The Braves may have done well at the trade deadline on paper, but the injury situation around their rotation is turning that success into a much shakier story.
The biggest win of the deadline haul was the starter they landed, who has been the best pitcher moved in all of baseball. He’s thrown a 1.99 ERA across nine starts after costing the Braves a journeyman reliever, with Atlanta only needing to absorb the final $2 million on his contract.
Brent Suter has been another useful pickup, too. He hasn’t been reserved for the biggest moments, but he has given the Braves exactly what they’ve needed in the middle innings, putting up a 1.92 ERA over 24.2 innings.
His ability to work multiple innings out of the bullpen could matter a lot if the Braves make the kind of postseason run they’re hoping for next week.
Still, the question hanging over the deadline has never gone away: was it enough?
The offense has been scuffling for four months, yet the only bat Atlanta added was Lane Thomas, who is now on the IL and questionable for the postseason. That alone would have left the Braves short. The larger issue, though, is the rotation, which has been thin all year and is now being stripped down even further.
Bryce Elder landed on the IL earlier this month with a knee injury and won’t be available for the first couple rounds of the postseason. Now Martin Perez is also on the IL with back inflammation, and he’s expected to miss at least the next couple of weeks.
That leaves Atlanta with just three healthy starting pitchers who have any major-league experience: Chris Sale, Tyler Mahle and Grant Holmes.
Sale and Mahle were always going to be the front line, but that’s a dangerously small margin for a team that would need to win four series to get to the top of the mountain. It’s not just less than ideal. It feels like the kind of setup that can unravel fast.
For years, fans have been warning about this exact scenario. The Braves’ rotation has been hit by injuries and inconsistency, and Alex Anthopoulos has largely declined to add fresh arms.
The warning signs were obvious. The one person whose view carried the most weight didn’t see it that way.
Now Walt Weiss is the one left to manage the mess, trying to steer a team through a brutal postseason path with only three starters to lean on. If he can somehow make it work, it would rank among the most impressive managerial jobs in MLB history. That’s a huge ask for a first-year manager.
In Other News...
Braves Playoff Rotation Just Lost A Starter At The Worst Time
The Braves playoff rotation took a hit at the worst possible time Monday, when the club announced that Martn Prez is headed to the injured list with lower back inflammation. It is a late setback for a team trying to line up its pitching for October, and it leaves Atlanta with less breathing room than it wanted as the postseason gets underway.
Prez was in position to matter in the NL Wild Card Series, and his absence also carries over into the NLDS if the Braves advance. With only a short window to adjust, Atlanta now has to rethink how it wants to piece together its early-round pitching plans while waiting to see how the rotation picture settles. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Could Dangle Big Names To Fix A Roster Problem
The Braves have already wrapped up the NL East, but the work ahead in Atlanta is likely to be less about celebrating the division title and more about figuring out how to smooth out a roster issue that has lingered beneath the surface. With an offseason in front of them, the front office could have to weigh whether the cleanest path to improvement means moving from a position of depth or from a few recognizable names who still carry real value in the market.
Alex Lodise, Cam Caminiti, Eric Hartman, Ozzie Albies, Spencer Strider and Reynaldo Lopez are among the players mentioned as possible trade candidates, and each brings a different mix of recent performance and contract considerations that could shape how other clubs view them. For the Braves, the calculation is less about attaching a label to any one player and more about deciding which pieces are most useful in solving the problem at hand without weakening the core that got them back to the top of the division. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Leave Cincinnati With One Big October Concern
The Braves spent a weekend in Cincinnati with little left to decide in the standings, but plenty to monitor as October approaches. Ronald Acua Jr. left with a shin contusion, though the early tests came back clean, and Atlanta also got a mixed bag on the field with a shutout loss, a narrow extra-innings win and another close defeat. There were bright spots along the way, including work from pitchers JR Ritchie and Chris Sale, plus contributions from Matt Olson and Austin Riley, but the bigger picture was less about the record than about how the group is holding up.
For a club that already has its division and postseason position locked in, the final tune-ups are about health and rhythm, and Acuas status now sits at the center of that conversation. The Braves do not need to chase anything in the standings, which makes every late-game decision and every awkward step on the bases feel a little more important than usual, especially with October closing in and the margin for error shrinking in a different way. [Read more 🡒]