It's The Day After and now that we've 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's 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?
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 Acuña Jr. (team option), Robert Suarez, Sean Murphy, Jurickson Profar (Yep), Mike Yastrzemski, Michael Harris II, Reynaldo López 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're under team control.
Now, it's tough to imagine what moves can be made considering that there's 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'd 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'll 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.
There's an opportunity to run it back for the Braves and I'd 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 — 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's no reason to even consider blowing it up. It's also clear that both Anthopoulos and Walt Weiss value clubhouse chemistry a ton and this clubhouse's chemistry is arguably as good as it gets around baseball, so that's another reason to not just cause an earthquake with the ballclub.
With that being said, it can't be denied that the offense has taken a precipitous drop since their historically-successful 2023 regular season — and it's 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. Acuña, 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's not like they're ancient, themselves.
I hate to do coaching speculation since 1) we're not privy to their contract situations and 2) we haven't heard anything suggesting that anybody's jobs could be in danger but it would also make sense if Tim Hyers' 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's purely speculation on my part but also I'm not the only one!
It's also difficult to envision any trades being made — again, they're 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' fashioned way: From within.
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's capable of playing shortstop as well.
Will they be ready in time for the 2027 season? That's a bit doubtful, considering that both prospects are estimated for a 2028 arrival according to MLB Pipeline. It's 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.
The bridge options are appealing, though. I'd imagine that the Braves are going to try hard to bring back Mauricio Dubón 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 — 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's certainly a platoon option rather than an everyday option. I'd imagine that they'll try to acquire another outfielder to form a platoon.
The main reason why I haven't mentioned trading as much so far is because of the contract status of a lot of the core players and also because again, there's a lot to consider when it comes to what baseball looks like after the labor war ends. There's not a lot to speculate on until that's figured out but again, I can't see other teams really having the appetite to attempt to "fix" Austin Riley with the contract that he's on and it's 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.
It's a tricky situation to be in if you're Alex Anthopoulos and anybody in this front office! The team on paper is fine but if they're going to take the next step and potentially pick up another World Series title during this current window that they're in, it's clear that they're going to need to find a way to hit more consistently — 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't 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's become clear that improving the offense should be the main focus going into the offseason.
How will they do that? There's still a ton of questions to be answered and we're still a little too early to be getting into specifics. But it's clear what needs to be done and hopefully we'll see them make progress on addressing those issues once everybody gets a chance to actually figure it out in the offseason. We'll see what happens.
