The Jays finally got a day off after finishing 17 straight games with a 10-7 record. But back at it tonight, they are facing the team with the best record in all of baseball: Atlanta Braves. The Braves have gone 40-20 so far this season, burying their closest competitors at 9.5 games back out of first. This has been powered by an offense that leads baseball in RBIs, is second in home runs, and sports a top five rotation and bullpen. They\u2019ve managed this despite injuries that have benched 2025 RoY Drake Baldwin and starter Spencer Schwellenbach.<\/p>\n
I reached out to Battery Power\u2019s Ivan the Great to answer a few questions about the Braves team and how their fans view the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Atlanta has a commanding lead at the top of the NLE right now, clicking on all cylinders. What are the key elements that are driving their winning ways so far?
Comprehensively answering this question would probably take 3,000 words, so I\u2019ll focus on a few. First, the team was already supposed to be pretty good; last year was the outlier driven by a completely unforced error of a top-down change to team offensive approach, and then intensified by an absurdly bad run of injuries. Second, it looks like last year has finally spurred some changes in how the team approaches individual games, with new skipper Walt Weiss implementing a much more \u201clet\u2019s try to win most games we\u2019re in\u201d mentality that was absent from about 2023-onward when the team\u2019s projections were really good. Third, they\u2019re back to focusing on what many hitters were acquired for and initially coached to do: hit homers. Even as MLB continues to \u201cexperiment\u201d with increased drag on the ball, that still remains the dominant strategy where you have the personnel to achieve it. Lastly, the defense has been really good, with Mauricio Dubon and a hopefully-it\u2019s-not-just-a-small-sample defensive resurgence from Ozzie Albies really making the pitching look more effective than it has been<\/p>\n
Baldwin looked like he was recreating his rookie season before the injury. How soon are the Braves hoping to get him back and why do you think he\u2019s been able to successfully build on last season so far this season?<\/p>\n
It looks like the timeline for Drake Baldwin is about mid-June, but the Braves generally slow-play injury returns, and there\u2019s little reason to rush him back given the standings. Baldwin has an almost-ideal profile in that he doesn\u2019t have a particular long swing, nor is he jumping out to pull the ball, but he\u2019s able to generate a fast, hard swing that can cover the zone and then some even though he doesn\u2019t need to cheat or rely on a longer swing through the zone to do it. This year, a huge difference has been simply hitting the ball in the air more, letting that hard swing turn what used to be lasers through the infield into things that go a lot further than the infield. Combine his ability to cover non-strikes and hit them pretty hard with a teamwide approach that\u2019s tilted back towards aggression and damage on contact, and you\u2019ve basically got a monster at the plate at this point.<\/p>\n
Matt Olson continues to rake for the Braves. Anyone still missing Freeman or regretting that deal?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure lots of folks are still missing Freddie Freeman, but I hope that Olson continues to take the sting out of those proceedings. It\u2019s worth noting that post-trade, through May 2026, Freeman still has a sizable fWAR advantage (23.7 to 19.3) and a large xwOBA lead (about .020) as well. That said, I don\u2019t think the Braves would\u2019ve been able to get out of Freeman what the Dodgers did in his 30s, as the Dodgers re-oriented him towards something he probably enjoys more (spraying liners) than what the Braves were morphing into (hitting bombs and scowling disgustedly at the punishment meted out, something Olson excels at).<\/p>\n
Which prospect are Braves fans most excited for that debuted or might debut this year?<\/p>\n
I think this was probably JR Ritchie, and folks got their wish as he was ultimately called up and did\u2026 okay for a call-up but not so great for an MLB pitcher. That excitement only grew after Ritchie\u2019s very fun MLB debut, but he never really got back to that level of performance and has some stuff to figure out in the minors.<\/p>\n
Who is your favourite member of the team to watch right now?<\/p>\n
Well, Baldwin\u2019s on the shelf, so I\u2019d probably have to go with Chris Sale, because it\u2019s just such a confident form of dominance. He\u2019s not necessarily outsmarting you (guys, it\u2019s two pitches) and it\u2019s not like he can\u2019t be squared up at all such that he never even has to work out of a jam or anything. But, when it comes down to it, the combination of his delivery and arm angle just makes trying to face his slider comical\u2026 and then you remember that he can blow it by you in the zone, too. At this point, everyone pretty much knows how Chris Sale is going to pitch against them, but it doesn\u2019t help them much, not even when they stand in the box against him multiple times a game. In a league where many pitchers kind of feel like cookie cutter-esque fastball\/slider guys that are nonetheless effective if interchangeable, Chris Sale stands out as a completely different fastball\/slider guy who might look similar-if-better on paper, but looks like he\u2019s from a completely different league when he gets up there and gets guys to swing and miss by a foot on a slider that sweeps all the way across the center field camera view.<\/p>\n
And just a fun little exercise, if you could make a guaranteed trade for one player from a division rival, who would it be and what would you consider a fair return to acquire them?<\/p>\n
The Braves don\u2019t have too much that they could, and would want to, offer to improve what already looks like one of MLB\u2019s best rosters. So, I\u2019ll focus on plugging a hole in this one. The Braves could use another lefty reliever, as Aaron Bummer\u2019s shoulder cratered his effectiveness and he was sent packing a few weeks ago. Brooks Raley is a boring older lefty veteran type who isn\u2019t making much this year, and wouldn\u2019t cost much of anything that the Braves would likely miss, either. While the Braves probably won\u2019t actually get Raley given general Braves-Mets animosity, I expect them to add one or maybe two Raley analogues before the summer ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jays finally got a day off after finishing 17 straight games with a 10-7 record. But back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,257918,462,111193,82],"class_list":["post-710335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-know-your-enemy","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}