The Atlanta Braves Were Maddingly Close To a Playoff Berth

With just some more average luck, or better clutch performances, the Braves could have played a Wild Card game today.

(Special thanks to Braves Today subscriber Allen for the inspiration and initial legwork on this newsletter.)

Let’s take a moment to collectively revel in the misfortune of the New York Mets.

Owners of MLB’s best record after 69 games at a nice 45-24, they finished 38-55 and went from a 5.5 game lead in the National League East to losing the third and final Wild Card spot on the season’s final day. It was a collective collapse for New York - they had one of the worst defenses in baseball, one that didn’t do their rotation any favors and contributed to their downfall. The Mets’ arms forced more ground balls than any other pitching staff in baseball, but finished in the bottom third of the league in outs from those groundballs. They somehow allowed 28 unearned runs in the season’s final two months, the 2nd-most in baseball, while committing 19 errors in the final 29 games of the season.

It’s an epic collapse, one of the biggest in recent MLB history.

The beneficiary of New York’s collapse was the Cincinnati Reds, who won their 83rd game on Sunday to clinch the third and final NL Wild Card spot. They’ll head to Los Angeles to take on the NL West champion Dodgers tonight.

But the Atlanta Braves, who finished 76-86 and in fourth place in the NL East, were surprisingly close to taking that final wild card spot themselves.

Let’s talk about it.

The bullpen wasn’t as reliable as last year

President of Baseball Operations Alex Anthopoulos went with a “quantity over quality” approach last winter for Atlanta’s bullpen. Facing the loss of three key relievers from the 2024 bullpen in Joe Jiménez (knee injury), A.J. Minter (free agency, to those same Mets), and Grant Holmes (rotation), the Braves signed twelve relievers.

All of them were on minor league deals. None of them made it to game 162.

The lack of quality backend options meant that Atlanta sometimes ran out of high-leverage arms mid-series and had to go with an ancillary option (like Hector Néris) too often. Atlanta’s bullpen had a 4.19 ERA on the season, 19th in baseball and a far cry from 2024’s 3rd-ranked mark of 3.32.

The bullpen’s issues weren’t restricted to just the 6th-8th innings, either.

Their 62% save percentage was below the MLB average, a change from their above-average mark in 2024. A combination of early underperformance from Raisel Iglesias (5 losses and 4 blown saves before the All-Star Break) and 21 overall blown saves meant that the bullpen was singlehandedly responsible for roughly thirty losses on the stat sheet.

One-run games were a nightmare for Atlanta

The 2023 Miami Marlins, who finished 84-78, had a negative run differential of -57, a mark that would project out to a 75-87 mark.

It can be argued that the sole reason they made the postseason as a Wild Card was an absurd 33-14 mark in one-run games, a .702 winning percentage that was one of MLB’s best that season.

Atlanta dealt with the opposite this season.

The Braves were an atrocious 21-35 in one-run games in 2025, a .375 winning percentage that was among the league’s worst. Were they just .500 in one-run games, that would add seven more wins to their record and their 83 wins would have made the postseason, thanks to the Braves holding tiebreakers over both the Reds and Mets.

Underperformance against the worst teams

One of the “hidden” stats I like to look at to figure out the true ceiling of a team is their record against teams that are .500 or better. In essence, I’m trying to evaluate how well they do against the best teams in the league - if they’re competitive there, they have a chance to win the World Series if they can just get into the big dance.

Atlanta was terrible in that regard, going 39-55 against teams with a winning record.

But they also struggled against the bad teams, going just 37-31. Not enough of a margin to overcome their struggles against the league’s best.

And against some of the worst teams, Atlanta failed to win enough games to make a difference. The Baltimore Orioles were the AL’s version of the Atlanta Braves - a team projected to make the postseason that collapsed in the standings this season, finishing 75-87 and in last place in a tight AL East.

Atlanta got swept in their three games versus Baltimore, being outscored by five runs.

Despite sweeping the season series against two playoff teams, going 3-0 against the AL Central champion Cleveland Guardians and 3-0 against the AL Wild Card Detroit Tigers, they also failed to sweep several of the league’s bottom dwellers. They dropped two of their six games to the Colorado Rockies, who finished with 119 losses, and against the Pittsburgh Pirates (71-91), while losing one of their three against both the Los Angeles Angels (72-90) and the Chicago White Sox (60-102).

While I’ll be the first to admit that sweeping any Major League team in a three-game series is tough to do, the fact that the Braves had six opportunities to do it against that quartet of the league’s worst records and couldn’t accomplish a single one is telling. Sweeping just three of those six would have gotten them nearly halfway to taking the final Wild Card spot.

A July collapse buried the hole even deeper

The five-game sample of March notwithstanding, no individual month of the 2025 season was downright awful for Atlanta, with the exception of July.

Of the six full months Atlanta played this season, three of them featured winning records in April (14-11), August (16-13) and September (14-11), while May was just one game shy of a .500 record at 13-14.

But July was bad, with Atlanta going just 8-17 in the month and being outscored by 35 runs.

Atlanta lost all but one series in the month (they went 2-1 against the Cardinals in the final series before the All-Star Break) and were swept twice, once each by Baltimore and Texas). The Braves lost multiple series in July to non-playoff teams in the Royals, Angels, Orioles, Rangers, Giants, and Athletics.

They had opportunities to win several of these games, too, dropping six one-run matchups in the month.

If the Braves went just one game off of .500 in the month, going 12-13, those extra four wins would be more than half of what they needed to take the final Wild Card spot.

Does this give you hope for 2026?

It does for me.

When you step back at each of Atlanta’s major problems this season, it’s easy to see a path to improved performance in each area.

The offense, which underperformed in the first half, was significantly better in the back half of the schedule despite losing both Austin Riley and Sean Murphy to injury.

The pitching staff, which featured all five Opening Day starters on the 60-day injured list this season, can’t possibly be that injured again.¹

The bullpen will hopefully be better next season thanks to the late-season additions (Joey Wentz, Joel Payamps) and potential reverse rotation conversions in Reynaldo López and Grant Holmes. Adding one more established late-inning reliever would be reassuring, though.

And if the Braves address these areas, the issues with one-run games should correct themselves. Even simple regression to the mean would result in an improvement.

I’m tentatively confident as we head into 2026. Are you?

1. Right? RIGHT?