The Braves are running out of room for passengers.
Between the long-term contracts, the fixed roles, and the lack of minor league options, Atlanta has built itself into a roster that’s tough to shuffle and even tougher to fix on the fly. That’s part of why the club keeps circling back to the same stopgap answers, including the ghost of Carlos Carrasco.
It’s also why the next few weeks matter so much. With injuries and underperformance thinning out the depth, the Braves are leaning on imperfect solutions now - but as Ronald Acuña Jr., AJ Smith-Shawver, Spencer Strider, and Sean Murphy move closer to returning, the trade deadline has to become a cleanup job.
Not every name on this list is going to be outright removed from the roster. Some have simply been pushed into roles that don’t fit them, and a smaller job would be enough.
Others need to be someone else’s problem by the time the deadline passes. And yes, Ha-Seong Kim is being left out here because the signs point to his departure being inevitable anyway.
Dom Smith was part of the early-season spark, and for a while he looked like a big reason Atlanta came out flying. That version of Smith has faded fast.
Over his last 26 games, he’s hit just .176/.241/.247. There have been a couple of timely swings mixed in, but the bigger picture is hard to ignore: he’s gone cold, and at this point he needs to be moved out of the everyday mix and back into a bench role at minimum.
Carlos Carrasco is a different kind of problem, but the end result is the same. The Braves have kept re-signing him, calling him up, and DFA-ing him, and the cycle has become almost a running joke.
The joke is wearing thin. When Atlanta uses Carrasco now, he isn’t stabilizing anything - he’s costing them winnable games.
The idea of preserving pitching depth makes sense in theory, but Carrasco no longer counts as depth worth protecting.
Martin Perez has also watched the shine come off. His recent stretch has exposed where he is at this stage of his career, and for a team with Atlanta’s expectations, that’s not good enough in a rotation spot.
A line drive off his arm has sent him to the IL, which may let the Braves stash him without burning a roster spot for now. Even so, the bigger point remains: his days of taking the ball every fifth day for Atlanta should be over.
Mike Yastrzemski was brought in for real money to be a platoon bat, and that arrangement only works if the bat actually plays. So far, he hasn’t done nearly enough.
Outside of a couple short bursts, Yastrzemski has offered very little, and his .664 OPS has been a drag on the lineup depth. He’s making too much to simply disappear, but his place has to shrink to bench bat territory at best.
Then there’s Bryce Elder, whose fall has been abrupt. Not long ago, he was one of the Braves’ best pitchers.
Now he’s among their worst. A velocity drop has raised the possibility that something physical is going on, and that could end up explaining part of the slump.
But even without that, the recent performance has been rough enough, and with young arms pushing for innings, his spot is hanging by a thread.
In Other News...
Braves Quietly Got Back A Bullpen Arm They May Desperately Need
For most of the season, Atlantas bullpen has looked like one of the clubs quiet advantages, but the last stretch has brought a little more unease. Raisel Iglesias has blown a save, Dylan Lee has had shaky outings and Didier Fuentes is nearing the break, which has made the relief picture feel less settled than it did a few weeks ago.
Into that mix comes Danny Young, the left-hander the Braves have quietly gotten back after his injury layoff. His early work this season has been encouraging enough to give Atlanta another option for mid-to-high-leverage spots against left-handed hitters, and perhaps a way to ease the load on some of the other arms that have been asked to carry more lately. The bigger question is how quickly the Braves lean into that role, and whether Young can turn a useful return into something more than just a temporary fix. [Read more 🡒]
Walt Weiss Decisions Just Cost The Braves A Game They Had Won
The Braves had enough offense to put themselves in position to win, but the game slipped into the kind of extra-inning mess that usually leaves a manager under the microscope. Atlanta scored six runs and still could not finish off the Mets, with the lineups missed chances and a thin bench leaving the club in a difficult spot once the game stretched beyond regulation.
Walt Weiss choices only made the margin for error smaller. The Braves were already navigating a less-than-ideal setup in extras, and the way the bullpen and lineup were handled became a major part of why a game that looked won turned into a loss, even before the final inning had fully played out. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Cant Afford Another Quiet Deadline From Alex Anthopoulos
With the trade deadline approaching, the Braves look like a club that cannot simply sit back and hope the rotation and outfield sort themselves out. ESPNs latest best-fit rundown had Atlanta attached to 17 of the top 25 deadline candidates, which is a pretty clear sign that the market sees a team with real needs and a front office that should be active. Starting pitching remains the obvious priority, and the list of names floating around ranges from Tarik Skubal and Joe Ryan to Sonny Gray, Reid Detmers, Casey Mize, Jose Soriano and Freddy Peralta.
The outfield search is a little murkier, with Taylor Ward looking like the most realistic target if Atlanta wants to add a bat without emptying the system. Shortstop is another area worth watching, but the price tag on the top names would be steep enough to make any deal complicated fast. For Alex Anthopoulos, the pressure is less about making a splash than avoiding another deadline that leaves the roster looking almost exactly the same when the dust settles. [Read more 🡒]