By Chris Carroll
NORTH PORT, FL – I was fortunate to spend three days at the promised land known as Spring Training this weekend, and came away thinking something I didn’t expect in March: The Braves do not need a full team-wide redemption arc to get back to the playoffs.
If you’re a denizen of Braves Country, you’ve likely heard the opposite. The prevailing take is that everyone who underperformed in 2025 — Michael Harris II, Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, even Ronald Acuña Jr. to a lesser degree — has to bounce back for this team to matter.
That’s not quite right.
If “success” is getting back to October after their first miss since 2017, the Braves only need about half of those guys to return to form. If “success” is a parade down Peachtree, their first since 2021, then yes, you need the full orchestra.
And “bounce back” does not mean career years. It means Harris getting back to being a .280-type hitter with elite defense. It means Riley getting back to 30-plus homer power. It means Albies staying on the field and being himself.
That’s what makes this team interesting.
The Lineup Has Its Edge Back Again
Everyone knows spring training stats are fool’s gold.
But not all springs feel the same.
Through Sunday’s games, the Braves went 19-7 in Grapefruit League play with a +50 run differential, the very best in baseball. More importantly, they looked different.
Looser. Louder. Like they were having fun again.
Call it swagger, call it mojo. Whatever it is, it was missing last year, and some correctly note the absence of future Hall of Fame first baseman Freddie Freeman and super-coach Ron Washington as contributing factors.
But Ronald Acuña Jr. showed up from the World Baseball Classic looking like a guy who remembers he’s the most talented player on the planet. This is, after all, the same player who went 40/70 in his 2023 MVP season and, even in a “down” 2025, still got on base at an elite clip. He’s healthy, engaged, and playing with joy again, which historically is a bad sign for everyone else in Major League Baseball.
Ozzie Albies looks the same way. He had a walk-off homer for Team Netherlands and has carried that energy into camp. When Ozzie is smiling, the Braves are usually winning.
Austin Riley might be the biggest swing factor. He’s bearded, fit, and healthy after two frustrating, injury-tinged seasons and looks like himself again, maybe even better. I watched him go opposite field for a game-winner against Pittsburgh, then turn around and hit an absolute missile out of “Fenway South” in Fort Myers against Boston.
Michael Harris II is the quieter piece of this. The defense remains elite. If the bat normalizes and he becomes less streaky and more consistent, the lineup deepens in a hurry.
Matt Olson fits here, too. The Braves do not need the 54-homer version from 2023. They just need “good” Matt Olson again: steady power, tough at-bats, and the kind of middle-of-the-order presence that keeps rallies moving.
And then there’s reigning NL Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin, who has done nothing this spring to cool the hype. He’s looked poised, polished, and more than ready for this level. Some baseball people already think he has a chance to be the best catcher in the big leagues starting now, which is a ridiculous thing to say about a young player until you watch him and start to wonder if it might be true.
Then the curveball: Jurickson Profar’s second PED suspension, this time costing him the entire season.
That’s a real blow, courtesy of the most selfish player in Braves history.
But it also sharpens the importance of what the Braves quietly added.
Outfielder Mike Yastrzemski has been one of the best hitters in camp. Professional at-bats. Power to all fields. He crushes righties. Exactly the kind of presence this lineup needed. Gold Glover Mauricio Dubón brings the same thing in a different form: elite defense, versatility, contact, and zero wasted at-bats.
They’re not stars, but don’t have to be. Still, in a lineup that suddenly has less margin for error, they matter a lot more now.
Sale, Strider, and a Staff That Just Needs to Hold Together
Chris Sale is gearing up for his age-37 season. That sure sounds old until you watch him pitch.
He looks healthy. He looks sharp. He looks like a guy who still knows exactly what he’s doing. And he’s pitching like a guy who knows Cooperstown is waiting.
Six strong innings this weekend against his former team in “Fenway South,” with life on the fastball and command of everything else, was about as encouraging as you could ask for. If he can give Atlanta 140 to 160 innings of that, it’s a massive win.
When Spencer Strider is right, he’s one of the highest-strikeout pitchers in the sport, the kind of arm that can tilt a playoff series. The stuff is crisp, the arsenal looks deeper. At 100%, or even 90, he’s Curt Schilling to Sale’s Randy Johnson.
Prior to Monday’s news of a tweak to the oblique expected to keep him out two weeks, Strider had looked a lot like himself again. Here’s hoping to a speedy recovery.
Injuries to Spencer Schwellenbach, Hurston Waldrep, and Joey Wentz thin the depth. Reynaldo López’s dip in velocity this spring is concerning after a year away. Grant Holmes and Bryce Elder come with question marks.
And then there’s Didier Fuentes, who made the Opening Day roster and might have the most electric arm in the bullpen. The Strider comparisons aren’t crazy. If it all clicks, he’s a legitimate dark-horse Rookie of the Year type.
The bullpen also has a chance to be a real strength. Atlanta can shorten games with two legitimate closers in Robert Suarez, acquired from San Diego and likely ticketed for a setup role, and Raisel Iglesias at the back end. That is a pretty comforting way to live, especially for a staff with a few early questions in the middle innings and the back of the rotation.
New manager Walt Weiss also has something to prove, and you can feel a little of that edge around this group.
This isn’t a perfect staff.
Just like the hitters, it doesn’t need to be.
It just needs to be good enough to keep the Braves in games while the offense does what it looks capable of doing.
The NL East: Two Contenders, One Aging Holdover, and the Rest
This division is tighter than it’s been in years, but not in the way it used to be.
The Mets are real. They’re deeper, more complete, and built to win over 162 games in a way they haven’t been in a while.
The Braves are right there.
And the Phillies?
They look like a team on the grizzlier side of 30 trying to squeeze one more run out of a window that’s starting to close.
There’s still talent there, obviously. I suppose Bryce Harper is still Bryce Harper until he isn’t. But he looked a lot less fearsome in the World Baseball Classic, save for one home run that was almost instantly forgotten once Venezuela sent Team USA packing. More broadly, this is a roster asking for big years from a lot of guys who have already logged a lot of miles.
That’s almost never how you win divisions.
Over 162 games, against a younger Mets team and a healthier, hungrier Braves club, it’s hard to see Philadelphia winning the East. If the Braves get bitten by the injury bug for a third straight year, maybe the Phillies hang around and sneak into second.
Otherwise, it feels like the division has started to move on without them.
Miami remains Miami. No newsflash there.
Their lone All-Star from last year, Kyle Stowers, is already sidelined for April with a hamstring injury. Beyond that, it’s the usual: some interesting pieces, no real threat, and a fan base that mostly wakes up when the Yankees or a World Baseball Classic game comes to town. It’s a great and vibrant city that deserves better baseball than whatever this is.
And then there are the Nationals.
As of a few days ago, outside Nationals Park in Washington, they were still running ads featuring Nathaniel Lowe, now a Cincinnati Red who hasn’t been on the team since mid-2025, and MacKenzie Gore, who was traded to Texas months ago.
That tells you everything you need to know.
On the field, it’s not much better. They entered the final stretch of spring near the bottom of the league in batting average (.197), on-base percentage (.293), OPS (.604), home runs, and hits. Only Miami has scored fewer runs.
Every division needs a floor. Washington is the dusty doormat.
A Start That Actually Helps
One underrated factor is the schedule.
The Braves open at home against the Royals and A’s. Not cupcakes, but manageable. It’s a far cry from 2025: opening on the West Coast against the Dodgers and Padres, where you blink and … POOF … 0-7.
Atlanta has a chance to build early momentum instead of chasing it.
That matters more than many folks think.
So What Is This Team?
Not perfect. But — are you sensing a theme? — they don’t need to be.
If half the bounce-back candidates hit, this is a playoff team again.
If most of them do, if Acuña is Acuña, Riley is Riley, Albies is Albies, Olson is solid, Baldwin locks in again, Sale holds up, and Strider leads a stable enough staff, this is a team that can absolutely win the National League East and more.
The Mets might have the edge on paper. But remember, they’re the Mets. Anything goes, and usually for the worse.
Given that, and based on what I saw this weekend — the energy, the confidence, the edge — the Braves look a lot more like a team that expects to matter again.
And if that part is real, the rest of the league is going to feel it.
