#atlanta-braves

#atlanta-braves

The Braves signed Jhancarlos Lara back in 2021 as an international free agent. The team was still dealing with their international sanctions from the John Coppolella era at the time, significantly limiting what they could spend. So getting a real prospect in this time would require finding a diamond in the rough for almost no bonus - which is exactly what happened with Lara, as he signed for just $10k bonus.

It was just announced this morning that the Major League Baseball Player's Association (MLBPA) has named Ronald Acuña Jr. "Comeback Player of the Year." And breakout rookie Drake Baldwin received the "Outstanding Rookie" award. If you can recall, Acuña's return to Truist started out (on the very first pitch) with a solo shot to left field back in May. This had the crowd erupting and at once gaining the hope that the offense has turned around for the season.

Gil ended up playing 107 games, with 100 coming in Augusta. With Augusta he hit .258/.352/.378 with 25 doubles, a triple, seven homers, 50 steals, and 57 walks to 64 strikeouts over 462 plate appearances. He also got one game in the FCL after a minor injury cost him a short time, but at the end of the season he got skipped over Rome and up to Double-A Columbus to close out the year.

Now granted, Brian Snitker didn't really use him as an opener more than he did as a "Guy who can just go out and pitch until the wheels fall off in the third inning" but still, Blewett goes down as one of the many, many pitchers who took part in the cavalcade that was Atlanta's deployment of pitchers in 2025. Now it's time to take a look at how Blewett's short stint ended up going for him here in Atlanta.

2025 wasn't one of those seasons, as they finished the year with 190 dingers - 23 fewer than what they hit in 2024 and 117 (one-hundred and seventeen) fewer than the 307 that they crushed during that historic 2023 season. Those were the good ol' days, huh? Anyways, there were still plenty of dingers to discuss when it came to the 2025 campaign and here are ten of the longest that Atlanta hit over the course of this past season.

A Macon, GA native, Cox was a fifth round draft choice in 2018 by the Kansas City Royals out of Mercer University. He made his major league debut with the Royals in 2023 and after bouncing around in the minor league system for a couple of years, Cox signed with Atlanta on May 5, a day after the Royals let him go.

A recent MLB Trade Rumors article previewed the 2025-2026 shortstop free agent class, with names like Bo Bichette and Trevor Story. It's a good read for Atlanta Braves fans, given the question mark at shortstop. Ha-Seong Kim has an opt-out this offseason, and after a down year at the plate, his return to Atlanta is far from certain. With few strong options on the market, his decision will be one to pay close attention to.

We're in the midst of a quiet stretch for the Atlanta Braves, with not a ton of news coming out of the organization. Rumors have begun to swirl around the league, but the Braves are keeping things pretty still for the most part. We are in a bit of a lull, so for now it's your turn to make offseason predictions.

1998 - The Braves score five runs in the eighth inning to rally and defeat the San Diego Padres 7-6. Michael Tucker hits a three-run home run and drives in five runs in the game. 1999 - Greg Maddux and the Braves defeat the Mets 4-2 in Game 1 of the NLCS. Eddie Perez homered for Atlanta in the win.

While we await the announcement of who the Atlanta Braves will hire as their next manager, it was reported that the team has parted ways with Paul Davis, director of pitching development. 61-year-old Davis joined the Braves in 2020. During his tenure in Atlanta, he helped guide Hurston Waldrep, Spencer Strider, AJ Smith-Shawver, and more. It does not appear that this is the beginning of lots of changes for the coaching staff, and instead, just an isolated move.

They still need help there (as evidenced by AA stating that that would be one of the positions "in the discussion" for improvement during this offseason) but at least they won't have to look far when it comes to finding some initial help. Kinley's initial stint with the Braves went about as well as everybody could've hoped for and again, bringing him back on the club option should really be a no-brainer.

If we do our job the way we want to do it, [the media] won't have anything. Before Skip Schumaker was named [as the Rangers manager] last night, there were eight openings. I remember some other years where there were a bunch of manager openings but I can't remember there being this many. That's a lot of openings, a lot of turnover, a lot of places where you have to get permission to speak to other coaches. That makes it incredibly challenging.

The Atlanta Braves entered the regular season waiting on the return of two of their biggest stars in outfielder Ronald Acuña, Jr. and starting pitcher Spencer Strider. Before the regular season began, the team lost starting catcher Sean Murphy in to Spring Training with a fractured rib. By the time July rolled around, the team had those three players back, but lost their entire Opening Day starting rotation to injury.

In my opinion, I've always maintained both publicly and privately that Atlanta would likely stay in-house when it came to their next manager. The cynic in me figured that the writing was on the wall when Fredi González returned to the fold as the "new" third base coach for the Braves earlier this season. Even if it wasn't Fredi, Walt Weiss is here as well and while he's never sat in the big chair for the Braves, he has had that experience with the Rockies.

The Braves announced today that five players have been sent outright to Triple-A Gwinnett. The five are outfielder Jarred Kelenic, right-handers Alexis Díaz and Dane Dunning, catcher and infielder Luke Williams. This indicates that all five players have cleared waivers in recent days. Atlanta's 40-man roster count drops to 35 for now, though they have 11 guys on the 60-day injured list.

Welp. Pulled this one out again, and given Sale's injury history, a season of anguish is probably more likely than a repeat of 2024. Unfortunate. We'll say accurateish here. Sale did suffer an injury that kept him to 125 innings and 20/21 starts, but those were very high-quality innings. He was still worth about 3.5 wins, and he had an FIP under 3.00.

With two outs in the top of the seventh in a 5-2 game with the Pirates leading, the skies suddenly opened up at Truist Park and prompted a rain delay between the Atlanta Braves and Pittsburgh. Keep it right here as we will provide updates and let you know when things are scheduled to get back underway.

It's a bit of a smart move on Atlanta's part, as doing this will save Harris a minor league option going forward and also get him a chance to actually (and hopefully) make one last appearance before the season ends. Harris has only pitched 2.2 innings across three appearances so far this season so the more appearances he can make at the big league level while he can, the better - even if it'll likely just be for this final moment of the season.