The Atlanta Braves Have One Chance to Fix This

It's been a frustrating 2025 season and there's only one offseason for the front office to fix things

As we’ve written at least half a dozen times by this point, this has been a nightmare season for the Atlanta Braves.

Entering Thursday’s series opener with the Miami Marlins, the Braves were behind Miami in the standings - nine games back, in fact, sitting at 47-66 and in fourth place.

It’s an unfamiliar position for Atlanta to be in. Prior to last night’s game, the Braves were on pace for a 68-94 season. If they were to lose 100 games, it would be just the third time since the franchise moved to Atlanta in 1966 that the franchise lost 100 games in one season. Only one time in the past 35 years have the Braves have a lower winning percentage than this season’s .420: 2015, where they lost 95 games and finished with a .414 winning percentage.

But the team’s making money and already trying to improve next year’s roster, with general manager Alex Anthopoulos telling us last week that they internally viewed the trade deadline as their first chance to improve the roster for next season. “I viewed it as our off-season started now, and that's really the approach that we took. […] We don't need to wait for November free agency to start our offseason. I mean, those conversations are starting. This was an opportunity in a window, right? Because GMs are engaged. There's no distraction of free agency. Thirty clubs can talk to each other and make trades and talk players, so we had a lot of discussions, trade discussions and internal discussions, about what the roster can look like for next year.”

Atlanta Braves Holdings Chairman Terry McGuirk echoed the sentiment in an investor call on Thursday. “We had dry powder in our arsenal for the trade deadline this year for payroll. Our threshold for investment there was, basically, that investment either needed to move us towards a playoff position this year or help us dramatically in ‘26. Our limited activity during that period sort of reflected the inability of the market to meet those two requirements.”

How do they fix this, though? And will they? Let’s talk about it.

What’s the problem?

Despite his commitment to look at “everything that contributes to winning and losing during the offseason”, McGuirk is starting from a belief about what happened this year. As he explained on Thursday, “There’s some underperformance, but the majority of it is injuries and missing players.”

Is he right? I’m not so sure.

While it’s true that the Atlanta Braves got exactly thirteen games with their intended “A” lineup because of the suspension of Jurickson Profar and injuries to Ronald Acuña Jr. and Austin Riley, they weren’t exactly worldbeaters in those games.

From July 2nd through 10th and then July 25th through 29th (with Riley being the one out of the lineup in the interim with an abdominal issue), the Braves hit just .229 and scored 4.38 runs per game across a stretch where they were 3-10. They struck out 113 times against 101 hits (23 homers) and 54 walks.

Now, there is yet another caveat here - Only three of those games had a starting pitcher that was in Atlanta’s Opening Day rotation (Grant Holmes for all three), although another three featured Spencer Strider after he returned in late May from his 2nd injured list stint of the season.

But even early in the season, the team was struggling - the 2025 Atlanta Braves were never more than one game over .500, coming on May 18th, despite having a rotation that was once again one of the best in all of MLB. And once the rotation all went down with injury, there was virtually no hope - entering Thursday night’s series opener with Miami, the Braves were just 5-13 since the All-Star Break.

So, what does Atlanta need to do to fix it?

More depth and performance

I think we can learn something from the reports that Alex Anthopoulos was looking to trade for Minnesota Twins outfielder Byron Buxton. Namely, that the team’s prepared to add an impact player somehow this winter and figure out the playing time part of it later.

We’ve seen this before, by the way - the Atlanta Braves signed slugger Josh Donaldson to a one-year deal¹ entering the 2019 season, deciding to move young third baseman Austin Riley to left field to accommodate the veteran Donaldson. The Auburn product rewarded the Braves with a .259/.379/.521 season, hitting 37 homers and getting downballot MVP votes before re-entering the free agency market and signing a disastrous four-year deal with the Minnesota Twins.

The Buxton acquisition would have done two things: given the team a high-level performer in the outfield at a value (his contract is for roughly $14.2M AAV for three more seasons) and created a playing time logjam. The Braves, who already have Jurickson Profar, Michael Harris, and Ronald Acuña under control for the next two years, would have needed to either option Harris to AAA, move Profar’s contract, or strategically use the designated hitter spot to get everyone in the lineup while they waited for the depth to work itself out.²

While we’re going to dive into this at length after the season, my early, simplistic view of the offense is that Atlanta needs at least two of these three things to get back to playoff contention in 2026:

1. Hot starts (and consistent performance) from the ‘aircraft carriers’ - Matt Olson, Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr.

2. Fixing three of the four offensive black holes from this season - second base, shortstop, left field, and center field

3. Adequate depth to fill in without a massive drop off when one (or two) of those players misses time due to injury

The pitching staff is in a similar position.

1. Healthy seasons from the ‘aircraft carriers’ - Chris Sale, Spencer Strider, and Spencer Schwellenbach

2. Finding three medium-to-high leverage arms, preferably including a closer

3. Adequate mid-rotation depth to fill in for the inevitable injuries - not journeymen, but potential #4 (or low-end #3) starters.

The deck is cleared to do this

Atlanta’s payroll should be in a very good position as they enter the offseason. Early projections are that they will have just $159M committed for next season, prior to buyouts, arbitration awards and club options. They’re shedding payroll in the form of a combined $32M on Marcell Ozuna and Raisel Iglesias, as well as another $10M in dead money owed to Alex Verdugo, David Fletcher, and other players no longer factoring into Atlanta’s plans.

It’s a robust free agency class, if the Braves want to go that route. While I don’t think the Braves should go out and sign Bo Bichette, there are multiple options at the top of the starting pitching market if they want to make an impact splash. There are also several utility options that can rotate through multiple positions until needed to cover an injury, like Willi Castro, Jorge Mateo, and Kiké Hernández.

The relief market should also be strong, especially if some big names like Edwin Díaz and Robert Suarez exercise their opt-outs to join closers like Devin Williams, Kenley Jansen, Raisel Iglesias, and Michael Kopech on the market.

The Braves could also attempt another Buxton-like trade, taking on an onerous contract in exchange for minimal prospect return. I could also see the Braves trying to be strategic with an acquisition to address shortstop. A player Atlanta might target is Seattle Mariners shortstop J.P. Crawford, who is owed $12M for his age-31 season and is blocking several of baseball’s top prospects, including MLB Top 15 prospect Colt Emerson. While it’s unlikely that Seattle considers Emerson ready for the majors, Crawford is exactly the type of “bridge” shortstop that I expect Anthopoulos to target this offseason in a trade, knowing that he can fall back to another season of Nick Allen’s superb glove but anemic bat if the rest of the lineup is hitting around him.

The natives are restless

It’s important that Atlanta gets this right, though. Amid frustration with significantly higher season ticket prices, the second-quarter financials, which we broke down yesterday, already showed lower attendance in Q2, when the Braves were still flirting with .500 and had a positive run differential.

Imagine what the Q3 attendance figures will look like - announced crowds of 42k have already become announced crowds of 32k and the team likely won’t exceed three million total fans for the first time since 2021.

Attendance just moments before game time on Thursday

And anecdotally, a lot of fans have already expressed disbelief that the team will be aggressive in free agency to shore up the team’s deficiencies. “I’ll believe it when I see it” is the common refrain, and I think a lot of that comes from last winter’s initial proclamation that payroll would be going up, combined with payroll…not doing that.

But now the Braves have both a luxury tax that has been reset and the “dry powder”, to steal McGuirk’s favorite saying, to allow them to add. I predict there will be at least two splashes, although whether or not they’re via trade or free agency remains to be seen.

And if there’s not…Alex Anthopoulos might want to make sure his number’s unlisted.

1. This remains the only time in the Atlanta tenure of Alex Anthopoulos that he paid someone more than $22M a year to play for the Braves, as Donaldson’s deal was 1/23M.

2. Depth always works itself out, whether it be via injury or underperformance