The Braves are taking plenty of heat these days, and it’s not hard to see why. Atlanta got back to the playoffs this season, but the mood around the club is still sour.
Austin Riley, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Spencer Strider are all mentioned as players the Braves were counting on to be stars, yet they’re trending the wrong way and dealing with injury issues. The roster, as it stands, looks like it needs more than a few tweaks.
That frustration has landed squarely on Alex Anthopoulos and the front office. Some of the anger from fans is over the top, but not all of it is coming out of nowhere.
Winning a World Series raises the bar, and since that title, the Braves have won only one postseason series. Atlanta has also too often looked content to do just enough when it comes to trades and free-agent additions.
Even with all of that, the bigger picture matters: the Braves may be bruised, but they’re still not necessarily behind the rest of the NL East. The division as a whole has slipped, and that decline is tied in part to front offices that haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory.
At the bottom of the group are the Mets. David Stearns may have built a strong reputation with the Brewers, but the results in New York haven’t matched the résumé.
The Mets have carried a top-2 payroll in each of his three years there and have somehow gotten worse every season. Stearns inherited some ugly contracts, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of progress.
Letting Pete Alonso walk without a fight stands out as a clear miss, and right now the Mets are simply an expensive mess.
Miami comes next. The Marlins are a tough organization to judge because cheap ownership and a weak fanbase shape so much of what happens there.
Peter Bendix looks capable and sharp, but most of the gains he’s made have been around the edges. The big-league club is better, though not enough to hand out much credit yet, and the minor league depth is still in question.
Even so, if Bendix can build something real, Miami could climb these rankings quickly.
The Phillies land in the middle. Dave Dombrowski’s Hall of Fame track record is obvious, but his formula comes with a built-in risk.
He’s at his best when a team already has prospect depth and just needs a few major moves to push through. The downside is that his aggressive style tends to burn through that depth fast.
That pattern has shown up before, and the Phillies seem headed down a familiar road. They do have some interesting prospects in the minors, but that might only make them more attractive trade chips down the line.
Washington has made the biggest impression of the group. The Nationals’ youth movement is showing real life both in the front office and on the field.
Their offense was one of the best in baseball this year, and they’ve got several intriguing arms in the minors who should help once the rebuild starts turning into something more. President of baseball operations Paul Toboni and general manager Ani Kilambi are making the right moves so far, and Washington looks like a team that could pop at any time.
By the start of the 2027 season, it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see the Nationals sitting atop this kind of list.
Still, the Braves hold the No. 1 spot for now. That’s less about them surging and more about the rest of the division sliding.
Atlanta doesn’t operate like the Dodgers or Mets in free agency, but the payroll has kept climbing, and the club generally makes sensible moves in the moment. The Braves have also kept bringing useful players to the majors, including Drake Baldwin, Michael Harris II, and Didier Fuentes, even when the farm system wasn’t drawing rave reviews.
They’re not close to perfect, and a quiet offseason could knock them off the top, but for now Atlanta remains first in the division’s front-office pecking order.
In Other News...
Braves May Be Eyeing Another Classic Alex Anthopoulos Rotation Bet
As the Braves map out their rotation for next season, the search appears likely to lean toward the kind of bet Alex Anthopoulos has often favored: useful, durable arms that can stabilize the back end without forcing a long commitment. Atlanta has been linked to the market for starting pitching, and the profile that fits best is the one that can take the ball, miss enough bats and give the club some innings while the rest of the staff sorts itself out.
Matthew Boyd sits right in that lane. The left-handers five-pitch mix and age make him more of a short-term free-agent fit than a centerpiece addition, which is why he has surfaced as a plausible Braves target after a mixed season with the Cubs. If Atlanta does move in that direction, it would be another classic Anthopoulos rotation play, one aimed at shoring up the staff now while keeping the long-term books clean later. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Face A Painful Offseason Question About Their Core
Atlantas postseason exit has pushed the focus quickly from October disappointment to a winter of uncomfortable roster math, and the Braves know the conversation will not stay on the surface for long. There is still plenty of respect for the way Walt Weiss guided a team through a difficult season, but the bigger issue is how much of this core can be counted on to look like itself again when spring training opens.
A few of the clubs most important decisions are now tangled together: the trade that swapped William Contreras for Sean Murphy still hangs over the catcher picture, Jurickson Profars place in the organization has become a real question after his PED suspensions, and Austin Rileys recent performance left more doubts than answers. Add in the injury concerns around Spencer Strider, Spencer Schwellenbach and Reynaldo Lpez, and the Braves are staring at an offseason where the margin for error may be thinner than it has been in years. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Prospect Diego Tornes Faces Pressure Atlanta Cant Ignore
Diego Tornes arrived with the kind of international pedigree the Braves hoped would help restock the system, and Atlantas track record with recent signings gives his development a little extra weight. Signed before the 2025 season, Tornes enters 2027 as one of the organizations most closely watched young players, especially after a rookie-ball debut that offered more questions than answers and kept the Braves waiting for signs that the investment is trending in the right direction.
The challenge for Tornes is bigger than one prospect making a personal leap. Atlanta has had too many recent international signings stall out because of disappointment or health problems, so every step he takes this season will be viewed through that lens. If he can start to look like a real success story, it would mean more than just progress for one player and give the Braves a needed lift in an area where they cannot afford many more misses. [Read more 🡒]