In the twinbill, the Braves won the first game then did a near-repeat of Monday’s loss. The pitching was mostly terrific, as Reynaldo Lopez allowed two runs in five innings and Bryce Elder allowed two runs in six innings, and the bullpen allowed two runs in six innings across the two games. (Both were yielded by Grant Holmes in the eighth inning of the second game.)

The trouble is our lineup is looking painfully thin these days. The first through fifth slots are finally starting to click: Kelenic, Albies, Ozuna, Olson, and Riley. But it’s awfully dicey after that: catcher, shortstop, center field, and right field are all basically an offensive black hole at the moment, though Sean Murphy may be regaining his timing. And these positions reveal the downside risk of the strategies that AA has pursued over the past few offseasons:

  • Letting Freddie Freeman go and replacing him with Matt Olson, acquired by trading several of our top prospects;
  • Letting Dansby Swanson go and replacing him with the victor of a three-way tryout among Orlando Arcia, Vaughn Grissom, and Braden Shewmake, then, after Arcia emerged as the winner, trading the latter two;
  • Filling left field via a platoon for the past three seasons, ever since Marcell Ozuna showed he couldn’t actually play the field any more, and shoring up the platoon at the deadline every year with a series of rentals; while Jarred Kelenic has emerged to be everything we hoped he’d be, the platoon-first strategy has left our outfield depth painfully thin;
  • Trading William Contreras and several of our top prospects for Sean Murphy, who had a terrific first half last year, but who has done little for the past year.

That said, we’ve got four All-Stars on the shelf in Acuña, Strider, Harris, and Arcia; it’s hard for any team to weather that.

We spent all our powder locking up our stars for years and years. We’ve got Michael Harris II, Austin Riley, Matt Olson and Matt Olson signed till 2030 and beyond; Strider’s here through 2029, Acuña and Murphy through 2028, Ozzie Albies and Reynaldo Lopez through 2027; Chris Sale, Joe Jimenez, Aaron Bummer, Pierce Johnson, and Orlando Arcia through 2026.

As annoying as Bummer’s been this year, and as much as Murphy has struggled, those players remain exciting, and the pitchers have generally been extraordinary in 2024.

All in all, that’s the lion’s share of an offense, bullpen, and starting rotation, and it still looks mighty impressive, even after a frustrating first half – one in which, to be clear, the Braves have a +50 run differential and a .564 winning percentage (both fourth-best in the NL). As disappointments go, that’s awfully easy to stomach.

But the bench is weak and the farm is weak, and because we don’t have the prospect capital, the only solution to what ails us is doing what AA shied away from doing when he let Dansby and Freddie walk:

Spend some real money.

AA generally seems comfortable leaving the team with weaknesses that can be solved midyear, and he has his work cut out for him this year. He has made a handful of transactions here and there but few have been truly significant. An example would be Jimmy Herget: he acquired the six-year veteran from the Dodgers for cash considerations, then Herget pitched seven innings with the major league club before going onto the IL. And he was honestly one of the more significant transactions.

He’s going to need to do a whole lot more than that over the next five weeks, or it could be a really difficult summer and fall.