Fantastic article. Alex made this point as the Braves stumbled towards the trade deadline last year. No matter how hard Alex, the coaches and all the bench players work, by far the absolute key to this season is the work the aircraft carriers (and other regulars) do to prepare for 2026. A team with a roster ranked as the 2nd or 3rd best in the MLB shouldn’t finish in 4th place in a 5 team division and below .500.
When you really look back at the Braves’ 2025 season, it’s honestly hard not to be impressed by how many games they won, considering everything that went wrong.
Start with the rotation. At one point, the entire opening day starting rotation was on the 60-day IL at the same time. In practical terms, that just doesn’t happen. Once you lose all your starters, you’re not talking about underperformance anymore — you’re talking about survival mode. This has never happened to any team in the history of baseball.
Because of that, the bullpen was constantly asked to do too much. And to their credit, there were stretches where the pen was actually really good. But when relievers are throwing that many high-leverage innings night after night, it eventually catches up to you.
Then you add in the early struggles from Iglesias. When your closer is shaky and you’re already piecing together games with bullpen arms by the fourth or fifth inning, every close game becomes a coin flip — and usually not in your favor.
That’s where the one-run games come in. The Braves went through an almost unbelievable stretch of losing one-run games — something like 13 in a row. No team can sustain that kind of bad luck. That’s not bad baseball, that’s variance stacking on top of exhaustion and injuries. That 13 game run of one run losses (or close to it) is a mlb record.
So when you put it all together — a decimated rotation, an overworked bullpen, closer instability, and historically bad luck in tight games — the fact that the Braves still won as many games as they did is actually pretty remarkable.
This wasn’t a bad team being exposed.
This was a good team getting hit with one of the most unlucky, injury-wrecked seasons you’ll ever see. 2025 was a monster---ps it is still 2025 in Korea---the new year there starts soimetime around Febuary 17th!
Bryce Elder threw 28 starts, Chris sale has given you 2 20+ start season back to back first and most in half decade and not younger, schwellenbach went down (again) arm issues first time he had year and about every time he has thrown 100 innings, reynoldo and grant holmes and Hurston Walden (who this time last year most people said he was going to be a reliever for a career, just 1 offseason ago with the same volatile pitch profile and bad shape fastball) your expecting give you 28+ starts and be competitive with who? The cardinals pirates Washington Colorado and maybe Arizona if they like the Braves add no more pitching?? Which they will add and we will get Erick fedde again after the Rockies cut him... lol what are we doing guys! He spent 60 million this season and bringing back the same team and same pitching staff except now Mike Yastrimsky is going to push us over the top?? I love Suarez but at this point what good is a 15 million dollar 8th inning guy when your set to win 80 games cuz you have no starting pitching or actual hitters except for 3 guys that aren't really great hitters they are just solid 4 hitters good pop and make enough contact but strike out rates are about 3rd of the time and it's not cuz how the are trying it's that these guys literally can't make contact with the ball 2/3 of the time, no approach or type swings ABs etc.. so runner less than third 2 outs literally they CANT PUT the ball in play if the pitcher throw 95+ = average or slider 87+= average.. it's like a 15% chance the ball gets put in play.. this team is flawed flawed flawed! It's heart breaking as a fan to watch ppl get hopes up and believe something not coming. I just hope we don't come in last in the division.. it's more likely than first!
Lindsay does a great job I just think we need to be a little more honest with who the Braves are right now!
Lindsay!! I would love for you to write an article really deep diving and breaking down Alex Anthopoulos job as GM of the Braves to date.. decisions moves he has made, state of the organization when he took over and throughout and where AA fingerprints are and make an assessment or grading how he has done and how confident you are that he is the guy to bring a championship to the Braves in next 3 seasons...??? I don't see it and it ain't got nothing to do with "cuz the dodgers spend so much money either!!"
Well stated. I give AA credit for a productive off-season roster tuneup - certainly better than last year's McGuirk-lead purchase of office space instead of players. Getting Kim provided some reassurance (short lived, it turns out) but, as you show, his presence in the lineup will not lead to post season play if the 'aircraft carriers' don't produce. Atlanta is banking heavily on total recovery of five of its starting pitchers. I hate to be pessimistic, but the Kim injury should only underscore the fragility of Atlanta's hopes. I would consider it fortunate if three of the five injured came fully back to peak productivity for a full season and would have been content to let Nick Allen supply stellar defense at SS and use the money spent on Kim for a high level starting pitcher. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out come July, but if the SP is depleted by even a couple injuries, even production from the aircraft carriers may not be enough to lead to the playoffs.
Fantastic article. Alex made this point as the Braves stumbled towards the trade deadline last year. No matter how hard Alex, the coaches and all the bench players work, by far the absolute key to this season is the work the aircraft carriers (and other regulars) do to prepare for 2026. A team with a roster ranked as the 2nd or 3rd best in the MLB shouldn’t finish in 4th place in a 5 team division and below .500.
Thanks. It felt like people needed a reminder that while we need competent shortstop play, that's not going to make or break the season.
When you really look back at the Braves’ 2025 season, it’s honestly hard not to be impressed by how many games they won, considering everything that went wrong.
Start with the rotation. At one point, the entire opening day starting rotation was on the 60-day IL at the same time. In practical terms, that just doesn’t happen. Once you lose all your starters, you’re not talking about underperformance anymore — you’re talking about survival mode. This has never happened to any team in the history of baseball.
Because of that, the bullpen was constantly asked to do too much. And to their credit, there were stretches where the pen was actually really good. But when relievers are throwing that many high-leverage innings night after night, it eventually catches up to you.
Then you add in the early struggles from Iglesias. When your closer is shaky and you’re already piecing together games with bullpen arms by the fourth or fifth inning, every close game becomes a coin flip — and usually not in your favor.
That’s where the one-run games come in. The Braves went through an almost unbelievable stretch of losing one-run games — something like 13 in a row. No team can sustain that kind of bad luck. That’s not bad baseball, that’s variance stacking on top of exhaustion and injuries. That 13 game run of one run losses (or close to it) is a mlb record.
So when you put it all together — a decimated rotation, an overworked bullpen, closer instability, and historically bad luck in tight games — the fact that the Braves still won as many games as they did is actually pretty remarkable.
This wasn’t a bad team being exposed.
This was a good team getting hit with one of the most unlucky, injury-wrecked seasons you’ll ever see. 2025 was a monster---ps it is still 2025 in Korea---the new year there starts soimetime around Febuary 17th!
Bryce Elder threw 28 starts, Chris sale has given you 2 20+ start season back to back first and most in half decade and not younger, schwellenbach went down (again) arm issues first time he had year and about every time he has thrown 100 innings, reynoldo and grant holmes and Hurston Walden (who this time last year most people said he was going to be a reliever for a career, just 1 offseason ago with the same volatile pitch profile and bad shape fastball) your expecting give you 28+ starts and be competitive with who? The cardinals pirates Washington Colorado and maybe Arizona if they like the Braves add no more pitching?? Which they will add and we will get Erick fedde again after the Rockies cut him... lol what are we doing guys! He spent 60 million this season and bringing back the same team and same pitching staff except now Mike Yastrimsky is going to push us over the top?? I love Suarez but at this point what good is a 15 million dollar 8th inning guy when your set to win 80 games cuz you have no starting pitching or actual hitters except for 3 guys that aren't really great hitters they are just solid 4 hitters good pop and make enough contact but strike out rates are about 3rd of the time and it's not cuz how the are trying it's that these guys literally can't make contact with the ball 2/3 of the time, no approach or type swings ABs etc.. so runner less than third 2 outs literally they CANT PUT the ball in play if the pitcher throw 95+ = average or slider 87+= average.. it's like a 15% chance the ball gets put in play.. this team is flawed flawed flawed! It's heart breaking as a fan to watch ppl get hopes up and believe something not coming. I just hope we don't come in last in the division.. it's more likely than first!
Lindsay does a great job I just think we need to be a little more honest with who the Braves are right now!
Lindsay!! I would love for you to write an article really deep diving and breaking down Alex Anthopoulos job as GM of the Braves to date.. decisions moves he has made, state of the organization when he took over and throughout and where AA fingerprints are and make an assessment or grading how he has done and how confident you are that he is the guy to bring a championship to the Braves in next 3 seasons...??? I don't see it and it ain't got nothing to do with "cuz the dodgers spend so much money either!!"
Well stated. I give AA credit for a productive off-season roster tuneup - certainly better than last year's McGuirk-lead purchase of office space instead of players. Getting Kim provided some reassurance (short lived, it turns out) but, as you show, his presence in the lineup will not lead to post season play if the 'aircraft carriers' don't produce. Atlanta is banking heavily on total recovery of five of its starting pitchers. I hate to be pessimistic, but the Kim injury should only underscore the fragility of Atlanta's hopes. I would consider it fortunate if three of the five injured came fully back to peak productivity for a full season and would have been content to let Nick Allen supply stellar defense at SS and use the money spent on Kim for a high level starting pitcher. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out come July, but if the SP is depleted by even a couple injuries, even production from the aircraft carriers may not be enough to lead to the playoffs.