The Banged-Up Braves Have Slipped in the Wild Card Race

With Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. both out for the season, the Braves haven’t been anywhere close to full strength for awhile, and the injury bug has continued to bite, with Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies sidelined for extended periods as well. In a dispiriting sequence involving the rotation, Max Fried returned from the injured list on Sunday (and was roughed up), then Reynaldo López landed on the IL. With so many absences, the cracks are beginning to show. Where the Braves occupied the top National League Wild Card spot for a good long time, they entered Tuesday having fallen into a three-way tie with the Diamondbacks and Padres.

The not-so-well-kept secret about the Braves is that since finishing April with a 19-9 record, they’ve gone just 41-42, and haven’t been more than a game over .500 in any calendar month. They went 13-14 in May, 14-13 in June, and 12-13 in July; so far, they’re 2-2 in August. Here’s how they now sit via the standings and our Playoff Odds:

While 82.5% odds is a position most teams would kill for — indeed, in the NL only the Dodgers (99%) and the Phillies (98.5%) are higher — it’s well below where the Braves have been for all but a handful of days this season. Here’s a look at their odds relative to the other two NL East contenders:

That recent low point is from July 26, when they had lost six in a row, including two to the Mets at Citi Field, to fall to 54-48, with 69.9% odds. They rebounded by going 6-1 against the Mets, Brewers, and Marlins before losing their last two games against Miami on Saturday and Sunday. Here’s how their Wild Card odds have converged with those of San Diego, the hotter team of late (if the colors are hard to distinguish, note that the darker line on top of the right half of the graph is the Braves):

As for their rotation, Fried actually wasn’t sidelined for long. After throwing a scoreless inning for the NL during the All-Star Game, he reported that he “felt a little something,” as manager Brian Snitker later explained, and following an MRI was diagnosed with neuritis, an inflammation of the nerve in his forearm (“just a little irritated sensory nerve, not one of the major muscle-functioning nerves,” said Fried when he was placed on the IL). Activated on Sunday after his symptoms dissipated, he lasted just 3.1 innings against the Marlins, walking a season-high five hitters while allowing four hits and five runs, though the last two were charged to him when Jonah Bride hit a three-run homer off reliever Luke Jackson. The Braves lost, 7-0.

Fried did not make a rehab start before coming off the IL and thus had thrown just one inning in 23 days. Based on what he said afterwards, it doesn’t sound like his bad outing indicated a physical issue. Per The Athletic’s David O’Brien:

“I was struggling,” Fried said. “I wasn’t able to make the adjustment that you need to be able to keep us in the game. Obviously five walks in 3 1/3, that’s unacceptable. You’re just putting a lot of guys on base, not really giving us a chance. Especially not getting us in the dugout to try to create some momentum. Out there on a hot day, kind of the last thing you want.”

On a positive note, Fried said, “Physically I feel great. Just out of rhythm.”

López left his July 28 start against the Mets after just three innings due to forearm tightness. His MRI came back negative as far as any structural damage was concerned, so the Braves hoped he could return to the mound after skipping just one turn, but when he didn’t progress quickly enough, the team placed him on the IL. They could only backdate the stint to August 2, making López eligible to return on August 17.

The breather might serve him well. Given that Lopez threw just 66 innings last year, his highest total since throwing 84 back in 2019, the Braves have gone to great lengths to manage his workload, and the strategy paid off with his first All-Star selection. Nine of López’s 19 starts have been made on six or more days of rest, and only two on four days of rest. His 104.2 innings is short of qualifying for the ERA title, but among pitchers with at least 100 innings, his 2.06 ERA is the majors’ lowest, and his 3.18 FIP is eighth in the NL. Among all NL pitchers, his 2.4 WAR is tied for 13th, with Paul Skenes the only pitcher in the top 15 with fewer innings.

With López out, the Braves have recalled Bryce Elder from Triple-A Gwinnett to join Fried, Chris Sale, Charlie Morton, and Spencer Schwellenbach in the rotation. Elder posted a 3.81 ERA and 4.42 FIP in 174.2 innings for the Braves last year, but after a second-half fade (5.11 ERA, 4.92 FIP in 68.2 innings), the 25-year-old righty lost his spot to López this spring. He’s been optioned to Gwinnett four times (not counting the two times he’s served as the 27th man for a doubleheader), that while posting a 5.67 ERA and 4.23 FIP in 46 innings with the big club. He hasn’t done a great job of suppressing hard contact, and lefties have managed a .407 wOBA against him.

The Braves do have other alternatives, including 21-year-old righty AJ Smith-Shawver, who made five starts for the team last year and one this year, with uneven results (3.64 ERA and 6.11 FIP in 29.2 IP). Meanwhile, Huascar Ynoa, a 24-year-old righty who made a total of 24 starts and seven relief appearances for the Braves from 2019–22 before undergoing Tommy John surgery in September ’22, has dealt with elbow inflammation and a stress reaction this season, but he’s now rehabbing at Gwinnett, having most recently thrown 61 pitches on Saturday. Barring López’s absence or Fried’s rust turning into longer-term issues, the Braves probably have enough rotation depth to make it the rest of the way, though it did rate as a surprise that president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos didn’t land a starter ahead of the July 30 trade deadline. The starters collectively own the league’s third-best ERA (3.79) and best FIP (3.62), with Sale leading all NL qualifiers in both categories (2.71 ERA, 2.32 FIP) as well as WAR (4.1).

The real concern is the offense, which ranks 11th in the NL in scoring (4.21 runs per game) and is tied for eighth in wRC+ (97), and which has been even worse in both respects since the start of May, ranking 14th in scoring (3.80 runs per game) and 12th in wRC+ (90) on a .228/.290/.396 slash line. Just four Braves have hit for a 100 wRC+ or better overall, and even that overstates their impact, as one is Acuña, who tore the ACL of his left knee on May 26 and soon underwent season-ending surgery, and another is Travis d’Arnaud, who’s started 56 of the team’s 111 games at catcher and ranks ninth in plate appearances (236) while hitting a robust .264/.326/.486 (124 wRC+). The two mainstays producing at a better-than-average clip are Marcell Ozuna, who’s taken all 469 of the team’s plate appearances at designated hitter this season, and Austin Riley, their regular third baseman. Ozuna has hit .300/.373/.580 (162 wRC+) while ranking second in the NL in slugging percentage, wRC+ (162) and homers (32), and among the top five in the other two slash stats. Riley has hit .261/.326/.457, but his 15 homers and 117 wRC+ thus far suggest he’ll wind up well short of the 36 homers and 135 wRC+ he averaged from 2021–23.

The Braves reacquired a third above-average hitter at the trade deadline in Jorge Soler, who arrived in the same four-player deal with the Giants that brought Jackson back to Atlanta; both were key contributors to the Braves’ 2021 championship. Soler hit .240/.330/.419 (115 wRC+) with 12 homers for the Giants but is just 2-for-20 since returning, albeit with a 94.9 mph average exit velocity and a 60% hard-hit rate. Even assuming his bat comes around, he’s a liability in right field, where he totaled -16 DRS, -15 FRV, and -10 UZR in just under 1,000 innings in 2021 and ’23 (he split 2022 between left field and DH).

Indeed, Soler is playing right because the outfield has been in disarray due to the losses of Acuña and Harris, who suffered a Grade II left hamstring strain on June 14 and has since been transferred to the 60-day IL. The left field platoon of Jarred Kelenic and Adam Duvall, which earned a spot on my Replacement Level Killers list, was already managing just an 83 wRC+ prior to the loss of Harris, and Kelenic has since moved to cover center. Though he’s elevating the ball with more consistency this year than last, he’s gotten less selective at the plate and is hitting just .233/.288./400 overall, with his 90 wRC+ an 18-point drop from last year’s modest breakout. Duvall moved over to do most of the work in right between Acuña’s injury and the addition of Soler. Overall, he’s raked against lefties (140 wRC+ in 111 PA), but has been overexposed against and smothered by righties, hitting just .149/.185/.232 (13 wRC+) in 189 PA against them. As if the script needed yet another callback to 2021 besides Duvall and Soler in an Acuña-less outfield, Eddie Rosario has covered left field since being picked up in early July after the Nationals released him. Whether in Washington or Atlanta, he hasn’t hit a lick; in fact, his 46 wRC+ (.177/.217/.320) is dead last among all batters with at least 300 PA, with Duvall’s 60 (.185/.247/.330) second-to-last.

The hope is that Harris, who himself has hit a disappointing .250/.295/.358 (81 wRC+), will return when eligible on August 14, about a month ahead of Albies, who fractured his left wrist in a collision with a sliding Michael Siani on July 21. After briefly trying to spice up the lineup with prospect Nacho Alvarez Jr., who went just 3-for-30 with 10 strikeouts, Anthopoulos picked up Whit Merrifield, who had been released by the Phillies during the All-Star break, and with good cause, as he’d hit just .199/.277/.295 (64 wRC+) in part-time duty.

The Braves landed on my Replacement Level Killers lists at two other spots, shortstop and first base. The light-hitting Orlando Arcia revived his career in a utility role with the Braves in 2022, then took over shortstop once Dansby Swanson left and made the NL All-Star team on the strength of a strong first half in ’23. After posting modest numbers (99 wRC+, 2.3 WAR), he’s slipped to a 75 wRC+ (.226/.271/.367) with 0.8 WAR. The real surprise has been the collapse of Matt Olson, whose major league-leading 54 homers helped power him to a fourth-place showing in NL MVP voting last year. Not content just to play all 162 games as he’s done in each of the past two seasons, Olson has played every inning this season at first base, and one can’t help but wonder whether that’s taken a toll. He’s hit just 18 homers while batting .226/.306/.413; his 61-point drop in wRC+ is the majors’ largest among batters with 250 PA in both 2023 and ’24, and he’s got company from some of the aforementioned outfielders:

Olson’s average exit velocity has dropped by nearly two full ticks, and his barrel rate has dropped by 5.4 percentage points (from 16.4% to 11%); within the same set of players above, that’s the fourth-largest drop, with Soler 11th (-4.5 points, from 15% to 10.5%). Exactly what’s causing this extended slump is unclear, but it’s hard to envision this team going far without him coming around. Never have they missed Freddie Freeman more.

The Braves won the 2021 World Series because they overcame significant injuries and made some key pickups along the way. Even with many of the same ingredients, right now it’s hard to be confident that the recipe will work again.