Top Three Questions Facing the Braves in 2025

After a 2023 season that saw the Atlanta Braves finish with MLB’s best record of 104-58, expectations were high once again entering the 2024 season.

Many expected this star-studded Braves squad to go toe-to-toe with the talent-heavy roster of the Los Angeles Dodgers as MLB’s top two organizations.

But unfortunately for the Braves those projections did not become reality. As the Dodgers took their throne atop the league with an MLB-best 98-win season and then went on to capture the 2024 World Series title.

The Braves finished the year at 89-73, just squeaking into one of the final two NL Wild Card spots on the final day of the season, before being bounced by the San Diego Padres in a Wild Card series sweep.

What lead them to this was a series of major injuries to game changing pieces on the roster, along with several talented pieces simply having down years from the blistering 2023 campaigns.

And while the curtain may be closed on the 2024 season, it’s left its mark on the Braves’ organization, as some major questions loom for this team as they prepare for 2025.

What Output Will They Get From The Stars in Their Lineup?

While it wasn’t all bad for the Braves in a season where they failed to live up to initial expectations, their lineup certainly held its fair share of gloom, whether it be injuries or just down years from some of their biggest names.

Ronald Acuña Jr.

Losing a four-time All-Star and reigning NL MVP is certainly not a recipe for success, as the Braves found out after Acuña went down with a torn ACL in May. The good news is he should be back in 2025, but the question remains on when he will return and how he will look.

While this isn’t the first time he’s gone through this scenario, having suffered a torn ACL in the other knee back in 2021, when the Braves went on to win the World Series.

After a 2021 campaign that saw him hit .283 with a .990 OPS before landing on the shelf, Acuña fell off from his superstar standards when he came back the following season. That 2022 season, he played in 119 games and hit .266 with a .764 OPS, due to a 183-point drop in his SLG.

We would later learn not to read too much into the down-year, as Acuña followed it up with an MVP season in 2023. Now he goes through the exact same rehab process, and hopes for quicker results upon his return.

While it is doubtful he will steal 73 bases again in 2025, the Braves hope he can find some middle ground between being the MVP, and what he was coming off this injury the first time in 2022.

Given the poor regression of some other stars in this lineup last season, the Braves can’t afford to have that kind of output from their franchise player.

Matt Olson

After a stellar 2023 campaign that saw Olson hit 54 HR, 139 RBI with a .283/.389/.604 slash line, he failed to keep that same form in 2024.

His average dropped by 36 points to .247, his OPS by 203 points to .790, his wRC+ fell to 117 from 161 and his fWAR dropped nearly four runs from 6.5 to 2.6 and his walk rate fell four percent from 14.4 to 10.4 percent in 2024, according to FanGraphs.

And 29 homers compared to 54 the year prior, was a big offensive blow for a team that had legitimate World Series aspirations coming into last season.

The 2023 season was full of firsts Olson.

It was his first season with 40+ homers, his first full season with over 120 RBI, his first season with an average over .270, his first season with an OBP over .380 and his first full season (apart from the 11 games he played in the 2016 campaign) with a walk rate above 14%, among others.

The question now looms over Olson and Atlanta of whether or not 2023 was somewhat of an anomaly for the first baseman, or if he can channel that MVP-caliber form once again.

Austin Riley

Riley found a way to top his corner-infield mate in Olson with an even sharper regression in 2024.

For three-straight seasons, from 2021-2023, Riley sported an fWAR above 5.0, a wRC+ above 125, an average above .270, an OPS above .850, a HR tally of at least 30 and an RBI total of at least 90.

Those numbers dipped in a big way in 2024 though, with a 19 HR, 56 RBI, a .256 AVG, a .783 OPS, a 116 wRC+ and a 2.4 fWAR. Now the drop in numbers can be attributed to injury to some degree, as Riley missed time with an oblique injury and had his season cut short due to a hand injury.

Those are injuries that a full offseason should heal up, and with a return to health, the Braves hope their All-Star third baseman returns to form, as his stability at the hot corner is massive to Atlanta.

Michael Harris II

It was year of inconsistencies for Harris in 2024, as the 2022 NL Rookie of the Year failed to string things together overall.

He had months like April (.284 AVG and .730 OPS) and September (.316 AVG and .923 OPS) where things looked normal for the center field star.

But then there were the months in between that proved disappointing. In May, June and August, he failed to hit above .230 or post an OPS above .650 in any of those months. On top of that he lost roughly two months of the season, including all of July, to a hamstring injury.

This resulted in a 29 point drop in average (.293 to .264), an 86 point drop in OPS (.808 to .722), a 16 run decline in wRC+ (115 to 99) and a 1.8 decrease in fWAR (3.8 to 2.0) from 2023 to 2024.

Given the fact he ended the season off so well with a blistering final month gives some hope to the Braves that the Harris we’ve all become accustomed to is still there.

But there is concern that the player he was for a large portion of 2024 is still in there as well, which would not bode well for a team looking to be more than just Wild Card fodder in 2025.

Marcell Ozuna

Then there’s Ozuna, who is the complete opposite of his struggling lineup-mates after having a tremendously productive 2024 season.

It’s hard to think that he could top his 2023 season of 40 HR, 100 RBI a .905 OPS and a 140 wRC+. But in 2024 Ozuna looked even better and showed flashbacks to his final season as a Miami Marlin or the form he carried in the COVID shortened 2020 season with Atlanta.

This year he belted 39 homers with 104 RBI while hitting .302 with a .925 OPS and a 154 wRC+. And before Shohei Ohtani went nuclear down the stretch, he was even in the running for the NL Triple Crown.

After two consecutive years now of stellar play out of the DH role, Ozuna seems primed to be a big-time contributor for the Braves once again in 2025.

But considering these past two seasons were preceded by two seasons where he posted a 74 wRC+ in 2021 and a 90 wRC+ in 2022, there’s always going to be that thought of whether he reverts back to that sort of player.

And given how he led Atlanta’s offense all season this past year, there’s a lot of pressure on the Ozuna once again, considering the uncertainty that 2024 brought forth all around the roster.

Will They Roll with Orlando Arcia for Another Season?

Things started decently well for Orlando Arcia in Atlanta after he took over the starting role in light of the departure of Dansby Swanson to the Chicago Cubs in free agency ahead of the 2023 season.

Arcia was an All-Star for the first time in his career and ended the 2023 campaign hitting .264 with a .741 OPS, 17 HR, 65 RBI, and a 100 wRC+.

And the Braves thought highly enough of him to make him the priority to pair in the middle infield alongside Ozzie Albies instead of the then promising young name in Vaughn Grissom, who was subsequently dealt to the Boston Red Sox last offseason.

But while they certainly got a good return on Grissom, with the 2024 NL Cy Young Award winner in Sale coming back the other way, and Grissom struggled to both stay on the field and make an impact when he was in the big league lineup in Boston, Arcia himself provided the Braves little to feel comfortable about regarding the shortstop position in 2024.

In 602 plate appearances across 157 games in 2024, Arcia posted a .218/.271/.354 slash line with 17 HR, 46 RBI, and a 72 wRC+.

And as bad as he was in 2024, his underlying expected metrics paint an even bleaker picture.

Arcia sat below the 10th percentile xBA (fourth at .206), xSLG (sixth at .323), a xWOBA (second at .261), according to Baseball Savant.

With how bad Arcia performed last season, there’s no reason to believe he’s earned the right to move forward as the starting shortstop for a team that consistently has World Series ambitions year in and year out.

And given how bad some of the key bats in this lineup were last season, Atlanta cannot afford to have a black hole in their starting nine like Arcia and his 72 wRC+ for yet another season if they want to return to the highest level of contention.

One clear upgrade could be one of the most prized free agents on the market this winter in Willy Adames who had a remarkable showing in 2024 with the Brewers.

Adames belted 32 homers, drove in 112 RBI while hitting .251 with a .794 OPS and a 119 wRC+ in 688 plate appearances.

There will be stiff competition for his signature given the lack of top infield talent on the open market this winter meaning his price could be steep.

But while their might not be many other options beyond Adames for the Braves to look into in free agency, it’s not completely barren as there are still some notable upgrades available.

Ha-Seong Kim is one of those options, as despite a down year with some injuries plaguing him in 2024, he still managed to post an above average 101 wRC+ while playing high level defense, with an 88th percentile range of four outs above average.

And even veteran infielder Jose Iglesias might be a great option for the Braves, coming off an outstanding age-34 season with the New York Mets, where he hit .337 with an .830 OPS and a 137 wRC+. The ability to play second and third beyond just shortstop doesn’t hurt as well, especially given the Braves injury issues all around last year.

And we can’t discount the fact Alex Anthopoulos is one of the most unpredictable executives in all of baseball, meaning he could very well have a trick or two up his sleeve in the trade market as well.

While the Braves may have taken a gamble on Arcia once, after his putrid showing in 2024, it seems now would be as good of a time as ever to explore what the shortstop position could look like without him.

Do They Have the Right Starting Pitching?

This question may sound absurd on the surface level when you look at who’s atop Atlanta’s rotation.

They have this year’s NL Cy Young Award winner in Chris Sale, the major league leader in strikeouts in 2023 in Spencer Strider, a rookie coming off a sensational season in Spencer Schwellenbach, and a sub-2.00 ERA arm in 2024 in Reynaldo López.

On paper, this is one of the strongest rotational cores in all of baseball, but as we all know, baseball isn’t played on paper. Each of these names, no matter how talented they may be, have legitimate questions surrounding them for 2025, as well as the guys beyond the top four in the rotation.

Chris Sale

Let’s start with the man of the hour, fresh off his 2024 Cy Young Award.

I feel safe saying that a majority of baseball fans, including myself, are rooting for Sale to repeat the excellent season he produced at the age of 35.

And from a statistical standpoint, there’s certainly reason to believe that this is doable for the eight-time All-Star.

On top of his shimmering 2.38 ERA and 1.01 WHIP last season, he also ranked above the 84th percentile in K-rate, chase rate, whiff rate and walk rate, as well as most batted ball metrics like average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate.

He also projected very well in expected metrics as his 2.80 xERA ranked in the league’s 92nd percentile and his xSLG of .213 fell in 83rd percentile.

But the questions lie beyond the numbers for Sale.

The first big area for uncertainty comes from his recent injury history. After being one of the league’s most dominant arms through the 2010’s, where he never had a season with less than 25 starts after becoming a full-time starter in 2012, he failed to really string together healthy seasons afterwards until 2024.

After being shelved for all of 2020, Sale mustered just 11 starts in 2021 and 2022 before finally reaching 20 starts again in 2023.

And even at the end of last season we saw some worrying injury signs, as back spasms resulted in him being scratched from his final start in the second game of the crucial Game 161/162 doubleheader against the New York Mets on Sept. 30, followed by him being left off of their Wild Card series roster entirely.

While his late season back spasms may be a small injury on the surface, it marked yet another time he was forced to the bench because of an ailment. And the back spasms themselves bring up another question as well.

What will Sale be when he’s another year older?

Some guys age like fine wine in the later stages of their careers, while others look less and less like the pitcher they once were.

We’ve seen names like Clayton Kershaw fall off from the stellar form they once held as they move further into their careers.

While no one can predict the future, it’s not unreasonable to think that a 36-year-old oft-injured starter could start to show signs of regression, even after the award-winning year he just had.

Look at Justin Verlander for example, who was just two years removed from a sub-2.00 ERA season where he took home 2022 AL Cy Young honors before posting a 5.48 ERA in 2024.

While the Braves are hoping Sale can be that anchor for them in their rotation once again, they have to face the fact that his age and injury history could realistically be a factor in 2025.

Spencer Strider

There’s no questioning Spencer Strider’s ability when he’s healthy to be one of the best starters in MLB after his Rookie of the Year runner-up finish in 2022 and his near 300-strikeout All-Star campaign in 2023.

But after undergoing an internal brace procedure on his elbow after just two starts into his 2024 season, his return will certainly bring forth questions.

The internal brace procedure, an alternative to Tommy John surgery, is relatively new to the baseball world and there’s less track record to determine what his return to action might look like.

By all accounts internal brace seems to accelerate the timeline of return compared to the traditional Tommy John, so since Strider underwent the procedure so early in 2024, it’s fairly realistic to think that he could make a return in the early stages of 2025.

So one question that looms is what form will Strider be in when he does make eventual return to the mound.

He possesses a blistering fastball with an incredible knack for inducing the swing and miss, but he has been known to be susceptible to the long ball, as the 22 homers he surrendered in his last full season played a role in his mediocre 61st percentile average exit velocity and 43rd percentile barrel rate.

Will he lose something off his fastball? Will any part of his mechanics be altered? And if either of those are the case, would it impact his ability to strike hitters out at an elite rate or make him even more of a homer-friendly pitcher?

While he will no doubt be a welcomed return, the Braves have to ensure they have both the required quantity and quality of depth to step in for him until that date comes, as well as account for any sort of regression Strider might face after the fact.

Spencer Schwellenbach

Schwellenbach looked outstanding in his rookie season in Atlanta, sporting a 3.35 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP across 123.2 innings.

And by many standards there’s a lot for the Braves to be excited about when it comes to their 24-year-old rising star in the rotation.

He was excellent at limiting walks, avoiding barrels and getting opposing hitters to chase his stuff, as he ranked in the 90th percentile and above in each of these metrics.

But there are some things Scwellenbach trended towards the mean on. His .225 AVG against was paired with an xBA that was 14 points higher, placing him in just the 48th percentile of big league arms.

He also surrenders hard hits at a 39.8% clip, placing him in just the 39th percentile, which is certainly something to monitor for any young arm.

Now I’m in the camp of believing that the former second-round pick can repeat his success in 2025 and become one of the game’s more promising arms moving forward.

That being said, though, when success is had in such a small sample size, there’s always the need to see more because sophomore slumps happen more often than we’d like, just look at how the 2023 NL Rookie of the Year in Corbin Carroll followed up his excellent rookie season.

The point I want to make is that regression happens all the time, and while Atlanta greatly benefitted from leaning on Schwellenbach when injuries struck, and he did deliver, they can’t afford to put all of their eggs in one basket again.

The same question comes up for the Braves when analyzing Schwellenbach as it did with both Sale and Strider, and that’s whether the Braves have required depth to handle the possibility of a regression, even if it is only a slight one.

Reynaldo López

López’s debut season with Atlanta was as good as a debut can get in a lot of ways, as he sported a 1.99 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and .216 AVG against in 135.2 innings of work, resulting in his first career All-Star selection.

He struck hitters out a good rate of 27.3% last season, ranking him the 80th percentile.

And despite starting consistently for the first time since 2020, his fastball still landed just narrowly outside the top quarter of league arms (73rd percentile) even with the nearly three mile-per-hour drop in it’s velocity from 2023.

But López seemed to really outperform his metrics in 2024, which is a cause for concern when planning for the future.

His xERA of 3.94 was nearly two runs higher than his actual ERA last season, and his .242 xBA was nearly 30 points higher than average he surrendered.

While López may’ve struck out hitters at a respectable rate, he walked them at a mediocre 7.7% clip, placing him in the 53rd percentile of MLB arms. He posted poor batted ball totals ranking in the 35th percentile in average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, barrel rate, and groundball rate.

The question of what form the Braves will get from López is a lot more relevant here than it is with the other three guys at the top of this rotation.

This makes the importance of strength in their depth, that much more critical in this scenario, because like it or not, the Braves leaned on him in a similar way to Sale and Scwhellenbach and they only narrowly made the postseason as a result.

The Depth Beyond the Top Four

With so much attention brought to the depth, let’s look at who exactly is providing that cushion for the top of the rotation.

Ian Anderson

Anderson hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2022, but he put together a decent Triple-A campaign in 2024 headlined by a sub-4.00 ERA (3.96) in 52.1 innings across 10 starts.

And how could we forget his sparkling postseason track record in the 2020 and 2021 seasons, as he sports a career 1.26 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in 35.2 innings in October.

So if he can reclaim some of that postseason form and build off the slight rebound he saw in the upper minors this season, he could be able to have some success within the supporting cast and return to the big league roster.

Bryce Elder

This past season was a far cry from the All-Star campaign Elder put together in 2023, as in 10 starts he threw to an inflated 6.52 ERA, which resulted in him seeing a majority of his time in Triple-A Gwinnett.

Elder pitched well there this season with a solid 3.73 ERA, and if he can continue to keep high groundball rates and capture the strong barrel rate he held a year ago, he could be a solid innings eater for Atlanta in a supporting role.

The Prospects

There are several starting arms in the upper minors currently on the 40-man roster that could be called upon when required, headlined by AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep.

Smith-Shawver has made the occasional start here and there at the big league level, and while it hasn’t necessarily gone his way in limited outings, he boast metrics such as his double-digit K/9 totals at every stop in his minor league career, that make you feel like he could be a decent-level contributor sooner rather than later.

Waldrep has just two major league starts to his name which did not go well, as made evident by his 16.71 ERA in just 7.0 innings.

But the upper minors were much kinder to Waldrep, with a 2.92 ERA in 49.1 Double-A innings and a 3.38 ERA in 40.0 Triple-A innings.

The Loss of Fried and Morton Will See the Starting Rotation Tested More than Ever

With all the questions surrounding just what performances we’ll see from their top names in the rotation and their supporting depth, we have to remember that they will be tested as much as ever in 2025, with two key pieces over the last few seasons currently on the open market.

Max Fried and Charlie Morton have been workhorses for the Braves since the 2021 season. In this four season span, these two are by far and away the Braves innings leaders on the bump.

Fried has tossed 603.0 innings for Atlanta since the start of the 2021 campaign, posting a 2.87 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and .226 AVG against in the process.

And Morton, while not as statistically flashy as Fried in the last four years, sporting a 3.87 ERA, 1.25 WHIP and .229 AVG against, was the guy to account for a consistently large amount of innings for the Braves during this time. He leads the team since the start of 2021 with 686.1 innings thrown.

No matter how strong the rest of your options may be, losing two pitchers like Fried and Morton is undeniably a huge loss and leaves big questions for the Braves in 2025.