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We’re continuing our NL East preview here at Metsmerized with the Atlanta Braves, the 2021 World Series Champions.
After the Mets held the lead in the NL East for over 100 days, the Braves made moves to fill their gaps in the outfield with Eddie Rosario, Jorge Soler and Joc Pederson at the trade deadline. The Mets didn’t (they needed pitching and didn’t get it), the Braves overtook the Mets and then won the division. Those aforementioned acquisitions, along with the team’s bullpen, got hot over the course of the playoffs, and they won the whole damn World Series.
The Braves became the fourth NL East team to win the World Series since 2003. The Mets are the only NL East team to not win it all this century.
The Braves are certainly trotting out a formidable lineup, especially once Acuña Jr. is playing regularly.
Starting at the top pre-Acuña Jr. will likely be Eddie Rosario, one of the heroes of the 2021 World Series team. While he certainly won’t perform like he did over the last two months of 2021 where his OPS topped 1.000 for stretches, he can prove to be a decent bench bat and a viable plug-in until Acuña Jr. plays the field every day.
Albies, Olson and Riley provide a big punch after that. All three finished Top 13 in All-Star voting in their respective leagues last season, and all three have 30-home-run and 100-RBI potential, especially in the largely neutral Truist Park.
The lineup really starts to get long with Marcell Ozuna, who will play regularly this season following a finger injury and, after that, being placed on the administrative list following a domestic violence incident in 2021. He has 20-to-30 home run power potential still, though, and the same goes for Adam Duvall.
The lineup rounds out with Dansby Swanson, who returned to his typical league-average output in 2021 despite 27 homers (he struck out a lot, didn’t walk a lot, but had some pop with his career-high in homers), and old friend Travis d’Arnaud, who is a solid catcher and above-average ninth hitter when he can remain in the lineup.
This team will likely be at the top end of the league in homers again should everyone stay healthy, and the runs will follow suit (they ended 2021 with the eighth-most runs in baseball).
The big one here is Freddie Freeman, the face of the Braves for the last 12 years in the post-Chipper Jones era. He signed a with the Los Angeles Dodgers after the lockout. He was rumored to have talked to other teams before the lockout, but it was still pretty shocking to see Freeman would move on from the Braves after he and Atlanta couldn’t come to terms on a contract.
The door was finally shut on Freeman once the team traded four top 12 prospects for Matt Olson, a first baseman who might be as good as Freeman was last year but is four-and-a-half years younger. The Braves promptly signed Olson to an eight-year, $168 million deal.
Outside of Freeman, the team lost a handful of its role players to free agency after the World Series. Jorge Soler signed with the Marlins, Jesse Chavez and Chris Martin went to the Cubs and Pederson went to San Francisco. The team announced Saturday that reliever Luke Jackson, who’s thrown over 250 innings in relief for the Braves since 2017, has damage to his UCL and will likely require season-ending Tommy John surgery.
The starting rotation is probably the weakest aspect of this team, but their bullpen might be its biggest strength.
The Braves’ five projected starters are (2021 numbers in parenthesis):
Lefty Tucker Davidson is projected as the next man up should anyone falter, and Lord willing, Mike Soroka‘s Achilles tendon will stay intact for long enough to get him fully healthy.
Both Fried and Morton, at 37, had career years last year, so the team hopes that trend continues this year. Anderosn had a solid first season in the majors, and Ynoa could’ve been right in line with Anderson’s output over a longer stretch had he not punched a bench and missed three months with a fractured hand.
Should the rotation lack at any point, the team has a strong bullpen to back up its starters.
Atlanta signed Kenley Jansen–one of the best relievers in baseball over the last decade–to a one-year, $16 million deal, and Collin McHugh–one of the better relievers the last half-decade–signed on for two years. The team still has lefties Will Smith, Tyler Matzek and A.J. Minter, and Darren O’Day is looking to make an imprint in his age-39 season after his 2021 ended with hamstring issues with the Yankees.
Well, nearly a half-dozen of the team’s top prospects (Cristian Pache, Shea Langeliers, Joey Estes, Ryan Cusick) are now in the Oakland A’s system after the Matt Olson trade. Despite that, many of their top prospects are pitchers who have either had a cup of coffee in the majors or are damn near close to it, including Davidson, Kyle Muller, Bryce Elder and Spencer Strider.
The team’s top prospect, five-tool outfielder and Atlanta-area native Michael Harris II, will likely start the season in Double-A and will look to work his way to the majors in the next year or two.
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