The Jays return home to start a three game series against the Atlanta Braves, against the backdrop of Vladimir Guerrero Jr officially signing his mammoth $500M contract. The Atlanta Braves are currently 4-11, at the bottom of the NL East, following a brutal start on the road being swept by both the Padres and the Dodgers. With multiple injuries, including Ronald Acuna Jr and Reynaldo López, the Jays will face an injury hampered but still very dangerous club to start their second homestand of the year.
I reached out to Ivan the Great, one of the editors at Battery Power, and he was kind enough to answer some questions about his take on the Braves as they come into Toronto.
It’s hard to think of a team more snake-bit off the start of the season than the Braves. How optimistic are Atlanta fans that they’ll weather the storm and what key elements are needed?
At this point, things appear to be split. A lot of fans are unhappy about the relatively unpleasant experience that was the 2024 season, and when they see elements of that carrying over into 2025, they’re fairly willing to call it a continuity in the hitters failing to meet expectations. The remainder probably realize that this is a really talented team that just happened to do some really ill-advised stuff (i.e., change an entire offensive approach to something the players were clearly unfamiliar with) during the first seven games of the season, and that there’s plenty of time for the ship to right itself.
The team does desperately need its coming reinforcements, though. Reynaldo Lopez’ current absence means three-fifths of the rotation is shaky, and the corner outfield has been awful, which is not surprising given that the team is starting two non-starting-caliber guys there every day.
Alex Anthopoulos is now entering his 8th season as the GM of the Braves. Obviously, AA remains highly thought of in Jays fandom (or pined after by many). How do Braves fans feel about his tenure and his future?
Up until this offseason, I’d probably hazard a guess to say that Braves fans thought of Alex Anthopoulos in an exceedingly positive fashion. A lot of people were really unhappy with this offseason, though, and the team’s slow start has probably made those same folks feel justified in their disappointment. Beyond that, though, I think it’s hard to criticize his tenure — easily something like the fifth-most wins since he took over, while running midrange payrolls for a lot of that stretch.
I don’t think anyone is expecting him to go anywhere. The Braves have a bunch of in-game management issues that they will probably seek to resolve first before changing the Front Office.
Acuna Jr’s return has to be highly anticipated. What are the expectations from him this season?
Given the team’s slow start, his perhaps-slower-than-expected rehab process, and the fact that the Braves have done this before and got a less-than-100 percent version of the phenom for the greater part of a year, my biggest expectation is that he won’t debut soon and will get a lot of breathers. Projections are still fairly positive (e.g., 4.5 WAR over 500 or so PAs as a point estimate), but I’d probably knock that down to maybe 2.0 to 2.5 WAR over about 250 PAs. It should still be a massive upgrade over anything else the Braves can slot in the corner outfield, though — when they’re able to do it.
Who, if anyone, seems most likely to come up from the farm system and make a real impact this season?
Drake Baldwin was already primed to do so when Sean Murphy missed some time to start the year, but some truly awful luck on balls in play meant that he didn’t really “make an impact,” and now he’s the small side of a catcher timeshare. Beyond that… ehhhhh. AJ Smith-Shawver is technically still a prospect but started the year in the rotation, and has a lot of on-the-job learning to do. He could really boost the rotation, or cause a bunch of problems for it. Hurston Waldrep is on the struggle bus a bit while the Braves figure out how he can function as a big leaguer, and maybe he helps the bullpen out in relief, provided the team stops trying him as a starter. Really, though, the point is that the “real impact” for this team is going to come from guys returning from injury and established players playing the way they were expected to, moreso than anything else.
Who is your favourite member of the team to watch right now?
I can’t imagine you’d ask a Braves fan that’s suffered through these first two weeks and not get the same answer: Spencer Schwellenbach. The guy combines stuff with a kitchen sink arsenal, which is not something you see every day. It took just three starts in the majors for the team to basically mold his pitching style and sequences to something that largely carves up batters. In a world where most starters are just “throw fastball+breaking pitch and maybe mix in a changeup until you get predictable and need to be removed for a reliever,” Schwellenbach is very much the opposite, and it’s pretty cool to see. Unless you’ve been assigned the task of facing him, I guess.
Finally, just a fun little exercise, if you could choose any player who debuted with the Braves at any point in their history and drop them into this team at their rookie position and with their rookie year numbers, who would it be?
The Braves badly need corner outfield help, so I’ll go with Rico Carty, who had a .328/.387/.551 line as a rookie in 1964. Sure, he probably wasn’t the most able defender, even at age 24, but the guys they’re using now aren’t hitting or fielding, so I’ll take the dominant production and figure the run prevention out later.
Thank you Ivan!