{"id":921900,"date":"2026-10-09T13:56:27","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:56:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921900\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T13:56:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T13:56:27","slug":"so-where-do-the-atlanta-braves-go-from-here-following-another-postseason-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/921900\/","title":{"rendered":"So, where do the Atlanta Braves go from here following another Postseason exit?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s The Day After and now that we\u2019ve all had some time to really take things into perspective, the obvious thing to do in times like this is to look forward. The good news is that following their exit in the NLDS at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers, it\u2019s pretty clear where the Atlanta Braves need to focus their improvement efforts on. The main question, however, is how are they going to do that in a way that tangibly changes things going forward?<\/p>\n

For the most part, the Braves are going to be running it back. In order of compensation, Chris Sale, Austin Riley, Matt Olson, Spencer Strider, Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. (team option), Robert Suarez, Sean Murphy, Jurickson Profar (Yep), Mike Yastrzemski, Michael Harris II, Reynaldo L\u00f3pez and Ozzie Albies are all under contract for next season. Dylan Lee, James Karinchak, Joey Wentz, Michael Grove, Luke Williams and Bryce Elder are all eligible for arbitration. Spencer Schwellenbach, Grant Holmes, Drake Baldwin, Ray Kerr, Didier Fuentes, Dylan Dodd and Victor Mederos are still in pre-arbitration so they\u2019re under team control.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s tough to imagine what moves can be made considering that there\u2019s a pretty decent chance that the financial landscape of baseball is going to change significantly once the impending CBA negotiations and potentially-looming lockout is said and done with but no matter what, I\u2019d imagine that the 2027 Braves are going to look similar to the 2026 Braves. Atlanta is locked in at catcher, first base, (very likely) second base, third base, center field and (very likely) right field, they\u2019ll have enough starting pitching to fill out a rotation from the names I listed above and their bullpen is likely going to have its key players returning as well.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an opportunity to run it back for the Braves and I\u2019d imagine that Alex Anthopoulos would do so. Again, this is a team that won 94 games and the NL East Division and has made the Postseason in every season but one since winning the World Series in 2021 \u2014 and even in 2025, you could argue that the injury bug was the main culprit for how disastrous that season ended up being. This is still a solid core with players who have the potential to break out at any given moment, so there\u2019s no reason to even consider blowing it up. It\u2019s also clear that both Anthopoulos and Walt Weiss value clubhouse chemistry a ton and this clubhouse\u2019s chemistry is arguably as good as it gets around baseball, so that\u2019s another reason to not just cause an earthquake with the ballclub.<\/p>\n

With that being said, it can\u2019t be denied that the offense has taken a precipitous drop since their historically-successful 2023 regular season \u2014 and it\u2019s not like there have been many changes with this squad since then. The Braves have gone from a MLB-leading 126 team wRC+ in 2023 to a 101 wRC+ in 2024, then 101 wRC+ again in 2025 before sliding down to a below-average 97 wRC+ in 2026. Acu\u00f1a, Olson, Murphy, Riley, Albies, and Harris were all here in 2023 and the fact that the lineup has declined as much as it has is actually a bit strange considering that there are only two players in that group who are over 30: Murphy and Olson, and it\u2019s not like they\u2019re ancient, themselves.<\/p>\n

I hate to do coaching speculation since 1) we\u2019re not privy to their contract situations and 2) we haven\u2019t heard anything suggesting that anybody\u2019s jobs could be in danger but it would also make sense if Tim Hyers\u2019 position as hitting coach could come into question considering the performance. Dodgers pitching staff or not, a Postseason performance like what we saw at the plate from the Braves is going to put the magnifying glass on what exactly is going on with the offense and when it comes to that, Hyers is the one who could end up taking the blame in a big way if the Braves do decide to make a change. That\u2019s purely speculation on my part but also I\u2019m not the only one!<\/p>\n

\"Kris<\/a>\"Battery<\/p>\n

Braves offense the last two seasons<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

2025: 101 wRC+ (13th)
2026: 97 wRC+ (20th)<\/p>\n

I don’t know what that says about the hitting coaches but it is hard to justify not making a change. <\/p>\n

Rec 10CommentsThin Stroke Comment Icon BubbleReplyRead 13 replies<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also difficult to envision any trades being made \u2014 again, they\u2019re locked in at a lot of positions for a lot of dollars and any trades would have to be of either the blockbuster variety or something at the very fringes. So with that in mind, the way that the Braves could address the situation is the ol\u2019 fashioned way: From within.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the Braves currently have two position player prospects on the farm who just so happen to play the positions that could fill the pressing positional needs for the Braves for the forseeable future. Eric Hartman really made a name for himself during this past minor league season and while the Braves did have him playing center field for the most part, he also spent time manning left field as well. Tate Southisene is another consensus Top 100 prospect who has done a solid job of improving on the farm system this season and sure enough, he\u2019s capable of playing shortstop as well.<\/p>\n

Will they be ready in time for the 2027 season? That\u2019s a bit doubtful, considering that both prospects are estimated for a 2028 arrival according to MLB Pipeline. It\u2019s more of a long-term option but those two are coming and they could finally address two inconsistent spots on the roster that have dogged the Braves for a few years now.<\/p>\n

The bridge options are appealing, though. I\u2019d imagine that the Braves are going to try hard to bring back Mauricio Dub\u00f3n for another season considering how valuable he was for them with both his versatility and being able to man the shortstop spot when needed. Left Field may be a trickier proposition \u2014 remember, Jurickson Profar was slated to be a full-time DH before he got caught enjoying too much of a balanced and nutritious breakfast everyday for the second season in a row and had to take an unpaid suspension for the entirety of the 2026 season. Yaz is still going to be around but again, he\u2019s certainly a platoon option rather than an everyday option. I\u2019d imagine that they\u2019ll try to acquire another outfielder to form a platoon.<\/p>\n

The main reason why I haven\u2019t mentioned trading as much so far is because of the contract status of a lot of the core players and also because again, there\u2019s a lot to consider when it comes to what baseball looks like after the labor war ends. There\u2019s not a lot to speculate on until that\u2019s figured out but again, I can\u2019t see other teams really having the appetite to attempt to \u201cfix\u201d Austin Riley with the contract that he\u2019s on and it\u2019s a safe assumption that the Braves are simply going to try to figure this out internally when it comes to improving the offense as a whole.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tricky situation to be in if you\u2019re Alex Anthopoulos and anybody in this front office! The team on paper is fine but if they\u2019re going to take the next step and potentially pick up another World Series title during this current window that they\u2019re in, it\u2019s clear that they\u2019re going to need to find a way to hit more consistently \u2014 especially in the Postseason. This routine of the bats failing to show up in October for the past few playoff appearances is starting to get honestly tiring and concerning. Even if the level of competition ratchets up during the Postseason, a near team-wide power outage that the Braves sustained shouldn\u2019t be happening as consistently as it does for this team in the playoffs. It also started to rear its ugly head during this regular season as well (remember June?) and it\u2019s become clear that improving the offense should be the main focus going into the offseason.<\/p>\n

How will they do that? There\u2019s still a ton of questions to be answered and we\u2019re still a little too early to be getting into specifics. But it\u2019s clear what needs to be done and hopefully we\u2019ll see them make progress on addressing those issues once everybody gets a chance to actually figure it out in the offseason. We\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s The Day After and now that we\u2019ve all had some time to really take things into perspective,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[361828,64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-921900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves-analysis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}