Choptober: Braves Baseball Returns to the Postseason
Nobody thought the Atlanta Braves, a team that lost 90 games just one year ago, would be a winning team in 2018.
Yet with the regular season coming to a close, the Braves are on their way to their first playoff appearance and division title since 2013. The team has defied all expectations and has become one of the most explosive and fun-to-watch teams in baseball. But how did the Braves climb back to the top so quickly?
After losing in the first round of the playoffs yet again in 2013, the Braves front office knew they had to start from scratch and build a new roster from the ground up. This was a controversial decision at the time; the team was coming off of a 96-win season, the second best record in the National League, and had a roster filled with all star-caliber players. But after going just 2-7 in playoff games since 2010, it became clear that the team was simply incapable of winning a championship. In 2014, the Braves traded away nearly their entire starting lineup, including fan favorites such as Jason Heyward, Craig Kimbrel, Justin Upton, and Andrelton Simmons. It was the end of an era in Atlanta, and the franchise lost the support of many disappointed fans as a result.
But the Braves made sure to hold onto one key player: first baseman Freddie Freeman. Freeman signed an 8-year contract with the Braves during the 2014 offseason, and since then, he has become a consistent MVP candidate and one of the league’s greatest hitters. The Braves saw Freeman’s potential as a centerpiece for the franchise, and they gave him the opportunity to develop into an elite player. Now all they needed to do was to build a roster around him.
Throughout the team’s four-year stretch of losing seasons, Atlanta quietly gathered a plethora of young talent and minor league prospects through trades, the international market, and the MLB Draft. This strategy of developing young players has become more prevalent over time, with teams such as the Houston Astros and the Chicago Cubs using the same techniques to make their own worst-to-first runs in the past decade. By doing this, however, the Braves took a massive risk. They were investing in players that had not proven themselves at the major league level, and if they did not perform to their potential, it would be back to square one: trade away the entire roster, lose even more fan support, and try again. Especially with the team moving to their new stadium north of the city in 2017, there was a lot on the line financially for the Braves franchise; they could not afford to lose the interest of the general public. It wouldn’t be until this year that we truly got to see how their young players would perform together.
From the very first moments of the season, it became quite clear that the Braves no longer had any reasons for concern. Everything was firing on all cylinders right away, and the team never looked back.
The biggest story of the season was the explosive debut of rookie superstar Ronald Acuña Jr. The #1 ranked minor league player by MLB.com before the season, Acuña’s debut was very highly anticipated by baseball fans, and he certainly did not disappoint. Acuña finished the season with 26 home runs, including a streak of 7 home runs in 7 days (5 of which were hit on the very first pitch of the game), making him just the 9th player in MLB history to hit more than 25 home runs before turning 21 years old, joining the likes of baseball legends such as Ted Williams, Alex Rodriguez, and Mike Trout.
But it’s not just Acuña who has carried the team. Young infielders Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson have provided excellent defense up the middle and clutch hitting at the bottom of the lineup. Starting pitchers Mike Foltynewicz and Sean Newcomb developed into reliable aces, leading the National League in several statistical categories. Veteran players such as Freeman and Ender Inciarte remained as consistent as ever. Even 34-year-old Nick Markakis, whose performance had been steadily declining entering his 13th MLB season, came out of nowhere with the best year of his entire career.
This is not a fluke. This is not the result of extreme luck or coincidence. The Atlanta Braves are one of baseball’s premier teams, and given their young, talented roster, they will be for many years to come. Now, entering October, we will finally get a taste of what this team is truly capable of.
By Jaden Ellman