Atlanta Braves 2025 preview
Oh, what could have been for the Atlanta Braves in 2024. Oh, what could be for the Braves in 2025. Coming off of a season in which Atlanta went 89-73 and still made the playoffs despite losing ace Spencer Strider after two starts and superstar Ronald Acuna Jr. to a torn ACL in June, hopes are very high for the upcoming campaign.
While Strider was recovering, Chris Sale went out and won the Cy Young Award and Spencer Schwellenbach morphed into a star in his own right. While Acuna was recovering, several Braves kept right on doing what they do and most of them are back for this season. Thanks to the internal brace procedure that has cut down the recovery time from Tommy John surgery, Strider will probably be back sometime in early May. Acuna’s timeline is a little longer, as the Braves try to avoid a repeat of his struggles to start the 2022 season.
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Imagine a division favorite suddenly adding a Cy Young-caliber arm and MVP-caliber outfielder before Memorial Day. Those are just two of the reasons why the Braves have such high expectations for this season. The 89 wins last year also came with Ozzie Albies out for a couple of months and 50 games missed by Michael Harris II, who actually had a really down year by his 2022 and 2023 standards.
So, yeah, the optimism is warranted for this team, even in a tough decision that got tougher with Juan Soto now a Met and Jesus Luzardo now a Phillie. Even with lingering concerns about Sale off of the biggest workload he’s experienced since 2017 and major questions about health and regression for Reynaldo Lopez, the Braves are likely to make the postseason for the eighth straight year and may very well get back to the top spot in NL East after having their streak of six straight division titles snapped.
In those seven straight playoff years, the Braves have averaged 94.8 wins per season in a full 162-game campaign and were 35-25 during the COVID year, which extrapolated to 162 games would have been 94.5. Based on this season’s 93.5 win total, the Braves are just 3-3 over those six full seasons. Can they stay healthy and put it all together in 2025?
2025 Atlanta Braves Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Feb. 23)
World Series: +750
NL Pennant: +425
NL East: +110
Win Total: 93.5 (-120/+100)
Make Playoffs: Yes -400 / No +270
Atlanta Braves Preview: Offense
The 2023 Braves scored 947 runs. The 2024 Braves scored 704 runs. That drop of 243 runs was the biggest in baseball and it was more than just the absence of Acuna for the bulk of the season. Regression across the board was a big story on the offensive side for Atlanta last season. Matt Olson went from a career-best 54 homers down to 29. Austin Riley went from 37 homers to 19. Ozzie Albies went from 33 to 10, though he did have 225 fewer plate appearances.
Sean Murphy went from a mammoth first season in Atlanta with a .366 wOBA and a 130 wRC+ to a .281 wOBA and a 78 wRC+ in 36 fewer games. Basically, the only player who really improved from 2023 was Marcell Ozuna, who went from 40 homers to 39, but he posted better numbers across the board in most other statistical categories. Atlanta got a shot in the arm from Jorge Soler and another from Ramon Laureano, who actually wound up second and third on the team in wRC+, but they’re both gone now.
As promising as the offense looks, we really have to ask ourselves what’s real and what isn’t. The huge offensive eruption for the Braves in 2023 was a dramatic outlier. They had scored 790 and 789 runs the two seasons prior. Acuna, en route to hitting 41 homers with 73 stolen bases, batted .337/.416/.596, well above every other season in batting average and on-base percentage, as he cut his K% down to 11.4%. He’s been at 23.6% or higher in every other season and now he’s coming off of his second torn ACL.
The weird thing about Riley’s power drop is that his Hard Hit%, Barrel%, fly ball rate, and average launch angle were all higher than the previous season. Olson, meanwhile, saw drops nearly across the board, so his decreases made a lot more sense. Riley did miss time, as he only had 469 PA compared to 715 the year before, so he would’ve threatened 30 homers in all likelihood. He fractured his hand in August and missed the rest of the season.
Albies also had a freak injury after a collision at second base resulted in a fractured wrist. He came back for the final week and a half of the regular season, but he didn’t really look great when he did. But, Albies saw a huge drop in Hard Hit% and Barrel%, plus he hit way more popups last season looking for his missing power and those are effectively strikeouts.
There are three ways to look at the Braves. The first is that everybody just seemed to have a career year at once in 2023 and it isn’t repeatable. The next is that injuries and adjustments from opposing pitchers took a lot of guys away from their usual baselines. The last is that some will return to their 2023 form, some won’t, and better health will cancel out some of the guys that don’t.
There is one thing that I have to address, though. So the Braves saw a drop of 14 feet in average fly ball distance at home last season compared to 2023. Their SLG at home in 2023 on fly balls was 1.245 and it was .820 in 2024. Their average exit velocity was 2.2 mph lower on fly balls.
Injuries played a role, but it wasn’t just that. If I look at Acuna, Albies, Olson, and Riley in a Statcast query at Baseball Savant, I see a drop of 20 feet in fly ball distance, nearly 3 mph in average exit velocity, and over a 600-point drop in SLG.
As a team, the Braves batted .280/.349/.509 at home with a .365 wOBA and a 128 wRC+ in 2023. In 2024, they batted .245/.313/.403 with a .312 wOBA and a 98 wRC+. They had a 12.3% HR/FB% in 2024, down from 20.5% in 2023.
I theorized early in the season that maybe the humidor settings had been altered in Atlanta. That would just be speculation on my part. I have no way of proving that. But, it is an oddly large drop for four good hitters exclusively at home. And none of them had injuries that would limit power because Riley had a season-ending injury in August, Albies only came back for a few home games late in September, and Acuna was done with the knee injury.
So, I’m not entirely sure what to make of this. But despite the injuries, the odd drop in power production, and other variables, the Braves were still a playoff team with a +97 run differential.
Atlanta Braves Preview: Pitching
I’ll continue my Truist Park conspiracy theory here. The offense scored 243 fewer runs, which is a staggering amount. But, the pitching staff also allowed 109 fewer runs. And guess what? There were some very noteworthy home/road splits. The Braves had a 3.51 ERA with a 3.45 FIP at home in 2024 over 739 innings. They had a 4.22 ERA with a 3.99 FIP in 736 home innings in 2023.
Now, obviously, Sale won the Cy Young, but they didn’t have Strider for most of the year. Max Fried pitched 2.5 times more home innings this past season than he did in 2023 and Schwellenbach made his debut and was really good. Lopez had a 1.78 ERA at home over 81 innings. So, I could say that the pitching staff was a lot better in 2024, even with the loss of Strider.
But, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I do think something was awry or at least amiss last season. Now, I have to wonder if that is the new baseline of Truist Park. If things will change back? It’s a really hard thing to try to figure out and, truth be told, has a substantial impact on what the ceiling is for Atlanta. The pitching staff is going to be really good again, but if the offense is superhuman again, then this team is likely winning 100+ games.
The pitching staff for the Braves will look a bit different this season, as Strider returns in late April or May, which could be needed because Atlanta has nearly 340 innings to replace from Fried and Charlie Morton. I think there’s a chance that the Braves sign another arm as insurance. Ian Anderson hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2022. AJ Smith-Shawver, who I still really like, had a 4.85 ERA and a 5.62 FIP at Triple-A last season. Hurston Waldrep may be the next one in line after a good minor league season last year, but he got shelled in two MLB starts.
I think you need more protection for Sale, who threw more innings last season than he had thrown in the previous four seasons combined. He was unbelievably good and made 29 starts, but not something I’d bank on again. When you couple that with 135.2 innings from Lopez, who was a full-time starter for the first season since 2019, contingency plans get more important. Grant Holmes was highly effective as a starter, but he hasn’t thrown more than 100 innings in a season since 2017. Schwellenbach threw 168.2 innings across three levels. Hopefully he stays healthy after throwing 65 innings across two levels in 2023.
I still really like the upside of this rotation. I think Schwellenbach is a Cy Young candidate at the best price you can find out there. He has the strikeouts, proved to be a workhorse last season, and has a chance to rack up a lot of wins. The Braves are really good at maximizing the effectiveness of their pitchers and so I think they’ll figure this thing out, even if injuries arise.
And the bullpen is full of dudes that miss bats. This is going to be a top-10 relief corps at worst and probably a top-five unit again. Last year’s bullpen was second in fWAR, third in ERA, and second in FIP. All of the primary arms are back and nobody stands out as a weakness in middle and long relief.
Atlanta Braves Player to Watch
SP Spencer Schwellenbach
I might as well elaborate more on the 24-year-old who I think could take home some hardware. His minor league numbers were outstanding and he profiles as a guy who could have even more success keeping the ball in the park this season. He only allowed four homers in the minors before giving up 14 in 123.1 innings at the MLB level. He struck out over a batter per inning and only issued 23 walks.
Schwellenbach ranked in the 96th percentile in Chase Rate, 65th in Whiff%, 70th in K%, 95th in BB%, and 90th in Barrel%. He also has above-average extension to pair with well-above-average fastball velocity. And he has a six-pitch mix that neutralizes the platoon advantage. Five of his pitches graded as average or better by Stuff+. As his workload mounted, he got better, as he had a 2.73 ERA and held the opposition to a .275 wOBA in the second half over 79 innings. He’s potentially a very special pitcher.
Atlanta Braves Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
The weird home offensive performance and a slew of injuries really put a damper on Atlanta’s 2024 season, but they still flirted with 90 wins and played at a 92-70 pace per Pythagorean Win-Loss. Given the nature of the injuries, we saw firsthand how much depth can help a ballclub. And now the Braves are going to get their stars back. There is a world in which Sale, Lopez, and others get hurt and that would produce the worst-case scenario, but this is a team with such a high floor and such a high ceiling that I think they’d find a way to get by.
The downside risk is enough to keep me away from betting Over 93.5 wins, though, as that’s a big number in a division with three very good teams and one that I think will be improved. If I notice some early-season offensive trends at home and can get a good division price, I’ll look to possibly jump on that. For now, I lean towards the Over, but it would not be a bet with those aforementioned starting rotation durability questions.
Slight Lean: Over 93.5
