.

Teoscar’s homer was a middle-middle cutter from Mederos.

Tucker’s homer off of AJSS was a fastball he left middle-middle, and he knew it, but Muncy’s was more a good piece of hitting. Said AJ after the game:

"Thought for sure the fastball (to Tucker was bad). Trying to get a little more up and in, left it a little low. Then Muncy with the splitter, I don't hate the pitch that much. Just in a zone where he handles stuff well."

Muncy’s splitter was on a 2-1 pitch and was thigh-high, on the inner third. Not a great pitch, but not a terrible one, either.

But in Atlanta’s sixth-inning rally that wasn’t, for instance, Drake Baldwin somehow got on top of a sinker in the upper third of the zone, while Ronald took a slider on the upper rail before grounding out on a slider below the zone. Olson’s inning-ending flyout saw him miss both the same elevated sinker that Murphy launched and a hanging changeup before chasing a fastball off the plate away.

(Ozzie’s 9th inning home run was off a first-pitch fastball, middle away, so not a mistake per se but definitely too casual to throw in the 9th inning with a runner on base.)

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

The Braves are back in action on Sunday night for game two, and have not yet officially announced their starter. They’re expected to go with Chris Sale, but Weiss said after the game that they haven’t officially decided and will likely wait to see how he feels in the morning before deciding. Blake Snell will get the ball for LA and first pitch is scheduled for 8PM ET.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 4:00 PM ET

• Location: UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles CA

• TV: Fox/Fox One

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan

• Weather: LA is currently in an extreme heat warning, with temperatures at first pitch expected to be 102° with a heat index of 105°. Obviously, the humidity won’t be as bad as in Atlanta, but this is weather that the Braves are accustomed to and the Dodgers are not. Said Walt Weiss before the game, “You’ve got to remember - we’re from Atlanta.”

Atlanta Braves Lineup

DH Drake Baldwin
RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
2B Ozzie Albies
1B Matt Olson
CF Michael Harris II
LF Mauricio Dubón
3B Austin Riley
C Sean Murphy
SS Ha-Seong Kim

Quick thoughts:

• Lane Thomas (oblique) returns to the roster just in time, given that he was acquired solely to hit lefties and the Braves are about to face two in a row. Manager Walt Weiss said before the game that they were giving him a rest day, given that he flew in late last night, and he would likely be in the starting lineup on Sunday.

Bench breakdown:

• Atlanta’s bench today will have:

  • Lefty 1B/DH bat: Rowdy Tellez

    • Weiss explained before the game that they liked Tellez over Dominic Smith for his past experience and production against LA’s pitchers.

  • Platoon outfielders: Mike Yastrzemski, Lane Thomas

  • 4th outfielder: Brewer Hicklen

Los Angeles Dodgers Lineup

SS Mookie Betts
DH Shohei Ohtani
C Will Smith
1B Freddie Freeman
LF Teoscar Hernández
RF Kyle Tucker
CF Andy Pages
3B Max Muncy
2B Tommy Edman

Quick thoughts:

• With a lefty opener, I was curious how aggressively manager Dave Roberts would adjust his lineup to match. The answer is that he didn’t make any changes at all - this is their standard lineup, one through nine, exactly where we predicted they’d be.

Bench breakdown:

• Backup catcher: Hunter Feduccia.

• Backup infielder/pinch-runner: Hyeseong Kim

• Backup outfielder: Josue De Paula

• Utilityman/October hero: Kiké Hernandez

Pitching Matchup

Braves Opener: LHP Dylan Dodd (4-1, 2.54)

Quick snapshot

• 2.54 ERA / 3.10 xERA in 49⅔ innings

• 27.3% strikeout rate / 7.2% walk rate

• 60.1% sinker, 35.2% cutter, 4.6% slider. His sinker averages 93.9 mph; the cutter averages 87.1.

  • Reminder, Dodd’s sinker and cutter are, functionally, a four-seamer and a slider, thanks to his unique pronation and ability to harness seam effects. We wrote about this back in August:

What to watch

• The sinker–cutter pairing is the whole opening plan. Opponents hit .161 against Dodd’s sinker and .189 against his cutter. The cutter has generated a 33.6% whiff rate, giving him a way to finish an at-bat after the sinker establishes the inner or outer edge. He has effectively stopped using a four-seamer.

• His season splits support the opener choice, but they do not guarantee a platoon advantage. Lefties produced a .622 OPS against Dodd in 86 plate appearances; righties were at .564 in 108. That is encouraging for an opener who might see both Mookie Betts and several of the Dodgers’ left-handed stars. It is also a small enough sample that Atlanta should make its next move based on the actual batting order and Dodd’s command, not the split alone.

• The first transition matters more than an arbitrary inning limit. A short Dodd appearance could let Atlanta choose a right-hander for the middle of the order rather than ask one pitcher to get Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman out a second time. Unlike Thursday’s clincher, we don’t have a track record this season of Dodd working as an opener. Dodd recorded one out in Thursday’s clincher against Philadelphia, but has two different three-inning outings this season.

Opposing Starter: LHP Tarik Skubal (12-7, 2.62 ERA)

Quick snapshot

• 2.72 ERA / 2.94 xERA

• 30.0% strikeout rate / 4.4% walk rate

• 38.0% four-seamer, 25.6% changeup, 17.5% sinker, 13.9% slider, 5.0% curveball. His four-seamer and sinker both average about 97 mph; the changeup averages 87.7.

Atlanta’s path against Skubal

• Prepare for the changeup even in a left-on-left matchup. Its 46.9% whiff rate and .308 opponent slugging percentage make it his chief putaway pitch. Skubal also uses it against lefties, pairing its arm-side movement with a power sinker. A lineup packed with right-handed bats does not make the changeup disappear, and Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin and Michael Harris II cannot assume they will see only sinkers and sliders.

• Left-handed hitters have had more success against him this season, with a sample warning attached. They posted a .706 OPS in 144 plate appearances, compared with a .566 OPS for righties in 476. That is a reason to resist treating Atlanta’s lefties as automatic outs; it is not evidence that the Braves should try to stack the lineup against the platoon.

• The sinker is the contact pitch. Hitters batted .270 against it, and its whiff rate was 18.5%, well below the changeup’s. Skubal can still use a 97 mph sinker to get a ground ball or set up the change, so Atlanta’s opening is a hittable pitch in the zone, not a reason to swing at everything firm.

• Do not count on free baserunners. A 4.4% walk rate makes an extended patience-only plan difficult. Atlanta needs competitive early-count swings when Skubal offers a strike, while refusing to chase the changeup below the zone. His final regular-season start was seven scoreless innings against San Francisco; Los Angeles removed him after 75 pitches with October in mind.

• There is no easy “wait for the postseason version” argument. Across six previous playoff starts, Skubal has a 2.04 ERA with 56 strikeouts in 39⅔ innings. With the Dodgers, he has a 2.61 ERA with 70 strikeouts in 62 innings. His one start against Atlanta this season was seven innings of two-run ball in late April, striking out seven with no walks and five hits. Both those runs came courtesy of an Ozzie Albies first-inning homer.

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: The goal here is to get to the four-seamer/changeup combination - Skubal will throw a lot of sinkers early and when behind, but when he has the advantage, it’s that combo. The slider is an occasional strike stealer early and when he’s behind, while the curveball makes the occasional appearance early and when he’s ahead.

vs RHH: It’s four-seam/changeup/slider to righties, with the changeup getting more run when ahead and the slider more when behind. The sinker’s pretty consistently a 1-in-10 pitch in any situation, while the curveball maintains just the occasional 1-in-20 usage the entire at-bat.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

Are you ready for retirement? Ford Stokes and Zac Blackerby are Braves fans who want to help you make sure you have income for life. Email Zac (zac@activewealth.com) or Ford (ford@activewealth.com) for your free Social Security roadmap today.

Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder: these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available/potential limitations:

• The only reliever that’s explicitly down is likely Ray Kerr. Outside of that, it’s all hands on deck.

Quick takeaway:

• The thing to watch for if this ends up being a more traditional bullpen game instead of an opener/bulk arm arrangement is who gets Ohtani and Freeman the 2nd time through the order?

Opponent Bullpen Status

No one’s pitched for LA in the last five days, so there shouldn’t be anyone outright down. Instead, let’s look at the handedness options and their roles this season.

• Closer: Tanner Scott (lefty)

• Setup: Edwin Díaz, Evan Phillips

  • Scott worked in the closer role while Díaz was out with injury this season and even after he returned, it was mostly lower-leverage situations.

• Middle relief: Alex Vesia (L), Roki Sasaki, Brock Stewart, Kris Bubic (L), Edgardo Henriquez

  • Henriquez is the big addition here - he’s been on the IL with a back issue, but made this roster and is their best flamethrowing righty in the pen. For a Braves team that’s struggled with velo at times this year, he might play a big role.

  • Vesia’s their Dylan Lee - a modest 4S/slider guy that’s trusted to handle the toughest lefties, while Bubic’s more of a Brent Suter analog - multiple pitches and can go multiple innings, with uninspiring FB velocity (91.9 mph)

  • Sasaki worked as the closer last postseason, and has both great stuff and little idea where it’s going. His splitter and forkball are two of the toughest pitches to hit on this roster, when he can manage to both throw a strike to set them up and to throw them remotely close to the zone.

Umpire information

Behind the plate: Roberto Ortiz. UmpScorecards lists 28 plate games for him this season, with 92.9% called-pitch accuracy against 93.7% expected accuracy—a difference of 0.80 percentage points below expectation.

I don’t know much about him, truthfully, which means he lives where most umpires should - roughly average and not standing out in any way, good to bad.

The actionable note is to watch his low-zone calls early: Skubal wants the changeup below the zone, and Dodd’s sinker–cutter combination depends on getting ahead without drifting over the plate.

Final Thought

The Braves are +190 on the moneyline to LA’s -230, and FanDuel has set the over/under at 8.5 runs. The hinge point is Can Atlanta turn a controlled first trip through the Dodgers’ order into a favorable first pitching change?

Dodd has earned this opening look with two effective pitches and success against hitters on both sides. Skubal, meanwhile, gives the Dodgers a starter who rarely walks anyone and can finish righties and lefties with his changeup. Atlanta’s best route is to keep Dodd’s assignment clean, choose the next arm for the lineup actually on the field, and make its limited strikes against Skubal count.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this afternoon, after lineups were announced.

We gotta make an all-out stand.”

My eight-year-old son recently discovered the musical Hamilton as his school was preparing for Constitution Day, the commemoration of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. The lines come from George Washington, recruiting Alexander Hamilton to be his “Right Hand Man” as he tries - unsuccessfully - to repel British General William Howe’s invasion of New York.

But it’s pretty fitting for Atlanta’s NL Division Series matchup with the Los Angeles Dodgers this weekend.

Former Reds first baseman and current commentator Joey Votto agrees, telling MLB Network on Friday that the Braves are playing from behind this weekend. "They're going to be outpitched, outoffensed, not (out) defensed, but overall I think that the Dodgers are the clearly better team."

But the Dodgers advancing to a third consecutive NL Championship Series is not a fait accompli. The Braves have the ability to challenge a Los Angeles team that coasted through much of the regular season - rarely pushed to its limits, and not always responding particularly well when someone managed to do it.

Let’s talk about it.

Outgunned: the rotation gap

The Braves have faced great rotations this season - hell, they just took down one of baseball’s best in Philadelphia. Against the quartet of Jesús Luzardo, Cristopher Sánchez, Aaron Nola, and Zack Wheeler in the NL Wild Card round, Atlanta scored nine runs in 17 1/3 innings, tagging the quartet for 14 hits and 11 walks.

But Los Angeles is another level of elite.

Manager Dave Roberts confirmed Friday that Los Angeles would be giving the ball to trade deadline acquisition Tarik Skubal, the back-to-back American League Cy Young winner, for Saturday’s game one. That elite lefty will be succeeded in Sunday’s game two by yet another left-handed two-time Cy Young winner in veteran Blake Snell, with righties Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow pitching games three and four in Atlanta next week.

And even against the bar that Philadelphia’s rotation set, this is still a murderers’ row of talent. The fifth starter that’s being relegated to the bullpen for this series, youngster Justin Wrobleski, had a 3.66 ERA this season and was an All-Star.

Three grade out as plus-to-elite overall by Stuff+, and even Glasnow’s merely above-average 101 comes with a curveball that grades at an absurd 153. Snell’s curve is right up there at 147, as well.

Three of the four have strikeout rates above 28%, with Yamamoto’s roughly average 25.7% strikeout rate being counterweighted by one of the league’s lowest walk rates (5.9%), an impressive 81st percentile ground ball rate of 48.6%, and a Statcast card without a single bit of blue on it.

Outmanned and outnumbered: The lineup depth

LA’s 5-1 loss to the Padres on September 23rd wasn’t that notable - San Diego was in the midst of a heater at the time and was destroying everyone in their path - except for one overlooked detail: The lineup LA rolled out.

SS Mookie Betts
DH Shohei Ohtani
C Will Smith
1B Freddie Freeman
LF Teoscar Hernández
RF Kyle Tucker
CF Andy Pages
3B Max Muncy
2B Tommy Edman

It was LA’s intended “A” lineup as they entered spring training. It was also the first time all season that those nine players were in the same lineup.

The Dodgers dealt with injuries that impacted the availability of almost everyone this season, from losing Ohtani to biceps and knee issues to Edman recovering from ankle surgery, Smith’s neck inflammation, Teoscar’s hamstring strain, and Pages missing a month with a broken hand.

It’s reminiscent of the 2024 Atlanta Braves, who got exactly five innings of their Opening Day lineup before injuries started subtracting pieces.

The difference is that 24’s Braves never got fully healthy again, limping into the postseason as the first playoff team to lose three different Opening Day starters for the final 35+ games of the regular season and still make the dance.

LA’s lineup is fully healthy, and they’ve started to overcome their slumps, too.

Kyle Tucker has been one of MLB’s biggest disappointments this season, signing for an absurd $55M AAV (plus another $45M in tax penalties, given LA’s bloated payroll) and returning a .233/.330/.385 line with just 17 home runs.

But in the month of September, Tucker’s hitting .262/.354/.536, walking three percent more than he’s striking out (13.1%/10.1%), and hitting six of those 17 home runs in the month.

Both Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández are red hot, putting up lines that begin with 3/4/5 and scoring a combined 33 runs with 40 RBI. Even Max Muncy, normally a lower-average slugger, is hitting .260 with a 125 wRC+.

LA’s offense, for the month of September, has baseball’s 2nd-highest wRC+ at 121 and was fourth in runs with 131.

Atlanta has stars capable of matching Los Angeles at the top of the lineup. The problem is what happens after that. There are very few places for a pitcher to breathe against the Dodgers when Max Muncy is hitting eighth and Tommy Edman ninth. The Braves haven’t consistently had that luxury.

Outplanned: Los Angeles got to prepare for this

While the Dodgers did not know who they were facing until the Braves won on Thursday night, they haven’t played a game since Sunday. LA had the luxury of low-intensity workouts at Dodger Stadium all week, getting in their work during the day and holding their now-trademark in-stadium watch parties for the Wild Card round at night.

Among the highlights of the week for Los Angeles has been extra work on their Trajekt pitching simulator, both to stay prepared for high velocity in general and to specifically get looks against Braves ace Chris Sale. The lefty threw a complete-game shutout against them in September, striking out eleven with no walks and only five hits.

They’ve also been resting their banged-up veterans, with Freddie Freeman specifically being singled out as someone who needed the time to get healthy. He got extra rest in September, a response to a sore knee that’s dragged down his offense to a mere .658 OPS across his last 66 games. Shohei Ohtani claims he is in a “better place” with his bothersome right bicep and left knee, which both impacted him down the stretch.

As we know from Austin Riley early this season and others in recent years, there’s a difference between being on the field and being fully healthy. LA still isn’t fully healthy, and likely won’t until the games are over, but they’re closer now than they’ve been at any point this season.

Los Angeles got to prepare for October. Atlanta had to battle all week just to get there.

We gotta make an all-out stand

Okay, so how could Atlanta win?

Well, it’s simple: The Dodgers enter this series better prepared. The Braves may enter it better rehearsed. Atlanta can’t magically become more talented than Los Angeles by this afternoon. But they can make the series messier than LA wants it to be.

Atlanta spent September playing the sort of games Los Angeles was preparing to play. The Braves went through a series of one-run battles with Philadelphia, repeatedly faced elite starting pitching and still found ways to win, and then survived an actual Wild Card round to get here.

They’ve also already gone into Dodger Stadium once this season and won three times. That doesn’t mean much once Game 1 starts Saturday, but it does mean Atlanta isn’t arriving in Los Angeles wondering whether it can beat this team.

More importantly, it has spent weeks learning how to win when Plan A doesn’t survive contact with the enemy.

The obvious game plan for Los Angeles here involves a long outing from an elite starter, backed by Ohtani and Freeman and Betts et al. mashing, and then turning the final two innings over to a strong back of the bullpen. Edwin Diaz is finally healthy, while Tanner Scott’s rounded into form as the fill-in closer most of the year, backed by injury returner Evan Phillips and breakout righty Edgardo Henriquez. LA’s had to ride starters in their bullpen in the postseason in the past, but with four elite starters capable of carrying six or seven innings, the Dodgers might be able to treat the postseason like just another game for their pitching plan.

If Atlanta lets LA stick to the game plan, the Braves are probably in trouble.

But what if they can make this messy?

If Atlanta can find a way to get to one of these starters and make them struggle early, even knock them out and force LA to call on the pen much earlier than ideal, this gets complicated for the Dodgers. If they’re running through their bullpen leverage arms and it’s a one-run game in the 7th, with Atlanta throwing out pinch hitters (including, potentially, outfielder Lane Thomas (oblique), who is a possibility to make the roster) to counter LA’s relievers, the Dodgers may suddenly have to find the last six outs from pitchers they didn’t intend to ask for them.

That’s a version of baseball that Atlanta has been playing for weeks.

LA hasn’t had to. Sure, they’ve run some bullpen games as they were waiting to get some of these injured starters back, but their hearts weren’t in it. They haven’t played with the intensity Atlanta has - they’ve been in cruise control, waiting for October.

The Braves have been playing postseason-caliber opponents, in postseason-caliber environments, with postseason-caliber intensity, for the last month.

The Braves are outgunned. They may be outmanned and outplanned, too.

Fortunately, October doesn’t ask which roster looks better on paper.

It asks who can find three wins.

Atlanta has spent the last month practicing how.

Here is Today’s Three Things from the contest.

The Turning Point

I genuinely believe it was the first inning.

Philly was starting Aaron Nola, and he was great against Atlanta in September - three earned runs in 13.1 innings, with only three walks.

He walked two in the first inning today, and Atlanta cashed them both in. Michael Harris drove in Ronald Acuña Jr. and Matt Olson with a towering home run using his golf swing - he went down and got a Nola sinker that was just 1.19 feet off the ground. Per Mark Simon of Sports Info Solutions, who reached out to Braves Today mid-game, that was the lowest pitch Harris has EVER hit for a home run in his major league career.

The 3-0 lead for the Braves ended up sticking, as Atlanta won 6-2, and the reason is that both of these walks and their 4th inning walk (Austin Riley, with one out) all were immediately cashed in by home runs. They didn’t waste the opportunities today, not after doing so in the first two games of the series.

Today’s Player of the Game

Reliever Ray Kerr, with 59% of the vote.

Kerr was asked to open the game, with the lefty being tasked with getting past sluggers Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper in the first inning so that Grant Holmes had some space to work.

Kerr did that and more, pitching 3.1 scoreless innings with just one hit and one walk allowed while striking out two. He actually handled Schwarber and Harper twice, being lifted after a force out by Harper in the 4th that erased Schwarber’s leadoff walk.

The former 7/11 employee, who missed two full seasons of his career while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, had Slurpee in his veins tonight (complimentary) and was celebrated by the sold-out Truist Park after the outing ended.

While he got only five whiffs and allowed an average exit velocity of 93.7 mph, Kerr persevered through the outing thanks to his aggressiveness — he was attacking every batter from the very beginning, mixing his trademark curveball and a slider-ish cutter to great effect to strike out Harper in the first and Bryson Stott in the second.

If you know his story - and if you don’t, Friend of the Show Jesús Cano of The Athletic has you covered - you can’t help but root for the guy.

What You’ll Be Talking About

As much cool stuff as there was to talk about from this game - the parade of bullpen arms, the three homers, Matt Olson’s phenomenal scoops and defense at first base - we’ve gotta talk about Chris Sale.

By closing out tonight’s game three with four outs, He became the first pitcher to both throw the first and last pitch of a postseason series since…he did it for the Boston Red Sox back in 2018. He’s also the oldest pitcher to ever do that in the postseason.

Sale, who started Tuesday’s game one, was lined up for his normal between-starts throw day today, but Walt Weiss wasn’t going to ask him to make an appearance. “I was not going to go to Chris Sale and ask him if he could pitch, because I know that even if he was hanging, he would tell me yes,” he told BravesVision’s Wiley Ballard. “He was going to have to initiate that. And literally, as soon as I stepped in my office today, he was sitting in my chair across from my desk and said ‘I feel unbelievable. I’m ready to go’, and so we kind of mapped out a plan.”

Per MLB’s Sarah Langs, only three pitchers older than Sale have pitched 6+ innings in the postseason and then appeared on 1 or 0 days rest:

2003 ALCS G7: David Wells (40y, 149d)
1926 WS G7: Grover Alexander (39y, 226d)
2001 WS G7: Randy Johnson (38y 55d)

More fun stats here, courtesy of Opta Stats: Sale’s the first MLB pitcher to strike out nine or more batters and then have 3+ strikeouts in a relief appearance within the next two days since his idol Randy Johnson did it in the 1995 ALDS against the Yankees.

Sale confirmed to Gabe Burns of the AJC that despite tonight’s 21 pitches, he’d be ready for his next start, which lines up for Sunday in game two versus the Dodgers. “If I’d have to pitch tomorrow, I’d pitch tomorrow.”

Looking for more discussion about this game?

Here’s tonight’s Postcast, with me and Locked On Braves host Jake Mastroianni, as we went live to break down the contest.

What’s Next for the Braves?

Atlanta’s having a sendoff at Truist Park tomorrow at 12:30 PM, as the team’s flying to Los Angeles for Saturday’s start of the NLDS versus the Dodgers. Game one, as of now, is scheduled for 4:00 PM ET from Dodger Stadium, with game two coming on Sunday at 8PM.

Game Info

• First Pitch: 8:15 PM ET

• Location: Truist Park, Atlanta GA

• TV: NBC/Peacock

• Radio: 680 AM/93.7 FM The Fan

• Weather: Courtesy of BravesWX on Twitter/X

Atlanta Braves Lineup

C Drake Baldwin
RF Ronald Acuña Jr.
1B Matt Olson
CF Michael Harris II
SS Mauricio Dubón
LF Mike Yastrzemski
3B Austin Riley
2B Ozzie Albies
DH Dominic Smith

Quick thoughts:

• WOO BOY do I have thoughts on this one - Dominic Smith instead of Sean Murphy seems like some sort of focus on Smith’s career numbers off of Nola (.774 OPS) instead of how they’ve played recently - Smith hasn’t seen Nola since 2024, when he singled off of him, and he hasn’t recorded an XBH off Nola since 2021. The lone homer in Smith’s career off of Nola came back in 2018. Dominic is 3-14 off of Nola in the last four seasons, striking out six times, so yeah, let’s go with your designated hitter in the #9 spot in the order.

  • I hope I’ve reverse jinxed this. Slander works, after all. We’ve always said that.

  • Sure, Murphy’s not been that good off of Nola - 0-6 this year and 3-17 lifetime - but at least he’s hitting the ball well right now. He SCORCHED a double off of Cristopher Sánchez yesterday, while Smith struck out looking to end the game in extras.

Bench breakdown:

• Atlanta’s bench today will have:

  • Lefty 1B/DH bat: Rowdy Tellez

  • 4th outfielder: Brewer Hicklen

  • Backup catcher: Sean Murphy

  • Infielder: Ha-Seong Kim

  • Pinch-runners: DaShawn Keirsey Jr. and Luke Williams, who also serves as the backup utility man.

• Atlanta’s taxi squad includes pitchers JR Ritchie and AJ Smith-Shawver, as well as infielder Kyle Farmer and catcher Maverick Handley.

Philadelphia Phillies Lineup

SS Trea Turner
DH Kyle Schwarber
RF Bryce Harper
1B Alec Bohm
2B Bryson Stott
LF Bryan De La Cruz
3B Edmundo Sosa
C J.T. Realmuto
CF Justin Crawford

Quick thoughts:

• I wondered, with the Braves using a lefty opener, if the Phillies would punt an early AB to get Brandon Marsh in the starting lineup. They did not, but they split the difference by putting Justin Crawford in there but moving him down to the #9 spot in the order. They clearly don’t expect Kerr to get there.

• After Edmundo Sosa apparently aggravated his groin injury by beating out an infield grounder yesterday, he is IN today’s lineup.

Bench breakdown:

• Two catchers: Rafael Marchán and Garrett Stubbs

  • Philly’s three catchers this season put up a collective .539 OPS, the worst mark in baseball.

• Utilityman Otto Kemp (on the roster for injured Luis Arraez).

• Platoon outfielder Brandon Marsh, who I’m guessing gets into the game as soon as Kerr leaves.

• Backup outfielder Derek Hill (CF/LF defensive option)

Pitching Matchup

Braves Opener: LHP Ray Kerr (0-0, 1.47)

Quick snapshot

• 1.47 ERA in 18⅓ innings since returning in August. It is an encouraging run, with a small sample behind it.

• His 2026 mix: 35.8% four-seamer, 31.1% curveball, 22.6% sinker, 6.6% slow curve and 3.8% cutter. The four-seamer has averaged 94.9 mph.

What to watch:

• The assignment is Schwarber and Harper, not a predetermined number of innings. Kerr gives Atlanta a left-hander against the two left-handed hitters who changed Game 2 with back-to-back homers. Lefties have gone 4-for-23, all singles and a double, against Kerr this year. That is a reason to choose the matchup, though 23 at-bats cannot guarantee the result.

• They have already rehearsed the opener-to-Holmes handoff. Atlanta opened with Kerr before Holmes’s scheduled turn last Friday. Kerr worked three scoreless innings against Miami; Weiss has described the decision to use him as matchup-driven. Today’s first inning will determine whether Atlanta takes a quick handoff or asks Kerr for more.

• Do not reduce Kerr to a left-on-left specialist. Righties went 5-for-37 against him this season, although both home runs he allowed came against them. If Trea Turner reaches ahead of Schwarber and Harper, Kerr still has to deal with a dangerous right-handed hitter before he gets to the platoon advantage.

• Watch the curveball’s location. Kerr’s four-seamer held hitters to a .130 average in its limited 2026 sample, while the curveball produced a 33.3% whiff rate but also a .450 slugging percentage against. It can finish a plate appearance; a curveball that stays up can also undo the reason for opening with him.

Braves Bulk Arm: RHP Grant Holmes (10-6, 3.47)

Quick snapshot

• 3.44 ERA / 5.05 xERA in 151⅔ innings, with a 17.9% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rate. He posted a 2.94 ERA over his final 14 starts.

• Six-pitch mix led by a 36.2% slider, followed by 28.3% four-seamer, 12.5% sinker, 8.1% cutter, 7.7% curveball and 7.3% changeup.

What to watch

• The slider is his route to misses. Hitters batted .211 against it, and it generated a 40.3% whiff rate. His four-seamer generated only a 15.6% whiff rate, with opponents slugging .480 against it. Holmes needs the fastball in useful spots so Philadelphia cannot wait for a firm pitch while declining the slider below the zone.

• The opener may protect the most important part of Holmes’s outing. Opponents posted a .590 OPS on their first look at Holmes in a game and an .886 OPS on their second. If Kerr gets through the top of the order, Holmes could first encounter Philadelphia’s middle and lower hitters. The difficult decision comes when Schwarber and Harper cycle back for their second look at Holmes later on.

• The lefties have not been his chief platoon problem this year. Left-handed hitters produced a .683 OPS against Holmes; righties produced a .753 OPS. Kerr’s value is concentrated at the start of the game, particularly after yesterday’s eighth inning. Once Holmes enters, the entire lineup matters, including Bohm and J.T. Realmuto.

• His ERA and contact indicators tell different stories. The 5.05 xERA is substantially higher than his 3.44 ERA. That does not predict a bad outing tonight, but it makes early hard contact more meaningful than a clean score line might suggest. Weiss should be ready to act before a second trip through the heart of the order becomes a third.

Opposing Starter: RHP Aaron Nola (7-12, 4.67 ERA)

Quick snapshot

• 7–12, 4.67 ERA / 4.18 xERA, with a 23.8% strikeout rate and 7.9% walk rate.

• Pitch mix: 33.3% curveball at 78.4 mph; 24.0% four-seamer at 92.3; 18.2% sinker at 91.6; 16.3% changeup at 85.6; 7.6% cutter, with a seldom-used slider.

Atlanta’s path against Nola

• The curveball is still the pitch to respect. It accounts for one-third of Nola’s pitches, and hitters have batted .177 against it with a 41.1% whiff rate. The Braves need to recognize the curve early enough to take the one that drops below the zone. Its movement and Nola’s willingness to throw it make a simple “sit fastball” plan difficult.

• His fastballs present the scoring chance. Nola’s four-seamer averages 92.3 mph, his sinker 91.6. The season gap between his 4.67 ERA and 4.18 xERA suggests some of the damage exceeded what Statcast’s contact model expected, but neither figure turns the fastball into his best weapon. Atlanta should be prepared to attack one in the zone before falling into curveball counts.

• Neither side of the plate offers a safe matchup for Nola. Lefties hit .251/.332/.464 with 22 homers against him; righties hit .278/.303/.509 with 15 homers. The left-handed Braves can pressure him without requiring Riley and Acuña to carry every scoring opportunity.

• His recent work deserves more weight than his season ERA alone. Nola had a 3.33 second-half ERA and a 4.50 ERA in three starts against Atlanta this season. He is capable of giving Philadelphia real length, which matters because the Phillies used Andrew Painter for the final three innings of Game 2.

• The Braves might have to beat a second starter. Philadelphia has discussed Zack Wheeler as a Game 3 option, including in relief. Manager Don Mattingly has called the pitching plan “all hands on deck”; Luzardo and Painter also said they could be available, although Painter’s three innings yesterday make any further assignment a workload decision. Atlanta cannot assume that removing Nola means a conventional middle reliever is next.

How he attacks hitters (all graphics courtesy of Thomas Nestico)

vs LHH: The goal here is to get to the knuckle curve - Nola goes four-seam/changeup early, ramping up the curve and the sinker when ahead. He throws more cutters early in the at-bat than when he gets to two strikes, while the four-seam and changeup fade out of the picture with two strikes.

vs RHH: It’s knuckle-curves and the fastball family versus righties, with the changeup fading back to a minor role. All three fastballs cut back when he gets ahead in favor of more curves, while the cutter almost entirely fades with two strikes.

Sequencing:

How to read a plinko chart: Each circle represents the usage of a pitcher’s arsenal in a given count (color key is on the bottom of the graphic). The thickness of the connecting lines reflects how often each count occurs, helping show how a pitcher navigates an at-bat.

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Braves Bullpen Status

(Reminder: these are all assumptions based on pitch count and recent usage)

Likely available/potential limitations:

• The trio of Didier Fuentes, Dylan Lee, and Raisel Iglesias have pitched in back-to-back days. Lee likely can’t/won’t pitch today, while Fuentes has never been asked to pitch on three straight days. Iglesias has just sixteen pitches and a history of pitching on three consecutive days, so it’s likely he pitches today.

Quick takeaway:

• Fuentes getting into today’s game (and how effective he would be if he did) is the big question for game three.

Opponent Bullpen Status

Likely Available/Potential Limitations:

• Other than Cristopher Sánchez and Andrew Painter, I can’t imagine anyone is explicitly down today for Philadelphia. Maybe Jesús Luzardo, after 77 pitches on Tuesday.

Quick takeaway:

• Does Philly go to Zack Wheeler out of the pen behind Nola to bridge to Jhoan Duran, or are they comfortable asking actual relievers to handle it?

Umpire information

Behind the plate: Mark Ripperger. UmpScorecards lists 31 plate games for him this season, with 94.80% called-pitch accuracy against 94.2% expected accuracy—a difference of 0.60 percentage points above expectation.

He’s typically considered one of the best umpires in the game, with BravesVision analyst CJ Nitkowski noting that his 96% Correct Call percentage is 2nd-best and he gets calls overturned via ABS 10% less often than league average.

The useful live read is the bottom edge. Kerr’s curveball, Holmes’s slider and Nola’s curveball all create consequential takes there. Game 2 ended when Philadelphia successfully challenged an inside ball call for strike three; the ABS system can become part of a late-game decision again. Watch the zone Ripperger establishes, then whether either catcher challenges a high-value take.

Final Thought

The Braves are -110 on the moneyline to Philly’s -106, practically a toss-up (and these odds were flipped at 3PM), and FanDuel has set the over/under at 7.5 runs. The hinge point is When does the top of Philadelphia’s order get its next look at Holmes?

Kerr’s job is to interrupt the Turner–Schwarber–Harper opening sequence that produced two of yesterday’s decisive swings. Holmes’s slider can carry the middle innings, but his results deteriorated sharply the second time hitters saw him within a game. The critical moment may arrive before the seventh: Schwarber and Harper due up again, Holmes’s pitch count climbing, and Weiss deciding whether the matchup still favors the bulk arm.

For Atlanta’s hitters, the parallel task is to score on Nola’s hittable fastballs before his curveball controls the counts—and before Wheeler or Duran enters the game.

Let’s Talk About It

If you’d rather watch this, here’s the Braves Today live stream from this afternoon, after lineups were announced.