There was to be, I was led to anticipate, a baseball game last night. I did not watch an inning of it and the result was a 9-0 Braves loss. Did the Braves actually play and lose, or did they forfeit?
If baseball games occurred according to the subatomic laws that govern quantum particles, there would be no way to know without actually watching the game. Of course, the Braves’ runscoring frequently takes place at a subatomic level, so I feel justified in this tortured frame, and seeing just how many words I can wring out without even so much as looking at the box score to see just how badly the Giants shellacked the nobody I’ve never heard of who we unaccountably called up as cannon fodder.
It’s a long summer, tomorrow’s another day – in fact, due to the lateness of this recap, tomorrow’s already today! And the getaway game starts in three hours. Will the fans at Truist be a wave? Or a particle?
It is, oddly, sufficient for someone to have watched the game, not necessarily you, to “collapse the wave function,” as the physicists say. Or, as out friend Insect Overlords puts it, “collapse our chances and team.”
It is crazy how deflated our fanbase is right now. With expectations so high it makes perfect sense, but I think a lot of us felt better during the rebuild because you could see an eventual escape from that level. This season, for whatever reason, seems to feel worse because so many key parts of the team are either hurt or hugely underperforming. With no “real” prospects to bring up to watch develop, this season seems way more lost than the rebuild years.
Ultimately, I think that what we all want is a notion of moving in a particular direction. During the rebuild, the front office told us what they were trying to do, and there were ups and downs – arguably more of the latter than the former, but we could sit through all the false starts and failures to launch of many of our prospects, because we could see the beginnings of a core coalesce.
But Alex Anthopoulos has been largely absent. That’s not to say he hasn’t given interviews, but he hasn’t said anything. He’s acknowledged frustration but at no point has the team tried to offer a coherent narrative to answer the two core questions that fans have: What have they been doing wrong? What are they going to do differently, and why do they think that will work better?
I can only speak for myself, but I’m not too bent out of shape. At some point, we were gong to have a season where enough went wrong. And the reality is, we’re probably on the tail end of this “window” of winning or whatever you want to call it. We won the first division after The Great Rebuild in 2018. That was 7 years ago. We won the World Series in 2021. That was 4 years ago. The question is what to do about it, and probably the only thing we can do is something resembling a rebuild:
1) Sell hard at the deadline. Sell anyone expiring and anyone you have significant questions about.
2) And in the offseason, do it again. There needs to be a big deck re-shuffling. This core is not going to ever win another World Series.
3) Find out what happened last offseason and figure out how to not end the offseason with money not spent. I think this was simply unlucky with the Dodgers going ape on deferral money. We tried and failed, and I don’t think it’s some greater conspiracy. We just got outbid.
4) Fix your broken players like Harris or trade them in said deck re-shuffling.
5) Get your injured guys back.
Fine, this will be my 37th of 39 years on this earth where I didn’t see a Braves team win the World Series. Whatever. But more importantly, AA needs to turnover about 25%+ of this roster because it’s just not fitting together.
Great points Alex. I agree, AA has been noticeably absent and seems to be a great front runner and is out there when we are winning but has seemingly been a ghost since the early struggles this season. Like you mentioned, if there is a plan, we can’t see it and it certainly isn’t obvious to most of us. The entire organizational philosophy needs to be put under the microscope for a top to bottom evaluation because it doesn’t seem to be working like it once did.
If you’re an optimist about the franchise, you could point to the Toronto Blue Jays’ successful rebound from 2024. The Jays off-season acquisitions have been below average (Hoffman/Scherzer) to catastrophically bad (Santander), but their so-called core players are having better years, and the pitching, while pretty awful, is serviceable enough to keep them in games. Their run differential isn’t that great, so they might crash back to Earth in the second half.
I’m not that optimistic about Atlanta in 2026 because it’s likely Murphy/Baldwin will split between catcher and DH next year, and they’ll bring back Sale. I think that would be a terrible mistake. Trading Sale would get a prospect haul that would allow the Braves to make meaningful trades again, and ideally you would trade Murphy for depth in the middle infield and outfield. If you could sign a decent starter in the off-season using most of Murphy’s salary, like Suárez or King, you’d probably get similar production from your rotation, but with a more balanced roster overall.
You could possibly accomplish this by trading Murphy only, but I don’t see the point of keeping a guy like Sale when the bottom half of the major league roster is this bad and there are so many needs. Last season they limited his innings until September, and as soon as he pitched on regular rest he got hurt, so there’s no guarantee he pitches that much in 2026. You also don’t need an “ace” because you already have one in Schwellenbach, assuming he’s healthy.
Using quantum theory, I’d say Alex found another flaw in the 2025 Atlanta Braves: This team has low particle entanglement.
AAR – great points on AA. I know working like a ninja is helpful, especially when it comes to the trade market & dealmaking – – but visionary communication to the fans (other than on real estate purchases around the Battery) is really lacking.
I would at least like to be suckered into thinking big visions of grandeur.
I agree Rob. This “window” is actually a little bigger than what we think it was at times. I think this is a good opportunity for a re-boot of the roster with a new manager next year and we see what happens. You are on point though that these parts don’t fit together for whatever reason and something needs to be done. Our starting pitching lacks a “horse” because many of them can’t stay healthy and we are paying a price for that right now. Also, the hitting philosophy doesn’t seem to align with the skillset of the hitters we have and their mindset/mechanics. So either we change philosophy again, or we get players that can execute what Hyers wants. However you slice it, it is a bad product on the field and one we haven’t seen for many years.
I don’t think it’s premature to say that people should start getting fired for this. Starting today.
Brian Snitker is a very nice man and he’s been wonderful for the franchise, but he needs to fall on his sword for this, and quite frankly, I am going to need to be persuaded that Anthopoulos doesn’t.
I am at the same point AAR.
I’m going to reserve judgment on Alex until the off-season just because of all the possible outcomes.
There’s a real argument someone else should step in and oversee the team under the last three year’s of Acuna’s contract.
I don’t think there’s a problem of fit. I’m skeptical about chemistry in baseball unless someone is just a cancer. The problem is you have too many bad players. We’ve had replacement level type play at every up-the-middle position but catcher, and that’s not a recipe for winning. Nothing improves chemistry like winning, and if you improve the roster, you will win. Nothing is as demoralizing as a bullpen blowing it for you, and that’s been our other major problem.
That said, I don’t see a path to contention without Michael Harris improving. That’s just too many critical holes to fill for a team that won’t spend.
Harris II is a good test case for my ‘defense doesn’t really matter’ theory (if I’m being honest, law). He’s hit so badly that even his stellar defense cannot save him.
Unless someone is a gold glover it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t.
They need to trade everything that isn’t bolted down except for Acuna. Sale needs to be moved while he still has a modicum of value, Murphy has power but he’s a catcher around 30. Olson is what he is. Riley IMO has seen his best days. They also need to figure out which of the AAAA SPs have a future, or not and stop farting around with Bryce Elder every 5th day.
It’s pretty sad that Nacho Alvarez is one of our top 5 prospects as he looks like a AAAA special at best.
Sell, sell, sell. Decide NOW what you’re going to do with Acuna long term vis a vis breaking the bank in a new contract and chart your course in that direction.
Yup, having negative offensive production from nearly half the lineup (SS, 2B, CF & LF) has killed this team. So has Raisel Iglesias, but that’s another matter.
Going into this season, we thought LF had been addressed. Maybe we should’ve given Jurickson Profar a blood test (or a polygraph)… We thought in CF, after a replacement-level year from MH II, he’d possibly revert to his 1st 2 years. He went the other way, dramatically.
Nick Allen has been a pleasure to watch in the field, but he’s Tom Veryzer with an upside of Ed Brinkman. (We hated Orlando Arcia, but at least he hit some HRs.) Ozzie should be in his prime, but (this past wknd notwithstanding) appears on a downward spiral overall.
You can carry a D-first guy or two, if the rest of the lineup pulls its weight… but that ain’t what’s happened this year. (Of course, injuries hurt our pitching staff, but that’s not the main reason we are where we are.) And I do agree that this team has gotten cheap, relative to the market.
And, let’s face it… in baseball, playing spoiler isn’t nearly as much fun. It won’t stop me from watching the games, of course, but probably not front & center.
Despite this club running aground this year, do I think they can turn things around & get back in the post-season next year? A lot’s gotta go right, but sure. Will be curious to see who’ll be wearing a Braves uni on opening day 2026.
Has a recap been posted? Only if you observe it. If you choose to observe, look here: https://bravesjournal.com/2025/07/23/i-suspect-the-cat-is-dead-but-id-rather-not-watch/